by The Premier League is a confusing place at the moment. As if by accident, Arsenal came out on top over the weekend, defying claims that Mikel Arteta’s side have struggled to reach the heights of last season. Meanwhile, Liverpool underlined their title credentials with a point against Manchester City despite extending the Reds’ run to just three wins in their last seven league games.
Just a month ago, Ange Postecoglou’s plucky Tottenham Hotspur side were riding high. Now, they are fifth with the same amount of points as they had at this point last season under Antonio Conte. However, nothing is as confusing as Manchester United’s form, which is now the best in the Premier League. Has there ever been another club in crisis with a streak of six consecutive victories?
Burnley, the team that broke Championship records last season and spent more in the summer than any other promoted team, is still on the rocks. Meanwhile, Luton Town, who made it through the playoffs, spending just £15 on new players and essentially playing their home games in the back gardens of a row of terraced houses, are outside the bottom three and gaining momentum.
Peak Barclays, as they say. Unfortunately for Arsenal, trophies are not handed out at this stage of the season, but there were plenty of winners and losers on matchday 13.
The Dark Knight Rises award for not being as good as we expected
If the hope is that this season will complete a trilogy of great City-Liverpool title runs, Saturday’s 1-1 draw at the Etihad Stadium was the Premier League equivalent of The Dark Knight Rises: messy, lacking structure and with a series of confusing performances. by people who are capable of doing it better. All he did was remind us how exciting the series has been in the past.
The Premier League hyperbole machine tried to talk about the game between City and Liverpool. “The whole world,” according to Jamie Carragher, watched Saturday’s game. Apparently it was a match between the two best teams in the league. However, I didn’t feel that way.
Maybe it was the early kickoff. Perhaps international duty sapped the energy of players who had returned to their clubs from around the world just two or three days earlier. Whatever it was, this match did not have the same ferocity or quality of the previous City-Liverpool matches. A draw, however, can help build this season’s rivalry and delay the final showdown until later in the campaign. This was possibly a precursor. A Deathly Hallows: Part One instead of Dark Knight Rises, perhaps.
Goal of the week
Alejandro Garnacho will always remember his first goal of the season in the Premier League and not only because it was his first goal of the season in the Premier League, but because it was one of the best overhead kicks in the history of the competition. Wayne Rooney, Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo and Peter Crouch all scored great overhead kicks, but Garnacho might have been the best.
Sixteen yards out and retreating at a good pace, Garnacho somehow managed to contort his body to meet Diogo Dalot’s cross six feet in the air and find the top corner of the net with a cross-shot arrow toward goal. Everton have had overhead issues recently but they couldn’t do anything to stop it. It was so good that we will forgive Garnacho, former Atlético de Madrid player and current teammate of Lionel Messi in Argentina, for celebrating like Ronaldo.
Headlock of the week
Many Arsenal fans have wanted to put Kai Havertz in a headlock this season. The German has struggled to make a positive impact at his new club since he arrived from Chelsea in the summer, but Mikel Arteta’s submission of Havertz after his late goal against Brentford was a sign of affection. He wanted Havertz to win praise from Arsenal fans after sending the Gunners to the top of the table with a 1-0 win. A few weeks ago they would have thrown rotten fruit at him with Arteta’s armpit as a trap.
Player of the week
Anthony Gordon was on the verge of signing for Chelsea, so it was inevitable that he would put in a Man of the Match performance against them on Saturday. That’s how football works. In fact, the 22-year-old was the best player on the pitch for Newcastle United as they won again, recording an impressive 4-1 victory in which Gordon scored one goal and assisted another.
Gordon has been Newcastle’s most reliable player this season. He has contributed five goals and three assists in 12 Premier League appearances and increasingly appears to fit the Magpies’ fast and furious attacking style. Eddie Howe is increasingly channeling attacking play through the former Everton winger, whose confidence is clearly gaining. Gordon is surely grateful that the potential transfer to Chelsea fell through.
Statistics of the week
Jérémy Doku vs. Trent Alexander-Arnold was always going to be a statistical outlier. While one is the best dribbler in the Premier League, the latter has a habit of raising his hands in the air whenever a rival attacker approaches him with the ball. This was reflected in the full-time numbers between City and Liverpool.
Alexander-Arnold was dribbled more times (seven) than any player in a Premier League match this season. Doku, meanwhile, completed 11 dribbles, the most of any player in a Premier League match since Adama Traoré recorded 11 in September 2021. And Doku did it without lathering his arms with baby oil.
Debut of the week
If Premier League debuts are measured by the number of fast-paced techno compilation videos they generate, Kobbie Mainoo’s was as good as it gets. Manchester United’s social media feeds were awash with highlights of the 18-year-old’s every touch against Everton, with Mainoo the type of omnipresent midfielder Erik ten Hag has desperately needed this season.
The numbers illustrate what Mainoo offered. On the defensive end, he won 100% of his tackles and recovered three balls, more than any other United player. In terms of possession, he also completed more takeovers than any of his teammates and also had the highest pass completion rate (83%) of any starting player. It was an excellent presentation for a player with a bright future.
The Phil Neville award for not knowing your limitations
In the documentary Class of ’92, Phil Neville tells the story of how he stepped forward in a match only for his Manchester United teammates to burst out laughing. Thiago Silva made the same mistake against Newcastle United on Saturday.
Silva is better than Neville ever was (and he’s Brazilian), but his pirouette just offside a Newcastle corner was possibly the most embarrassing thing done by a Chelsea player this season, which is saying a lot. The humiliation was compounded by Gordon, who pointed and laughed at Silva on the ground like Nelson Muntz.
Sergiño Dest red card of the week
Lewis Dunk clearly watched Sergiño Dest’s collapse in the USMNT’s Concacaf Nations League loss to Trinidad and Tobago last week and thought, “hold my Tuaca.” The Brighton defender was booked for the first time for contesting a penalty against Nottingham Forest in the team’s 3-2 victory. Then, seconds later, Dunk was shown a straight red card for using what the league describes as “disgusting and abusive language” toward referee Anthony Taylor, something that cameras caught rhyming with scalded brick. Considering what Roberto De Zerbi recently said about Premier League referees not liking “80%” of them, I’d probably agree.
The most supportive goalkeeper
Modern goalkeepers are expected to do more, although Arsenal and Liverpool probably wish their respective number ones had done less this weekend. Aaron Ramsdale and Alisson Becker did everything they could to give the opposition a goal with their distribution from the back and the latter really achieved it.
Alisson’s cut high in the Eastlands sky led to Manchester City’s opener against Liverpool on Saturday, although Alexander-Arnold could have done more to prevent Nathan Ake from sliding through midfield like the better Diego Maradona before feed Erling Haaland for the finale. Another failed pass from Alisson led to a shot from Phil Foden from inside the Liverpool area.
Back in the Arsenal line-up due to David Raya’s loan deal, Ramsdale also struggled with his concentration against Brentford, almost offering a goal to the Bees after hesitating with the ball inside his own six-yard box. This wasn’t totally atypical for a goalkeeper who recently told Ian Wright how it’s hard for him to concentrate for 90 minutes straight. Perhaps if he had looked to pick a fight with a Brentford fan, the mistake wouldn’t have happened.
