Ahead within 64 seconds, Arsenal have a lovely balance of skill, physicality and pace this season. Martin Odegaard oozes class, his pass to Gabriel Martinelli for their fourth was especially delicious. He is so often involved in every progressive movement. Bakayo Saka is a fearless bundle of skill wrapped up in limitless energy. But they’ve also got grit in the form of Granit Xhaka, William Saliba and Oleksandr Zinchenko. The Gunners’ next four games are against sides that have most recently beaten them. Now seven points ahead of Manchester City, the game against them in mid-February looks absolutely pivotal. If they emerge from those four games with nine or more points, they must be odds-on to win the league and win it in style. Things have clicked. Every player is playing where they like to play, where they want to play, where they’re good at playing. It is a well-oiled machine at the moment. No team has been leading by this many points or more at the New Year without winning the Premier League. Now there’s a thought. Did anyone see this coming at the beginning of the season?
With new signing Cody Gakpo watching on in the stands, Darwin Nunez continued his perplexing form against Leicester which saw him causing all sorts of havoc in the defense with his pace and strong running, and then failing to score. At the moment you wouldn’t put any money on him netting in a one-on-one with the keeper. He’s such an exciting player but very frustrating. Presumably when he breaks this habit of missing so many chances, he’ll start racking up the goals. Certainly, a forward line of him, Gakpo and Mo Salah will be super fast and worth the ticket price on their own. Liverpool now need to buy some serious midfield beef to stop teams running through their soft underbelly as easily as Leicester did before scoring two poor own-goals.
Steve Cooper may look like a Little Owl that has just woken up, but his team is anything but sleepy and well deserved their point against Chelsea with an energetic second half. They are trying to make up for basic lack of skill with an excess of effort, especially in home games. While it’s a noble enterprise, it doesn’t seem likely to get them out of the relegation places at the end of the season. Three wins out of 17 and the worst goal difference in the league looks like relegation form. There is talk of Forest spending even more money this month, not content with 20+ new signings in the summer. It is absolute madness and if anything, guarantees a bottom three finish.
The Wolves manager cut a wild and unusual figure on the touchline against Manchester United. Floppy-haired, dressed in a loose brown roll neck which looked to be made out of nylon, navy slacks and brown trainers, he looked like one of those 1970s managers who smoked in the dugout. At times he was thrashing his arms around like a malfunctioning windmill, in anger and frustration at not getting a refereeing decision in his favor. He also wears the panicked and fearful expression of someone whose car has broken down on a railway crossing. It’s open to debate as to how effective this is for a boss. Some say they like their manager to show a lot of passion, others suggest that if the gaffer is losing his mind on the touchline, he can’t be analyzing the situation with a cool head. He’s certainly got Wolves well organized, but they remain very blunt. His biggest task is where to find some goals.
Although he was left on the bench for being late for a team meeting, after sleeping in, Marcus Rashford’s second half introduction proved crucial for Manchester United. Martial had missed an easy header in the first half and never quite seemed fully committed to the central striking role. Indeed the contrast between him and Rashford is instructive. The Englishman, tall, strong, runs directly into the box, looking to beat men and get a shot away. His goal here was all his own work; he just wouldn’t be stopped in scoring his third in consecutive games for the club. Martial is less aggressive and doesn’t gamble. He is more reactive than proactive. Although he is obviously a good forward, he gives off a diffident air in contrast to Rashford’s determination. He’s in the best form he’s enjoyed for a long while and as long as he doesn’t sleep in again, looks undroppable.
The Toffees, despite their lowly position, are not a team of poor players. Earlier in the season, the defensive partnership of Conor Coady and James Tarkowski provided gnarly solidity. Even so, recent results have been awful, with just a single win in the last nine games stretching back to early October. So they had absolutely no reason to believe they’d get anything out of an away game at Manchester City, with Erling Haaland having scored seven more goals than Everton all on his own. Demarai Gray equalized with their only shot on target and they set about defending the point very successfully. This was an organized and very resolute defensive performance with Coady and Tarkowski rediscovering their early form as a partnership and Jordan Pickford pulling off some good saves. It will give Frank Lampard hope of survival, but well justified doubts remain about their ability to score enough goals for it to be anything other than a struggle for the next five months.
They have let in 72 goals in 2022, the most they have ever conceded in a calendar year in the Premier League, but they frustrated Newcastle United all afternoon. After recent good form, the Magpies turned up expecting to roll Leeds over, but the Yorkshiremen had other ideas. If they were short on football ideas, they were not found lacking in heart at St James’ Park and that may be their saving grace this season. They play the game at a hell of a speed, probably too fast, too much of the time. It makes for an entertaining spectacle, but they badly need someone to put their foot on the ball and control the game. As it is, they eventually run out of steam, get ever deeper and their defending ever more desperate. The fact they don’t have a center-forward worth the name doesn’t help matters. So all things considered, it was a point gained for them in the northeast of England.
Spurs were awful for the full 90 minutes against Aston Villa instead of their more typical 45. They conceded the first goal for the tenth consecutive game, they conceded a second goal for the seventh consecutive game for the first time since the late 80s. Harry Kane didn’t even touch the ball for the first 20 minutes. They lie fifth but are not the fifth best side in the league by any stretch of the imagination. They look frozen in the headlights of their own mediocrity. Manager Antonio Conte was subdued. It was as though he’d given up on this game early on, or maybe he has given up on the club. After the game he talked down the quality of the summer signings and said his players were ‘little guns’ compared to their rivals ‘bazookas’. You could be forgiven for thinking he was trying to get the sack.
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