Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action
Jack Grealish has stopped falling over. But it’s not just that. Grealish was fouled just twice against Fulham, neither of these the contact-seeking lunges that had for a while become a part of his game. Grealish isn’t necessarily cheating or diving when he does this. The take-the-foul routine is also a way of having your legs battered into a pulp over several years. Grealish carries the ball too well not to be tripped a lot. Contact will happen. Why not manage how that collision works, take the lightest of touches, fall well? But Grealish has started to stay up as well, to use his strength instead to terrorise and bully defenders. He was very good against Fulham, helping to make the opening goal, and just about surviving an ongoing battle with Kenny Tete, who was defending aggressively. Another thing here: the Fulham crowd barracked Grealish and he wagged his finger back at them. But the feeling was less outrage, more pantomime jeers, a kind of semi-buried respect. The other story of Grealish’s season is that he is now surely the most marketable English player in the league; and, grudgingly perhaps for some, one of the most likeable. Barney Ronay
Match report: Fulham City 1-2 Manchester
2) Repurposed Trent the real deal
Do you think Trent Alexander-Arnold should play in midfield? Do you believe in his passing ability and positional awareness? We could probably predict which political party you support and whether or not you’re vegan by your answer. Focusing solely on the football, it makes sense, doesn’t it? There are few better in the league when it comes to delivering a ball from deep and there’s no denying his industry, if not his tactical nous, off the ball. It was his whipped cross that found Curtis Jones unmarked at the back post for Liverpool’s opener, his sixth assist since making the shift further in and up the field. Besides that he looked assured on the ball, confident in his quarterback role. Chest puffed out; time to look up; the sumptuous arc of a diagonal sprayed to the opposing flank. It certainly passes the eye test. Gareth Southgate was in attendance for the 4-3 thriller at Anfield and the England manager was caught on camera nodding to something being whispered in his ear shortly after the inch-perfect cross. With a glut of top-tier right-backs ahead of him in the national side, AlexanderArnold will hope that Jürgen Klopp continues with the experiment. Daniel Gallan
Match report: Liverpool 4-3 Tottenham
3) Casemiro resumes normal service
Since the four-game suspension handed to Casemiro last month the Brazilian had not been the midfield metronome who had wowed for most of the campaign. Passes were smacked too hard or millimetres off, tackles clumsy or missed. And the greatest nono for the A–list footballer was an unwanted feature of his game, the ceding of the precious white round thing to the opponent in dangerous zones. Against Aston Villa the 31-year-old’s game was back, meaning the engine room of Erik ten Hag’s team had a vital zest and solidity once more. As the manager said: “Every season you see that nobody always plays brilliant all the time. Today this was the Casemiro we’ve seen most of all year: the determination and leadership was so important for us. Others go with him and we’ve seen a determined and professional team who wants to win.” Jamie Jackson
Match report: Manchester United 1-0 Aston Villa
4) Palace’s south London swagger
In this Premier League era of win-at-all-costs football, Crystal Palace represent a throwback to the entertainers of days gone by, perhaps the “Queen’s Park Arrangers” of the 1970s or the Leicester of Jimmy Bloomfield from a similar time. Palace reached 40 points on Saturday, not by playing the percentage game viewed as the orthodox route to safety but instead by playing West Ham off the park. From Cheick Doucouré forwards, Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise particularly in the first half, they were an absolute delight. Defensively, when West Ham won a corner, they were a total mess. Like those entertainers of the past, much of the fun is in the high-wire act of taking risks. At full flight, Palace are pure south London swagger. Roy Hodgson and his evergreen companion Ray Lewington look to be having the time of their lives, though whether the old pals fancy next season in charge is a question Hodgson refuses to answer. John Brewin
Match report: Crystal Palace 4-3 West Ham
5) Newcastle shift balance of power
Eddie Howe claimed he was not upset by Tottenham’s decision to refund away fans who travelled to St James’ Park and watched their side sunk 6-1 last Sunday, but many Newcastle fans were outraged by a gesture they interpreted as both patronising and detracting from their team’s achievement. Daniel Levy, the Tottenham chairman, served as agitatorin-chief when Premier League clubs banded together to oppose the approval of Newcastle’s takeover. His worst fears are being realised: English football’s power base is shifting once more with Newcastle and the northeast set to return to the Champions League. Whatever you think of Saudi ownership, in these London-centric times that may not be a bad thing. Levelling up matters and football can help close England’s self-destructive north-south divide. Louise Taylor
Match report: Newcastle 3-1 Southampton
6) Kane’s brilliance is going to waste
Harry Kane has flirted with the idea of leaving Tottenham before, fluttering his eyelashes at potential suitors to show his willingness to up sticks for the sake of potentially winning a trophy. After 15 minutes at Anfield, Kane must have wondered if there is any point in staying for another year. The England striker has 25 goals this season, in an underwhelming campaign for Spurs that has left them on their third manager and in a battle to avoid ending up in the Europa Conference League. Kane’s exploits are cancelled out by his teammates’ inability to defend. They have conceded more goals than Everton in 19th place. Strikers are there to win games but, when a defence is so porous, it becomes a thankless task to compensate for others’ failings. Europe’s elite clubs will all be keen on Kane and Tottenham do not currently fit into that bracket. Will Unwin
7) Cooper must accept blame for loss
Consider the situation Steve Cooper found himself in at Brentford on Saturday. One rather fortuitous goal to the good, with the clock ticking down and a chance to secure only Nottingham Forest’s second away win of the season. Was the late defeat that followed misfortune or mismanagement? On Danilo’s injury that left Forest down to 10 men for the closing stages, Cooper suggested “things just didn’t go our way”, but questions might be asked about whether he should have used all three allotted substitution breaks. So, too, the decision to bolster the defence as the game wore on, inviting pressure. “Maybe an outsider might say it is a bit negative but you do anything to get points at this level,” said Joe Worrall. Had they held out for the win, the plan would have been vindicated. Instead it leaves Cooper facing further criticism with relegation a distinct possibility, his own future uncertain. Ben Bloom
Match report: Brentford 2-1 Nottingham Forest
8) Brighton back to exceptional best
There’s a danger in falling in love with a team that punches above its weight. They’ll offer the occasional season of joy but over the long run, without the backing of a tech billionaire or petrostate plutocrat, a slide back towards mediocrity or ruin is likely. Brighton stole headlines yet again against Wolves. But as spectacular as this was, it hardly came as a surprise. A day earlier the club secured a record deal for Watford’s Brazilian striker João Pedro for £30m. The Seagulls have been linked with Liverpool’s James Milner and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. They thrashed Wolves without Moisés Caicedo, Alexis Mac Allister and Kaoru Mitoma in the starting XI. All off the back of a torrid two weeks that threatened to undo a remarkable campaign. Those blips against Manchester United in the FA Cup and Nottingham Forest now look like anomalies. What’s starting to feel more ordinary, what’s morphing into the expected state of things, is
Brighton pushing for a European spot while playing show-stopping football. DG
Match report: Brighton 6-0 Wolves
9) O’Neil humble as safety draws near
At the end of Bournemouth’s rout of Leeds, Gary O’Neil and his squad embarked on a victory lap after all but securing their top-flight status. O’Neil took charge of Bournemouth after their 9-0 hammering at Anfield in August but, with a month of the season to run, they are 10 points clear of the relegation zone and level with Chelsea. There are more obvious candidates for the manager of the season award but O’Neil deserves huge credit. His side have won six of their past nine matches, a run that began with victory at home to Liverpool last month. “If Mo Salah would’ve scored the penalty people would’ve been calling me the worst manager in the league and nowhere near ready for what was a big job,” O’Neil said. “It is fine margins.” Ben Fisher
Match Leeds report: Bournemouth
10) Moyes walking a tightrope
4-1
It’s been 43 years since West Ham lifted a major trophy. Beat AZ Alkmaar in the two-legged semi-final and then triumph in the subsequent showpiece game in Prague and they’ll be European champions. OK, Europa Conference League champions, but no Hammers fan will turn their nose up. Except, as they chase honours abroad they’re at risk of losing what they have on home soil. A 4-3 defeat to Crystal Palace and they’re still to play both Manchester clubs and two of the teams below them. Three defeats could land them in serious trouble meaning David Moyes has a precarious juggling act to pull off. This could be his last chance to win something of note and yet going down would be a major blight on his CV. Every West Ham fan will have a different priority but every one of them will want it all: a continental trophy as well as continued Premier League status.Can Moyes pull it off ? DG
interrupted train.
Lewis Hamilton finished sixth for Mercedes while his teammate George Russell was eighth and Hamilton had observed how hard attempting to pass had been as he chased Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. Wolff acknowledged that it was not a good promotion for the sport.
“There was no overtaking, even with a big pace difference,” he said. “It made it not great entertainment. We have to analyse the weekend with the sprint format, whether there’s positives we can take out.”
The meeting was the first of F1’s new sprint format weekend, with the sprint race itself a similarly lacklustre affair but for Russell’s early skirmish with Verstappen. A fight that only served to highlight how bland Sunday’s GP had been.
“At the end it all comes down to racing,” said Wolff. “It needs the tough battles and I think the highlight you could see on Saturday was George and Maxbeing able to battle it out and on
Sunday there was none of that. Even if you were within 0.2 seconds it was very difficult to overtake, nearly impossible to overtake unless the other driver makes a mistake. We need to really look at it, we need to look at how we can avoid just a boring race.”
F1 introduced new regulations in 2022 in an effort to improve passing while racing by reducing the dirty air coming off the back of the cars. It was to an extent successful but has not delivered the great improvement in overtaking that was hoped for and this year, drivers report that the situation has only become worse. In the wake of Red Bull’s dominance, the chasing teams of Ferrari, Aston Martin and Mercedes were left powerless in a procession, a situation Wolff said was not engaging for fans.
“It’s about understanding why it was not entertaining ,” he added. “We have two cars that are sailing off into the sunset on merit and then we have a 20-second gap. I wouldn’t know today between Aston Martin and Ferrariand us who is quicker because you’re stuck where you’re stuck and that’s pretty much it. We need to find more data sets in the next races to see how this is going and then we need to adjust.”
The next meeting is this week in Miami. With Red Bull having won all four rounds and the sprint race thus far, Verstappen leads the world championship from Pérez by six points with 19 rounds remaining.