Ruben Amorim and Ruud van Nistelrooy are finally together in abject misery, along with Bernardo Silva and Brentford. Mo Salah, Nuno and Vitor Pereira shone.
Premier League winners
Mo Salah
It is difficult to think of a player so stupidly effective with such an unorthodox technique. Salah so frequently looks as if he has never encountered a football before yet there he is, surpassing Thierry Henry for combined goals and assists in the Premier League and fuelling another title charge.
That there still exists people who don’t think he is among the greatest forwards to grace the modern game is wonderfully heartening. He might well genuinely be the best.
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Nuno Espirito Santo
A seamless formation change to plunder a previously impregnable fortress should be cause for greater praise but a sensational counter-attacking away win with three at the back is pure, uncut Nuno: an ostensibly simple plan carried out ludicrously effectively by wholly committed players.
The Portuguese has more Premier League points (53) than predecessor Steve Cooper (52) in 17 fewer games. It was an eyebrow-raising appointment and remains as such, just for entirely different reasons.
Forest being a beacon of competence is really quite weird, especially against the supposed model for promoted clubs to follow. Brentford were made to look inept by comparison.
Vitor Pereira
The standard of opponent provided a massive caveat but matching Gary O’Neil for Premier League away wins with a clean sheet as Wolves manager was as good a start as possible for Pereira. His last taste of the English top flight was so brief and bittersweet that marking one of his career objectives with a dominant victory must have felt phenomenal.
There will need to be innovation and evolution going forward but Pereira accentuated the existing strengths Wolves had as a potent attacking side while masking their deficiencies in defence. It won’t always be as simple as switching Matt Doherty and Nelson Semedo around but this was a fine introduction.
Bournemouth
It is always fun to see the suggestion that Bournemouth will be picked apart by the vultures this summer when their manager was plucked from Rayo Vallecano and the permanent signings in their starting line-up against Manchester United came from Juventus and Tottenham’s reserves, Dynamo Kyiv, AZ, Leeds, Celtic, Bristol City, Roma, Lorient and Porto.
Kepa is a slight exception and was wonderful at Old Trafford but even he was readily available on loan from Chelsea. While Bournemouth was a necessary stepping stone and provided the environment for the composite parts to shine in a less pressurised Premier League proving ground, these in-demand players and this manager were all on the market at knockdown prices for clubs brave enough to take the chance.
Everton
Yep, hands up. We should really have seen this coming. Many looked at a run of awful fixtures starting with Arsenal and Chelsea and surmised that Everton were in trouble. Sean Dyche eyed it up like a plate of earthworms and gravel.
No keeper has more clean sheets this season than Jordan Pickford. Ashley Young is one of the best right-backs in the country. Vitalii Mykolenko was excellent on the other side. Jarrad Branthwaite is back and settled. With Everton able to play on the back foot without reproach, everyone is pulling in the same direction.
It is phenomenal that games against Manchester City, Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Tottenham engender less panic and dread than the home FA Cup tie with Peterborough in between or the visit of Leicester in early February, but that is just part of the ride.
Morgan Rogers
Unai Emery finally has his midfield. It has taken time to fully justify the sale of Douglas Luiz but given a full deck to play with, Aston Villa’s strongest hand in the centre is as good as anyone’s.
The physicality and defensive solidity of Amadou Onana and Boubacar Kamara roaming behind the lock-picking brilliance of Youri Tielemans provides a stunning balance which the wide players given licence to roam into the middle only enhance.
John McGinn is so often the bellwether in this team – Villa’s collective displays reflect his own as an individual for better or worse – while it is difficult to think of many players like Morgan Rogers.
The idea he Had A Point To Prove Against His Former Employers is some shade of absurd; Pep Guardiola has made transfer mistakes in hindsight but not finding a squad place for an obviously talented but wholly inexperienced forward in a Treble-winning team is not one of them.
Yet Villa were in a position to turn that inexperience into a strength. Rogers plays without inhibition or restraint as the ideal modern forward, one who can carry the ball, score, assist and contribute defensively against any opponent.
It still boggles the mind ever so slightly that he only made his Premier League debut in February and became crucial to a Champions League side long before December. Only Emi Martinez and Tielemans rank higher than Rogers for Villa minutes so far this season.
Sandro Tonali
Perhaps it is no coincidence that Newcastle have been Tonali dissonant without their missing midfield piece. It is understandable that the Italian took time to find his stride after missing almost a full year of action but Eddie Howe has his best holding option back and it shows.
Tonali has started five of the seven games Newcastle have played since the last international break, including wins over Leicester, Brentford – against whom he scored twice – and Ipswich, as well as draws with Crystal Palace and Liverpool. The two he missed in that time were the defeats to West Ham and Brentford.
His calm and control brings an invaluable dimension to a side built on energy and chaos. Who knew Tonali was better than Sean Longstaff?
READ MORE: Newcastle cannot sell ‘ideal’ Arsenal signing after funding phenomenal Forest – 3pm Blackout
Myles Lewis-Skelly
Receiving his first Premier League booking before his first Premier League minute set a high bar but this has been a disarmingly impressive debut season for Lewis-Skelly already.
It is not easy to gain the trust of Mikel Arteta and even tougher to keep it. That seems to be magnified for players coming through from the academy but as a combative, composed and technically proficient midfielder helping fill in at a different position, Lewis-Skelly has earned that faith.
Two Premier League starts for the 18-year-old this campaign is already more than Reiss Nelson was given in the last two full seasons combined. A baptism by fire at left-back did Bukayo Saka no harm and history might well be repeating itself.
Chelsea’s 2024/25 defence
Chelsea’s last four goalless Premier League draws have been delivered by different managers: Graham Potter versus Fulham in February 2023, Bruno Saltor against Liverpool in April 2023, Mauricio Pochettino at Bournemouth in September 2023 and now Enzo Maresca versus Everton in December 2024.
Well done to Coventry for appointing as their manager the only coach who could not maintain that trend.
There can be an element of disappointment at a lack of breakthrough but the key is that Chelsea did not lose their patience and kept a strong foundation when the game’s natural ebb and flow went against them. It was the sort of mature performance which has long seemed beyond them.
Chelsea’s 2004/05 defence
It is very possibly the safest of all unbreakable Premier League records for good reason. If 15 goals conceded across an entire season did not already sound ridiculous enough, the strong defences of Arsenal and Liverpool both exceeding it on the same weekend before Christmas only solidifies its heritage.
Premier League losers
Bernardo Silva
The contradiction in this Manchester City mess is that the more experienced players have been their biggest problem, yet a manager entirely unaccustomed to such a fallow period knows no solution other than to lean on them.
Ederson, Kyle Walker and Ilkay Gundogan have been varying levels of atrocious, while John Stones would ordinarily be no longer reliable enough to properly factor in if his manager was not so averse to using youth.
Pep Guardiola’s 2018 resolve to never sell Silva has likely only been strengthened by their current plight. There would probably be a couple more FFP charges involved but he has often felt like the player the manager would clone if given the option: the Portuguese has played almost anywhere from left-back to centre-forward at the Etihad but only ever out of coaching efficiency or ingenuity; now it is pure desperation.
“He plays attacking midfielder, holding midfielder, always defensively making an incredible effort,” Guardiola said of Silva, who started on the right wing but ended up shielding a makeshift defence. Statistics never tell the whole story but no shots, tackles or interceptions suggests a player torn between putting fires out at one end and starting them at the other.
A possible solution Guardiola seems reluctant to countenance is to call on Manchester City’s famed academy some more. It is understandable not to want to potentially drag those players down with a sinking ship but at this stage James McAtee can’t possibly be worse than Gundogan, Jahmai Simpson-Pusey is rare proof of a centre-half with fully functioning body parts and Jacob Wright is at least worth a look in the Rodri role.
Guardiola’s tendency in defeat is to blame his tactics rather than the players; it is time to bring in some fresh faces to test whether that theory holds any water.
READ MORE: Guardiola sack now a kindness as Tielemans and Rogers embarrass The Old Men Of Man City
James Maddison
The only player to score in more than one of the eight Premier League games in history which have ended 6-3, and he lost them both. The perfect Spurs player.
Manchester United
The good news is that Ruben Amorim has noticed. The bad news is that the problem has spanned about three managers before him and is more ingrained into the club’s culture than playing academy graduates and Nou Camp corners.
“We have to maintain the calm when you suffer a goal,” he said. “The players need to understand the game has different moments.”
Two goals in three minutes against Bournemouth. Two in nine against Spurs. Two in eight against Forest. Two in five against Bodo/Glimt. Amorim’s short reign has already been characterised by the sort of sudden collective collapses which undermined anything Erik ten Hag and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer tried to build.
Goals beget goals at Manchester United, only this time that flow is in completely the wrong direction. At their best they could obliterate teams in quick bursts; every other game now seems to include the concession of one goal prompting a disintegration of systems and confidence.
Brentford
Whatever the results of that internal investigation into the club’s medical practices after the difficulties of last season, Brentford might consider keeping them open.
Brentford’s only fit and recognised senior full-back is Jayden Meghoma, he of 517 first-team career minutes. Selection problems forced Ben Mee into making his first Premier League start since February and they only worsened with Kristoffer Ajer leaving the stadium on crutches. Igor Thiago waited three and a half months to make his debut after joining for a club-record fee, and has been sidelined again immediately after his first start with a joint infection.
Much of that is out of Brentford’s control but an already thin squad has been exposed by a curious approach to the transfer market. The Bees pulled out of a January move for Antonio Nusa on medical grounds but spent £10m on Gustavo Nunes, who has still not overcome the back problem he joined with. Both Rico Henry and Aaron Hickey have been out for over a year with no replacements signed and mixed messages over their recoveries adding to the frustration.
Their bench against Forest featured four teenagers and four more players aged 23 or under. Their combined career Premier League appearance total of 81 is fewer than Mads Roerslev (88), who came on and obviously had to be substituted with a stoppage-time head injury.
Ruud van Nistelrooy
It doesn’t half feel like his desperation to cash in on those shares as soon as possible and take a Premier League job might have backfired. Wolves might well not have shown the same level of interest as Leicester but that was a particularly painful example of how waiting for things to play out after his decent Manchester United caretaker reign might have been beneficial.
The selections of Danny Ward, James Justin and Jordan Ayew not only backfired horribly but translated into a toxic reception from the supporters. When one of the tenuous reasons given for Van Nistelrooy’s appointment was the prospect of uniting the fanbase that really does not bode well.
But really this is just a dreadfully assembled squad, relying on the attacking threat of a player nearing 40, slow defenders and a lightweight midfield. Most managers would struggle with it, not least one whose only experience has come with teams expected to dominate possession at the other end of the table, and who has only been able to add to his coaching staff with goalkeeping expert Jelle ten Rouwelaar, who cannot hope to engender any meaningful improvement from the current incumbent.
Fulham
Marco Silva made five changes to his starting line-up from the brilliant Liverpool draw but only teenage debutant Josh King took the chance. The other four were very possibly Fulham’s worst performers, from the ineffective Timothy Castagne to the uncertain Calvin Bassey, the anonymous Tom Cairney and the bizarrely poor Rodrigo Muniz.
It was a calculated gamble in terms of selection at home to a poor side but Silva got it wrong.
Niclas Fullkrug
One off-target shot and a single completed pass in 57 minutes was bad enough; West Ham equalising almost immediately after he was substituted can’t have felt great.
“It’s true that now he’s not in his best way, but it’s true that he needs minutes to achieve this level that we need,” said Julen Lopetegui of a £27.5m striker whose acclimatisation has had to be fast-tracked due to Michail Antonio’s serious leg injury.
There is sympathy in that respect but West Ham really cannot afford passengers. Fair play to Jarrod Bowen for picking up Antonio’s baton of striker West Ham cannot replace despite signing loads of expensive strikers and not really actually being a striker himself.
Brighton
In only one of their seven full Premier League seasons have Brighton dropped more points from winning positions than the Seagulls have already squandered after just 17 games in 2024/25.
Four of those wasted leads were against the teams currently in 14th, 17th, 18th and 20th. It is a very real problem Fabian Hurzeler must address.
Russell Martin
Massive fan of caretaker Southampton manager Simon Rusk saying “one or two” players might have been “disappointed” with the sacking of Martin but ultimately the squad “needed some form of leadership and direction”. Ooft.
His game plan in the Carabao Cup against Liverpool focused on being “very hard to beat” and the same facets were present against Fulham: Southampton had less of the ball and not nearly as much of an attacking threat in either game but lost the first by a single goal and emerged from the second with a creditable draw.
There are different ways to play the game, but inherent in that is a need to adapt your own chosen method when necessary. If Martin’s unshakeable belief in his philosophy had budged even just an inch to accommodate this kind of performance he would still be in Premier League employment; this evidence suggested it certainly wasn’t the players who struggled with the adjustment.
Nathaniel Clyne and Chris Richards
Palace have not won a Premier League game either has started this season, never mind both. Oliver Glasner might consider wrapping Daniel Munoz and Trevoh Chalobah up in the most cotton of wools.
Aro Muric
Five errors leading to a goal in 17 games. Heurelho Gomes (2008/09) and Ali Al-Habsi’s (2012/13) shared record of seven in a single season should be broken before the year is out.
Gary O’Neil
Can’t feel great seeing both your former teams thriving and winning 3-0 after sacking you.
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