Brighton's great trick, Chelsea discover a way to print goals, some early concerns for Newcastle and West Ham are going to be fun this season
Brighton's great trick, Chelsea discover a way to print goals, some early concerns for Newcastle and West Ham are going to be fun this seasonThe table isn’t taking shape yet, but there are known knowns. Arsenal will not fall away easily from their title ambitions; their 2-0 win at Villa Park was a significant statement of intent. Erling Haaland has had a summer off and now has his seventh hat-trick in 68 Premier League matches.
That is the most frightening aspect of City’s dominance. Mateo Kovacic and Rico Lewis are back to being starters, for now or forever. Gundogan, that vital component two seasons ago, will slot back in. Savinho, signed with a nod and a wink from Girona, looks instantly dangerous. And you think that this squad needs more?It’s something we’ve often reflected upon with Brighton, but it’s worth mentioning given the loss of a manager over the summer.
When Amadou Onana’s wickedly deflected shot looped over Raya’s despairing dive and bounced straight to a poised Watkins via the underside of the bar, Villa’s supporters rose as a claret and blue mass, ready to celebrate.All the England striker needed to do was nod the ball into an empty net with Raya prone on the floor, like an upturned beetle.
“How he’s thrown himself onto the ground in quite a dramatic style, he’s jumped up in the air and landed hard on the grass and then all of a sudden he’s there with his hand!” he said. He has clearly earned the trust of the defenders in front of him too given how effectively they work together as a unit. Arsenal’s defensive record in 2024 is astonishing.
If his first two Liverpool games provide any indication of future performances, Arne Slot may be overseeing the most impressive recent transition after an all-time great manager’s departure. Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger both took success away with them, but Jurgen Klopp appears to have laid far more stable foundations.
Diaz’s performance exemplified that. Under Klopp he was often considered brittle, unreliable and at one point expendable, yet against Brentford he scored one goal and set up another, completing all his 27 passes and hitting both his shots on target. Everton had just one shot on target and less than 30 per cent possession while he was on the pitch, both an indictment of their increasingly obvious flaws and proof of Bissouma’s consummate midfield showing.
Signing a true defensive midfielder is always unlikely to suit Angeball, which has no real place for a simple ball recycler. Bissouma’s flaws align with the concessions his manager is willing to make defensively in exchange for rapid ball progression and scintillating attacking play. This isn’t a new concern, but Newcastle desperately need to spend some money. A backline of Lloyd Kelly, Dan Burn, Emil Krafth and Tino Livramento, while all fine players individually, is not a remotely resilient or functional enough defensive unit to match the club’s ambitions. This can’t be a situation the club end up in again.
Now, Sandro Tonali will be back by their next league match which should help ensure more stability and control in the long-term, but a centre-back and quite possibly a couple of full-backs too should be a priority. Lewis Hall looked sharp off the bench, but Howe clearly still doesn’t trust him. Lloyd Kelly will have to show more than he did at the Vitality to earn the left-back berth outright.
Milenkovic might change all that. With Murillo as the ball player, dribbler and occasionally shoot-from-his-own-halfer, he needs a no-nonsense partner who will organise that back line and also offer a presence at set pieces – attacking and defending. Milenkovic is massive and he is dominant. Though he finished competently enough, albeit with the help of a deflection for the first of his three goals, it was the poise and passing of Palmer that took the complexity out of a difficult business. Or as Madueke put it: “He is cold, and I am fire.”
Mystifyingly Palmer made neither the Premier League team of last year, despite being voted the young player of the year, nor Gareth Southgate’s starting XI at Euro 2024. On Saturday, West Ham started with Guido Rodriguez as the most defensive midfielder. Next to him, nominally, was Lucas Paqueta, although we know how much he likes pushing forward. That left Mohammed Kudus on the left, which doesn’t really suit him, Michail Antonio up front and Tomas Soucek as a battering ram attacking midfielder there basically to cause problems when West Ham went direct .
Since their promotion three years ago, Brentford have repeatedly struggled to integrate and develop new signings. Mikkel Damsgaard is the poster boy of this toil, the £16.7m buy who hasn’t scored a competitive goal in his 54 appearances for the club. His injury woes are well-documented but don’t make this transfer any less of a failure.
But Fulham are very interesting this season, because they have lost the most all-action midfielder in the country. Last season, Joao Palhinha made 198 tackles and interceptions in the Premier League. The next non-Fulham player made 157. Palhinha’s move to Bayern Munich leaves a gaping hole. Cut to this season, when United have played three games in all competitions, conceded two goals after the 90th minute and lost a league game on Saturday because of it.
Eric Dier once likened his former Tottenham teammate Mousa Dembele as a “monster with ballerina feet”. Rogers is not in Dembele’s class just yet, but that’s an apt description of his style too. He has the nimble touches and spatial awareness to go with the physical gifts. Semenyo got eight Premier League goals and two assists in 25 starts last season, and while he can be inconsistent and often takes too many risks with his passes, he continues to improve and grow. He works hard off the ball too – in the past year he’s in the top three per cent of all wingers in Europe’s top five leagues for blocks and aerial duels won per 90 minutes.
The obvious explanation, and it’s hardly reassuring, is that the first-choice defenders aren’t good enough. Wout Faes is an attacking threat but one who makes sloppy decisions with his passing. Jannik Vestergaard struggled at Southampton and, at 32, lacks recovery pace. Poor James Justin was forced to cover behind but then that meant he was out of position too. Victor Kristiansen was loaned out last season and has struggled to establish himself in the Premier League.
We’re only two league games into a new season, and there is plenty of time for Martin and Southampton to adapt and adjust, but it has been a troubling start for anyone who believes that they can flourish exactly like this. And perhaps the transfer situation has had no bearing on Palace’s two results so far. They were probably worthy of a point against Brentford last weekend and they had chances to score at 0-0 against West Ham, including Eberechi Eze hitting the bar.
O’Neil is working with the economic reality that forced Wolves to sell their best defender, captain Max Kilman, and their best attacker, Pedro Neto for a combined £95m to ease any PSR concerns. But the absence of the former hurt most in a match in which Wolves gifted Chelsea the win in mad 15-minutes at the start of the second half.
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