Tierney knee injury a worry for Clarke
...and other talking points from the Premier League
Credit to Sam Allardyce
Sam Allardyce has taken plenty of brickbats over the years about his coaching style and general demeanour.
Portrayed as a pie-eating, Brexit-touting, John Bull type, Allardyce has deserved some of the scrutiny he has received for his teams’ tactics over the years – certainly during his time as Bolton manager when his players would employ whichever means were necessary to win matches.
But there has been a pragmatism and intelligence to his method, too; he once studied corners and concluded that the ball was cleared by the defence to certain key areas more often than not so he stationed his players in those positions accordingly.
Not just that, he works to improve those he has got rather than lamenting those he does not.
At West Brom, he took over a team that was already struggling in the relegation zone and has been forced to embrace the fact that he is working with a squad he did not select. The 5-2 hammering of Chelsea provided optimism that they can escape their fate; it also demonstrated that Allardyce has a tactical flexibility that more-vaunted coaches do not always display.
“We took Chelsea apart and deservedly so,” he said, pointing out that the extraman advantage, given to them when Thiago Silva was sent off, had little bearing on the outcome given how superbly his side played.
The sound of a thousand
betting slips being torn up filled the air: Chelsea were unbeaten in 14 games, while West Brom had won just once in 11 but the statistics masked the quality of some of their performances – particularly at Turf Moor where their own 10-men should have beaten Burnley with something to spare.
The target is Newcastle, eight points above them, and while it is probably an insurmountable tally, Allardyce deserves the chance to oversee next season’s campaign.
Steve Clarke will be holding his breath as he waits for an injury update on Kieran Tierney
“He felt something in his knee and he was in pain,” the Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta said after Kieran Tierney hobbled off before half time in his side’s 3-0 defeat at the hands of Liverpool. “He will be injured but we don’t know for how long.”
The left-back was one of Scotland’s best players in the recent World Cup qualifiers, notably setting up three of their goals in last Thursday’s win
over the Faroe Islands and will be one of the first names on Clarke’s team sheet for the European Championship.
It is a blow for Arsenal, too, certainly. Tierney has been Arsenal’s player of the season and they were listless in the loss to Liverpool which raised further question marks over Arteta’s suitability for the job.
Portentously for the Spaniard – who was marking his 50th game in charge – Arsenal won only three of the nine matches Tierney missed in January and February due to a knee injury.
Stuart Armstrong is an underrated hero for Southampton
Stuart Armstrong led the way as Southampton overcame a two-goal deficit at home to Burnley to win 3-2. The Scotland midfielder has developed into a consistently high-level Premier League performer and deserves better than the unravelling that Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side – top at one point this season and now 13th – have been guilty of.
He has been a regular attacking outlet (despite having to play in the same front four as Theo Walcott) and scored a good goal against Burnley, after linking up well with Danny Ings, before placing himself at the centre of his side’s best moves thereafter.
That gave Southampton the momentum to grab their equaliser – a wonderful solo goal by Ings. Armstrong almost grabbed another goal, too, before Nathan Redmond volleyed in a thoroughly deserved winner that sealed the three points.
How do you sum up Newcastle?
Steve Bruce’s side made a decent fist of their draw against Tottenham, albeit they were helped by a Spurs defence in a particularly benevolent mood.
When Newcastle play like this you are left to wonder just why they have struggled so badly this season – but Tottenham were so porous at the back that even Joelinton managed to score.
This was Newcastle’s seventh game without a win and if they had performed more often in the manner that they did yesterday fears over relegation would have been banished weeks ago. As it is, they now face four of the top six – with a trip to Arsenal also to come – in their last eight matches as they seek to avoid another relegation to the Championship.
John McGinn goes back to holding midfield
Dean Smith resisted the temptation to unleash his Scottish midfielder in an attacking role against Fulham and it was a tactic that worked in his favour.
McGinn, who scored three times on international duty, was involved when Aston Villa thought they had a penalty at the end of the first half only for referee Andy Madley to overrule his own decision after a trip to the VAR screen.
McGinn looked less of a threat as a result of his stationing in defensive midfield and it appeared to be a strategy that had backfired when Fulham took a secondhalf lead through Alexsandar Mitrovic. But that was before Trezeguet (2) and Ollie Watkins scored three times in the last 12 minutes to turn the result on its head.