Ruben Amorim is a Premier League winner. Hear us out. There is praise for Ange Postecoglou and Gary O’Neil but Man City, Steve Cooper and Sean Dyche get it.
Premier League winners
Ange Postecoglou
The point remains that as impressive as that result and performance was, what comes next is far more important.
This was Postecoglou’s third 4-0 win at Spurs, equalling his biggest margin of victory as a Premier League manager. Their other two 4-0 wins were followed by two defeats: 3-0 to Fulham after beating Aston Villa in March; and 2-1 to Newcastle after beating Everton at the start of this season.
That does not include the remarkable show of inconsistency which has defined 2024/25 so far. A 3-0 win over Manchester United led into a 3-2 defeat to Brighton. Beating West Ham 4-1 precipitated a 1-0 loss at Crystal Palace. After hammering Aston Villa 4-1 they handed another team their first victory of the season in the form of Ipswich.
This has to be the platform to build towards something greater, more meaningful and substantial.
But just on a personal level for Postecoglou, that had to be career-affirming. His first meeting with Pep Guardiola was as manager of City Football Group member Yokohama F. Marinos for a pre-season friendly in summer 2019. The Spaniard is said to have played something of a role in his appointment at Celtic two years later. And having never sacrificed his principles on any step of a circuitous journey to the pinnacle of the game, Postecoglou secured possibly his greatest single-game victory over one of the sport’s true icons.
Liverpool
There were enough signs of weakness to give their rivals hope but ultimately the result is all that matters and Arne Slot is delivering them. Liverpool only winning games by one-goal margins might be pertinent for those who did not live through the second half of Eric Cantona’s 1995/96, or indeed how the Reds themselves built their decisive points lead in 2019/20. But the cliche that champions find a way to win exists for a reason and Liverpool did that at St Mary’s.
The biggest danger seems to be the contract situation turning into a sideshow. The expiring deals of Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold give this unexpected title charge a unique flavour as this three-pronged Last Dance moves into the next chapter.
Salah breaking rank and providing the first genuinely interesting quotes from or about any of those three players and their future in years is huge. His numbers contradict any sense that such uncertainty is harmful in the short term but the longer speculation is left to fester, the greater chance it backfires on Liverpool.
Maybe it is a genius motivational ploy from the club, keeping the carrot dangling in front of a player who, at 32, remains at his peak physical form and is productive as ever in terms of goalscoring and chance creation. But it increasingly feels like an analytics club focusing on the wrong numbers. Salah’s age will be worth referencing in these discussions one day, but no time soon based on the available evidence.
The Egyptian softly returning the ball into Liverpool’s court while professing his “love” for the fans was masterful politicking but a club for whom pretty much everything else is going right might not embrace their hand being forced so publicly.
Gary O’Neil
Two Premier League wins in a fortnight, after a run of one in 20 across eight months. It was atrocious form which felt inexorably headed towards only one possible sack-shaped conclusion but Wolves and Gary O’Neil have worked through their differences amicably.
This is not mission accomplished. Wolves are out of the bottom three by virtue of goal difference and while only Liverpool are on a longer current unbeaten run, the test will come when that eventually ends and it is discovered whether these foundations are built on quicksand or concrete.
But this is theoretically where the rewards of any unforgiving, unrequited hard work should be reaped. Wolves had arguably the hardest start in terms of fixtures, the flipside to which is: Bournemouth (h), Everton (a), West Ham (a), Ipswich (h) and Leicester (a) before Christmas. Their only remaining game against a top-half side this year is on December 29 against Tottenham. Fill your boots, Matheus Cunha.
Ipswich
Deemed roughly the fifth-most important thing during coverage of their own home game behind Manchester United, Ruben Amorim, Ed Sheeran and Roy Keane offering someone out in a car park. But fair play to Ipswich, who showed their best side to cameras desperate to focus anywhere else.
Kieran McKenna has coached them wonderfully but that individual quality is lacking slightly, which only makes those moments like Omari Hutchinson’s stunning goal and the brilliance of Liam Delap more pronounced.
Might their January transfer window be the most crucial of any team? Another addition in the ilk of Kieffer Moore and Jeremy Sarmiento’s mid-season loans last campaign could be the difference between relegation and survival.
Chelsea
The combined efforts of Wilfred Ndidi and Noni Madueke helped extend Cole Palmer’s personal drought to three successive games without a goal or assist in the Premier League. Only once has he endured a run as long since joining Chelsea – his first four matches for the club, of which three were substitute cameos totalling less than half an hour each.
That Chelsea have emerged unbeaten from that sequence and in the middle of a title race having faced Arsenal, a still vaguely threatening Manchester United and a Leicester side which has posed many a problem for most opponents might not sound overwhelmingly impressive, but it is worth a reminder just how ubiquitous Palmer was and how critical his goal contributions were last season.
The last league game he missed was against Arsenal in April, before which Mauricio Pochettino said his teammates should “be motivated to show this is Chelsea Football Club, not Cole Palmer Football Club”. They lost 5-0. Enzo Maresca enabling other players to step up, shoulder that burden and relieve that productive pressure on the still excellent Palmer is his most monumental achievement yet as manager.
Arsenal
A stunningly dominant victory, Arsenal’s first by three goals or more all season outside the League Cup. The suspicion was that the mere presence of Martin Odegaard would single-handedly restore most of this side’s identity; the reality was somehow even more stark.
“When he’s on the team you can sense something different. It’s difficult to put a finger on what but it’s there,” said Mikel Arteta after the dismantling of Nottingham Forest. That raises a couple of slight concerns about the level of influence one player and their absences should have on a team but really it is inevitable with a captain so prevalent in their pressing structures, passing combinations and attacking patterns of play.
He makes a great team brilliant and brilliant teammates even better, but the immediacy with which Arsenal’s problems seemed to be solved simply by placing Odegaard’s ability and leadership back at their core was surprising.
It also provided ammunition for the Declan Rice and Kai Havertz truthers, which is of vital importance for a fanbase this neurotic.
MORE PREMIER LEAGUE WEEKEND REACTION FROM F365
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👉 No Salah in Premier League team of the season so far in 2024/25
👉 ONLY four Manchester City players in Premier League Worst XI with Bournemouth pair, Forest star
Brighton
Perhaps the best kind of away win, delivered through phenomenal variation in attack but underpinned by a level of defensive resolve many might have assumed was not present in this group of players.
After Kaoru Mitoma’s goal early in the second half, Brighton had one off-target Matt O’Riley shot to Bournemouth’s 13, of which three were blocked by colossal central defenders Jan Paul van Hecke and Igor Julio, and three more were saved by the excellent Bart Verbruggen.
The Seagulls had just over a third of the possession in that time, playing for more than half an hour with 10 men after Calos Baleba’s red card, in a stadium where Arsenal and Manchester City have both recently lost.
It might have been their most impressive result yet under Fabian Hurzeler, with the promise of so much more to come.
Cheick Doucoure
For the first time in over a year, Doucoure played more than an hour of a Premier League game and it showed in different ways: Palace were better for his quality in midfield, even if there was some entirely forgivable rust.
The delay, weight and direction of the pass to release Ismaila Sarr for Justin Devenny’s goal was wonderful and the long-term focus should be on establishing what could be a phenomenal central midfield partnership with Adam Wharton when both are finally fully fit. Will Hughes playing 90 minutes instead of coming on with 20 left, clattering everyone and getting booked just isn’t right.
Ruben Amorim
A ‘winner’ after drawing against a newly-promoted team in a match they probably should have lost? The anti-Ten Hag agenda is real.
Except any proper evaluation of Amorim’s first game would define that as perhaps the best possible result for his short and long-term objectives. A defeat would have been disastrous and a resounding victory could have set expectations too high. As preferable as a narrow win might have been, a 1-1 draw showed enough glimpses of what can be achieved while proving how and why it will take time and patience.
The problems at Manchester United are too deep-rooted and foundational to fix in a couple of training sessions and one game. Amorim cannot have been under any illusions as to the size of this task but if the players, fans, pundits and critics were then consider them corrected.
“They want this, the players want this, they don’t know how to get it,” said Amorim, who noticed they “tried” but were “confused” at times and not “physically” equipped for the situation. If this is to work, it might be best that the players are at their lowest in mind and body – and are called out for it constructively early on – before being built back up.
Brentford
A first away point of the season, having played about an hour with ten men. Shame it coming against Sean Dyche’s Everton makes it about 10 times less impressive than that sounds.
Premier League losers
Steve Cooper
A fixture between Leicester and Chelsea, a 2-1 defeat at the King Power Stadium against a surprise title challenger, a league title long since forgotten in large part due to “palpable discord between manager and players”, and a subsequent sacking both surprising and predictable.
The parallels between Jose Mourinho in 2015 and Steve Cooper nine years later end there but at least the former had fonder memories and a brighter future to fall back on; this outcome seemed inevitable from the off for the latter, whose third Premier League job might not come so readily.
There is sympathy for a manager whose remit was survival being removed from his post having not spent a single moment in the relegation zone – Steve Cooper has been sacked for being Steve Cooper – but really this had been coming. The relationship with supporters was never particularly healthy and a three-year contract always seemed more performative than permanent.
It is a decision which ultimately suits all parties: Cooper did respectably enough to preserve his reputation and can point to enough evidence to suggest he has been treated incredibly harshly; Leicester have acted swiftly and decisively to correct what was probably a mistake in the first place to give them a greater chance of achieving their goals.
Cooper won three of 15 games as Leicester manager: one against Tranmere in August, then in successive matches against Bournemouth and Southampton in October. The second of those victories was a stunning comeback from 2-0 down, with the winner scored in the eighth minute of stoppage time. It was the sort of result which should have engendered confidence and prompted lasting improvement; since then, no Premier League side has accrued fewer points than Leicester’s one in four games. It was an unavoidable sign that something was fundamentally broken.
READ NEXT: Van Nistelrooy, Moyes, Potter early frontrunners for Leicester job as Cooper’s 12-game reign ends
Manchester City without Ruben Dias
The Rodri argument is old news; the champions looked more vulnerable than before but were top and unbeaten without him until late October. Then Ruben Dias was sidelined with injury and Manchester City embarked on their longest run of consecutive Premier League defeats since March 2016.
The truth is that Manchester City have lost too many on-pitch leaders at once. Throw in Kevin de Bruyne and their entire spine has been missing for most of this dreadful period, with no-one left to take control or responsibility. Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden are phenomenal players but they were as culpable as anyone in making diabolical, complacent choices in possession which Spurs punished ruthlessly.
But the focus on Rodri has distracted from the significance of Dias, whose absence has barely been highlighted or discussed in the analyses of what is going wrong at the Etihad. The centre-half who has never lost a single league game by three goals or more in his entire senior career cannot have found it easy to watch his unrecognisable team ship four without reply.
Everton
There will be more definitive statistics to cite but when time is eventually and inevitably called on Dyche’s reign at Everton, this might be my favourite: in his 67 Premier League games as manager the Toffees have only once had the majority of possession in consecutive matches; they drew both 0-0.
When Christian Norgaard was sent off it felt like Brentford were given the advantage. They had clarity in terms of what they needed to do and how. It only complicated and confused things for an Everton side not used to being given the initiative.
Dyche claimed to have “tried four or five different ways of operating today to open up what is a packed box” but that seems a generous outlook. He only used two subs and one of those was a swap of central midfielders.
The argument there would be that this is a limited squad and there is weight to that. But a lack of investment cannot possibly have surprised a manager who played such weak hands far stronger and in a more identifiable way with Burnley.
And the way Dyche constantly references “trying to change the story” from what he inherited really must grate. The two-year anniversary of his appointment is approaching and 11 managers have been in their current Premier League jobs for a shorter period of time. Leaning so heavily on problems in the past bears little relevance in the present for a man with seemingly no long-term future at Goodison Park.
Nottingham Forest
It is a wonderful quirk of the Premier League that the only defeat Liverpool have suffered in any competition this season is also the one game Nottingham Forest have won against a side currently in the top half.
Robin Hood would be frustrated at how his hometown club have so readily stolen from the poor while generally giving to the rich. There is no shame in losing to both Newcastle and Arsenal, nor any embarrassment in perhaps having to lower any elevated expectations. But those were humbling experiences which suggested Forest’s over-performing attack and defence might have reverted closer to a more mid-table mean.
The flat-track bullies might welcome those consecutive trips to Manchester in early December as part of their recovery, particularly if they involve the returns of Morgan Gibbs-White, Elliot Anderson and Chris Wood.
Aston Villa
No team allowed fewer counter-attacking goals in the Premier League last season, and no side has conceded more this campaign. It is tempting to just write the words ‘Douglas’ and ‘Luiz’ here but ‘Boubacar’ and ‘Kamara’ and ‘the concept of a midfield structure’ are just as applicable.
Such a drastic contract can hardly be put down to the sale of one player when Aston Villa have looked defensively suspect for months.
Only Brentford, West Ham, Wolves and Sheffield United (genuinely impressive) have conceded more Premier League goals in 2024 than Villa (53), who have scored 52 in that time.
It is a worrying trend and while the run of defeats has been halted a 2-2 draw at home to a team fighting relegation only prompts more questions. The first and funniest of which is how Villa have so expertly managed to turn their own corners into a consistent source of dangerous attacks for the opposition.
Bournemouth’s social media manager
It cannot be understated just how fundamentally hilarious the idea is that Brighton’s players derived extra inspiration from a post by Bournemouth’s official Twitter account saying it was nice to ‘be beside the (proper) seaside’. Not nearly enough is being made of how ridiculous a thing that is, the suggestion that Mitoma might have been more determined to finish his chance because Igor had been deliberately ropily Photoshopped into an ice cream van.
But there was Joao Pedro, earnestly explaining that the part of the energy behind his sensational performance was “because you saw things on the internet that you didn’t like, so we had more motivation to win this game” and be “very aggressive”.
It does make sense in the world of fine margins not to fuel or incite an opponent unnecessarily, but the reality that Bournemouth’s social media admin is probably due for a stern chat first thing Monday morning for vaguely stoking an entirely beach-based rivalry is incredible.
Southampton
Eight errors leading to a goal in 12 games is genuinely impressive. In all of last season the most any team made was ten. It feels like that might be a problem.
Of course Spurs have the record for most errors leading to a goal in a Premier League season: 21 in 2013/14. The challenge is set, Russell Martin and friends.
Fulham
A side which dropped nine points from winning positions in all of last season have squandered 13 in 12 games this campaign. Marco Silva waited too long to make his first substitutions when Wolves were in the ascendancy, then used all five by the 71st minute when more subtle changes could have been explored. Rodrigo Muniz, Adama Traore and Timothy Castagne were thrown into a broken structure; of course Fulham conceded two more.
