Postecoglou all-but gone after 'atmosphere' remark as Liverpool and Forest thrive

Liverpool, Brighton and David Moyes are flying. But Spurs have no more excuses, Wolves without Matheus Cunha are doomed and Arsenal have a clear problem.

Premier League winners

Liverpool

It does not particularly have the air of a 25-game unbeaten Premier League run, perhaps owing to the insistence on pretending there has been any sort of jeopardy or title race since about December, or how those draws with Everton and Aston Villa were magnified to a quite laughable degree.

But only Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United have ever had longer streaks without defeat in Premier League history, which is patently ridiculous for a manager in his debut English top-flight season.

Not for the first time, Arne Slot changed the game with his substitutions. And although making three of them at half-time asks uncomfortable questions of the manager and the players coming off, when it prompts the sort of reaction Liverpool inflicted on Southampton, outcome bias dictates that there can only be praise.

The gap between first and second is bigger than the gap between second and 10th. It is early March and Liverpool are guaranteed a top-half finish with Spurs and Manchester United unable to catch them. None of this is particularly normal.

Mo Salah

Only Erling Haaland (29 in 2022/23) has ever scored more goals by this stage of a Premier League season. Just Mesut Ozil (18 in 2015/16) has ever provided more assists after 29 games. Both bars were set in breaking the respective records for one whole campaign and Salah is on course to catch them simultaneously. That is especially not normal.

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Nottingham Forest

As ever with Forest, it is difficult to single out one individual for praise from a specifically team-centric performance.

Nico Dominguez made twice as many tackles as any player for either side while not putting a foot wrong in possession. Murillo reprised his engrossing role as chief clearance-maker. Callum Hudson-Odoi has developed a remarkable knack for scoring in 1-0 wins over sides who have habitually fought for the title over the past few seasons. Neco Williams has undergone a wonderful transformation under Nuno, whose career hex over Pep Guardiola has resulted in him becoming only the second manager ever to beat the Spaniard with at least three different teams.

They are third and there entirely on merit, with Manchester City just the latest brick to fall into place. Forest have now beaten 21 of the 23 different sides they have faced in the Premier League since promotion, and while Bournemouth do appear to have their number, it is remarkable that Luton are League One-bound as their old relegation rivals confidently approach the Champions League one year on from a battle which reflected abysmally on Mark Clattenburg’s former employers.

The Manchester City victory was necessary too, their first in the league since the 7-0 thrashing of Brighton on February 1 and a timely tightening of wheels which might otherwise have fallen off if left unchecked. Forest’s longest winless run of the season stands at three games, which only Liverpool (two games) can better.

Crystal Palace

Fifth in the European form table is ludicrous in itself but Crystal Palace threatening consecutive top-half Premier League finishes is really quite daft.

It is particularly curious, considering Eintracht Frankfurt specifically cited the negative ‘overall performance in the second half of the season’ as a factor in their decision to part with Oliver Glasner, that Palace have been so strong in the second half of his first full campaign, to the extent that only Liverpool (25) have earned more points than the Eagles (19) since January 4, and that from two extra games.

Palace’s current run of three straight league wins is as long as Arsenal’s best sequence of consecutive victories this season. Glasner really is one of the most quietly impressive managers in the division.

Brighton

Sixth in that European form table, which is perhaps even more absurd as these six successive victories were preceded by that 7-0 thrashing against Nottingham Forest.

Fabian Hurzeler deserves immense credit, ceding the possession which betrayed them against Forest for more defensive stability and a tweak in shape. But he has also reversed the recent trend of Brighton starting campaigns well but finishing them poorly. They already have as many points in the second half of this season as they accrued in the entire second half of 2023/24 (18).

Much of that comes down to the sort of attacking variation that only a club-record spend can really buy. Yasin Ayari became the 18th different player to score or assist a Premier League goal for Brighton this season when he crossed for Jan Paul van Hecke’s wonderful headed equaliser against Fulham; only Chelsea and bizarrely Everton (both 19) can beat that, and the Seagulls share the burden far more equally.

Manchester United

Ruben Amorim was so deeply apologetic about deploying a low block that it seems unlikely he will celebrate the first three-game unbeaten run of his tenure. But these are baby steps in the right direction, pale green shoots barely visible above the surface.

That move which resulted in the wing-back to wing-back chance for Noussair Mazraoui from Diogo Dalot’s cross should sustain Manchester United for a couple of weeks as a tantalising glimpse of what could be achieved.

If that sounds like a low bar that’s because it is; the fact is Manchester United have had nothing like that sort of proof of a clear and coherent message getting through on the training ground in what feels like years.

David Moyes

The king of the mid-season managers. Moyes has picked up 1.78 points per game at Everton, beating Graham Potter (1.43 at West Ham), Vitor Pereira (1.17 at Wolves), Ruben Amorim (1.12 at Manchester United), Ruud van Nistelrooy (0.47 at Leicester) and Ivan Juric (0.27 at Southampton) with varying degrees of comfort.

At least two of those stand as proof of how wrong Everton could have got the appointment of Sean Dyche’s successor having made the right call in parting with him.

Only four managers have ever accrued more Premier League points with a single club. Give Moyes (658 with Everton) a year and he will catch Jurgen Klopp (705 with Liverpool).

Chelsea

A first pair of consecutive Premier League clean sheets since September might be cause for revelry if they didn’t come against the two worst teams in the league.

It also leaves Chelsea facing one of the tougher runs of remaining fixtures of any side, but their ability to put to the sword the teams in the bottom half should not be overlooked. Only Liverpool have more points or goals against those in 11th and below, which is a marked improvement on what was a Mauricio Pochettino blindspot.

Robin Olsen

Aston Villa’s standout performance came slightly further forward but Olsen keeping his first Premier League clean sheet since January 2023 was a surprise. Have a guess who that came against; the entirely inevitable answer will be at the bottom.

Premier League losers

Spurs

The problem with the entirely valid injury caveat was always that once that card was removed from the deck and unable to be played again, performances and results had to improve almost immediately. If supporters were expected to show patience while Spurs managed that crisis, asking them to remain calm as those returning take time to find their feet is preposterous.

When your starting forwards cost £127.5m and are not involved in either the overhit cross or penalty which crowned this comeback draw, there will be consternation at being outplayed at home by a team which cost a fraction of the price under an exciting, vibrant coach who has changed to cope with his own persistent injury issues.

The same goes for an overrun £50m midfield and expensive porous defence; Cristian Romero was only ever going to look shaky in his first appearance for more than three months but that is the point: Spurs cannot simply point to injuries and then the bedding-in period as part of the rehabilitation to those injuries as the overriding reason behind these substandard displays.

It makes a mockery of the idea Ange Postecoglou could not possibly have adapted his system and ideals to suit the players he had available through those difficult months.

And while his comments on “the atmosphere in the stadium” might have been lost in translation, bringing supporters into constant underperformance in any way never ends well for the manager who chooses that path, especially when those same fans have already been asked for their unabating consideration and understanding in exchange for the club’s worst season in two decades at increasingly costly ticket prices.

Bernardo Silva

He might forever remain the one player Pep Guardiola will never sell, only now because of a lack of feasible buyers rather than a desperation to keep him.

Barcelona and PSG came close to prising the Portuguese away on a number of occasions but both have long since undergone the sort of transformation to focus on youth which Manchester City hope to successfully implement soon. It is similarly difficult to envisage a place in that future for a knackered 30-year-old whose contract expires next year.

Through these Manchester City troubles, Silva has been a comfort blanket whose availability Guardiola has clung to this season. Having ranked sixth and seventh in the squad for total minutes in all competitions in the last two seasons respectively, Silva is up to third in 2024/25 and has been used in a variety of different positions to plug any and all gaps.

But it seems beyond him now, at least at the sort of dependable level which made him one of the league’s best players a few years ago. The sight of Silva being given the midfield runaround has become all too frequent. While Manchester City have far bigger problems to address, an inability to rely as comfortably on their former paragon of consistency sums up this general malaise.

Arsenal

Their record this season in Premier League games when they have more than 60% possession is P10 W3 D5 L2 F12 A8. Last season it was P17 W13 D1 L3 F47 A15. It is a massive discrepancy which basically accounts for that 15-point gap to Liverpool by itself.

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Fulham

Perhaps Champions League qualification was always only ever a distant possibility, and never an objective set within the club. But Fulham absolutely were positioned perfectly to capitalise on a wide-open race and defeat to Brighton was a costly misstep.

Fulham had been imperious against their nearest challengers for the European places. There is ample opportunity to atone but they are struggling to build momentum and might soon consider the FA Cup back door as their best way in.

Brentford

Seven wins and one draw in their first eight home games, then two draws and five defeats in their next seven.

Brentford are the highest-ranked club in no other competitions for the remainder of the season, with neither Europe nor relegation a feasible reality in any way. It is a serenity they deserve praise for achieving but these final two months will also be entirely bereft of any real drama. In short: it seems quite early in the season for teams to be heading to the beach.

Wolves without Matheus Cunha

‘Football team not as good without best player’ is not an especially groundbreaking revelation but it is pertinent in the case of Cunha for as long as he decides to incur avoidable suspensions.

Wolves’ record in the four Premier League games Cunha has not started this season is W0 D1 L3. Marshall Munetsi’s goal was the first they have scored in those matches; before then, Wolves had conceded nine without reply.

The rank hopelessness of the three teams below them mean it would not be a monumental shock if Wolves already had enough points to survive, but that is not a gamble they can really afford to take – especially if his latest ban is extended as expected and he is sidelined for the pivotal trip to Ipswich.

Bournemouth

It is a measure of how far they have come that failing to beat Spurs away is perceived as a negative, but those were points dropped by Bournemouth in every sense.

As Iraola said: “Before coming here it is probably not a bad result but after how the game went and how well we performed, we are not happy with a point. We have to be more clinical and smarter.”

Even just in a basic sense his point is clear: Bournemouth are the fifth-biggest underperformers in terms of xG and their ratio of goals per shot (0.09) is the lowest in the top half. The room for improvement is obvious.

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Leicester

It would be interesting to know which of Leicester’s 11 defeats from 12 Premier League games – a victory over Spurs, obviously – prompted Ruud van Nistelrooy to belatedly decide things might not be working and that a formation change could be necessary.

The good news is that was the closest Leicester have come to keeping a clean sheet since that remarkably misleading win over West Ham in Van Nistelrooy’s first game. The bad news is that they still lost, which they are on course to do a club-record number of times in a single Premier League season.

Ipswich

Still the last team to come from behind at half-time to win a league game at Old Trafford, but Kieran McKenna will probably weirdly want to focus on this season rather than the endurance of an irrelevant 41-year-old statistic.

He is right to talk about “margins” and “developing”, of how Ipswich were “competitive” in defeat, but supporters are equally entitled to grow frustrated at being given the same meal each without the promise of a bit of variety in their diet. If this squad is “learning” then some proof would be welcomed.

It is an achievement to be bottom of any table this season while Southampton are striving to achieve historic awfulness. But there Ipswich are, the absolute worst of any team in the second half of games in almost a complete inverse of their strong finishes in the Championship last campaign.

Ivan Juric

He noticed “some really good things” from Southampton and it probably didn’t even rank in their worst 25 performances or results of the season. But that really is remarkably damning after a 3-1 defeat.

The Derby record remains within reach but beyond that, Juric is competing for the unofficial title of absolute worst Premier League manager ever. He has fewer points per game than Terry Connor, Jan Siewert and Nathan Jones, with only Neil Adams and Jimmy Gabriel worse off for single-season awfulness. Lose every remaining game and he overtakes both. And he doesn’t even have a charming gimmick like Connor’s clipboard to remember him by.

Spurs again

Of sodding course Olsen kept his last Premier League clean sheet against them.

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