Thomas Frank, Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva and Nuno Espirito Santo must be looking awfully attractive to Spurs and Newcastle. Russell Martin, less so.
You can read Robbie Savage’s winners and losers here.
Thomas Frank
The record for most home goals scored in a Premier League season is 68, set by Chelsea in 2009/10. At their current rate, a Brentford side which battled relegation last campaign and sold their star striker in the summer will push them mightily close. None of this is normal.
Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa have long excelled as a partnership and individuals who do not demand the limelight nearly as much as Ivan Toney. Igor Thiago made his full debut against Newcastle and already looks acclimated to the physicality and pace of the division – no player won more aerial duels. And Kevin Schade has emerged as a ludicrously effective option to stretch defences and punish mistakes.
Frank cannot be faulted for his timing in taking Brentford into the top half. A handful of bigger, more illustrious clubs could well be searching for managers soon but there is something about his success at a bus stop in Hounslow which feels irreplicable elsewhere.
As foolish as Spurs, Newcastle, West Ham or Everton would be not to target him, Frank might well be even more stupid to take the bait and leave behind something as special as he has helped build at Brentford.
Nuno Espirito Santo
Between their promotion in summer 2022 and Steve Cooper’s sacking in December 2023, Nottingham Forest won two of 28 away games. Those victories came at relegated Southampton and peak nonsense Chelsea.
Nuno Espirito Santo’s first win after replacing Cooper did tease a change to that trend: a 3-1 rout of St James’ Park last Boxing Day. But at no stage did it feel as though the Portuguese would become the first Forest manager to win at Anfield and Old Trafford in the same Premier League season.
As ever, the beauty for Forest is in the simplicity of it all. Two of their tallest players scored headers, their most talented individuals on the ball either assisted (Elliot Anderson) or assisted and scored (Morgan Gibbs-White), their mastery of housery wound up the biggest “baby” and that resolute defence survived a half-hour onslaught to emerge with all three points.
Forest won nine games in both their two top-flight campaigns since being promoted. They are on seven victories with 23 games remaining. Wolves felt things had stagnated and he was never the right fit for Tottenham, but Nuno has found his perfect home while his former clubs doubt their current relationships.
Cole Palmer
Much is made of Palmer’s perceived intelligence – and there is certainly an element to which he plays up to the caricature in interviews – but his explanation of the second penalty against Spurs was revealing.
Whoever oversaw his media-training will have nodded sagely at the admission that “I’m just trying to score and thankfully it went in,” but adding that “when I’ve stepped back looked at the clock and thought the game’s a bit frantic. The keeper was ready to dive so I chipped it” made perfect sense.
Fraser Forster, having already made a few decent saves, always was likely to be carried away by the momentum and prospect of a match-saving moment and cajoled into picking either side. Palmer’s Panenka was pragmatism disguised as insouciance; he identified the most likely route to goal and took it. The technical expertise was just a happy by product.
It was quite Bergkamp in its use of skill as a form of efficiency. Say what you will of Palmer’s IQ, but in a footballing sense there are few quite as clever.
READ MORE: 16 Conclusions on Spurs 3-4 Chelsea: Postecoglou sack, Sancho, Bissouma, Cucurella and the title
Andoni Iraola
The mere concept of ‘finishers’ remains enough for any Proper Football Man to lament that ‘they were just attacking subs when I was playing’, but Iraola has mastered the art so thoroughly that he has earned the right to call them whatever he wants.
Bournemouth have had more different goalscoring substitutes (seven) than Newcastle have had different scorers at any time this season (five). Their nine goals from the 76th minute onwards is more than any other club and them becoming the first team in Premier League history to win two away games after trailing as late as the 87th is no coincidence.
The instinct is that it’s unsustainable but the reality is that it’s a phenomenally effective back-up plan. If Bournemouth don’t press you off the pitch in 90 minutes, they’ll just use added time to pick you apart.
Aston Villa
A first clean sheet Premier League win since April’s ransacking of the Emirates, and a first Premier League victory in which Ollie Watkins did not start since November 2022, when his deputies were Danny Ings and Emi Buendia.
Boubacar Kamara’s return has instilled more bite and solidity in midfield, while Unai Emery is becoming more comfortable with his options in rotation. The Champions League should theoretically help unlock a squad capable of managing without first-choice players at centre-half, full-back and centre-forward, even though Tim Sherwood accused the Villa manager of showing Southampton “absolutely no respect whatsoever” by playing “reserve players”.
Emery made four changes to his starting line-up from the Brentford midweek win to bring in Diego Carlos, Pau Torres, Ian Maatsen and Jhon Duran, three of whom cost at least £30m with the other attracting interest worth twice as much.
Southampton will probably take that level of contempt at this stage. And after turning an eight-game winless streak into successive victories, Villa will hardly care.
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Ruud van Nistelrooy
A 21-game unbeaten run as manager, dating back to February 2023, and still it is difficult to work out just how good Van Nistelrooy is.
It has certainly been a solid start to life with Leicester. There are few more potent things in world football than Jamie Vardy under a new manager and while it feels a little rudimentary to praise a coach for salvaging a result after bringing on another forward, it is the sort of thing which only engenders belief in a coach.
In any case, Leicester continuing their knack for scoring late on is a welcome boost for Van Nistelrooy. Only Bournemouth have more goals after 90 minutes (five) than the Foxes, whose four in second-half stoppage-time so far have helped directly earn four points. And they didn’t even need Jordan Ayew to do it this time.
Antonee Robinson
The fact that Marco Silva has managed this Fulham rise while losing seemingly irreplaceable players in successive summers will go some way to softening the inevitable blow when interest in Robinson is finally acted upon this summer.
Aleksandar Mitrovic and Joao Palhinha are not missed in these parts, but the manager knows the role of “one of the best left-backs in this league” will be tougher to duplicate.
Few players have handled the threat of Bukayo Saka quite as well while still providing thrust and balance in attack. Robinson leads the way for combined tackles and interceptions across the league this season and has made as many passes into the penalty area as the Arsenal forward.
Silva has Arsenal’s number but is wise to keep it stored safely in Robinson’s pocket. If nothing else, his name and position lends itself to an easy if fairly expensive transition from Andy Robertson at Liverpool.
He is in the Premier League XI of the season so far. And deservedly so.
Will Hughes
A stunning ball for Daniel Munoz and wonderful corner for Maxence Lacroix established Hughes as the best ball-playing midfielder on a pitch also containing Kevin De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan.
But really the most startling aspect of Hughes’ performance against Manchester City was that he did not commit a single foul. For those even vaguely familiar with his particularly brand of midfielding, that is an incredible statistic.
The 29-year-old is rarely factored in to ideal Palace sides with everyone fit and available – supporters are pining for that Cheick Doucoure and Adam Wharton pivot – but he has been their best player this season so far.
Premier League losers
Russell Martin
Having previously been of the idea Southampton will and perhaps should stick with Martin through an inevitable relegation in the hope of short-term pain being followed by long-term growth, his comments after the Villa defeat felt like a line in the sand.
Digging out players and officials is one thing, but having a pop at travelling supporters who have undertaken a three-hour journey at great expense in spite of a weather warning to watch their team disappoint yet again cannot possibly end well.
“We played out and got pressed just before that, which then makes Joe kick and it gets a cheer from the supporters, and we concede within about 10 seconds, so it is what it is,” Martin said after the game.
“They have a right to criticise everything else but it’s really important to understand why we do things. We kick it to our two smallest players and it comes back.”
For a start, that’s a curious omission of the massive mix-up between Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Nathan Wood when defending a high ball, which was a far bigger problem than the inexperienced Joe Lumley understandably going long immediately after making a mistake when playing it short.
But ultimately that is a cowardly attempt to shift responsibility onto anyone else. The idea that Martin’s way is the only one viable had long since worn thin with many as results and performances deteriorated with no sign of chance, but those quotes were the breaking point for the rest.
It feels very Vincent Kompany in terms of using a club as a vehicle for personal gain to showcase an attractive coaching philosophy which is nevertheless entirely unsustainable at the current level. At least Burnley had a chance of survival for most of last season; only the doomed Sheffield United in 2020/21 have ever earned fewer points after 15 games of a Premier League campaign than this hopeless Southampton side. It does not feel like Bayern Munich will be watching with great interest.
Spurs
With two narratively similar defeats to Chelsea as bookends, it is difficult to shake the idea that this just isn’t working.
From the 4-1 home loss littered with tactical inflexibility, individual mistakes and injuries in November 2023 to the 4-3 home loss littered with tactical inflexibility, individual mistakes and injuries in December 2024, Spurs have lost more league games than they have won (19 to 17) while picking up fewer points than Bournemouth and only four more than West Ham, having played two matches more.
Tottenham do have to stick with a plan eventually through periods like these if they are to complete this perennial painful rebuild, but it makes sense to wait for one to emerge which works more often than it doesn’t. The flashes of Postecoglou brilliance are no longer even close to eclipsing the dark shadows of these increasingly frequent moments.
This was why the Manchester City thrashing meant so little; that remains this unfathomable team’s only win in their last seven games. Performances and results like that should represent unbeatable highs but for Spurs and Postecoglou the inevitable subsequent downturn numbs the euphoria somewhat.
Manchester United
The good news is that Ruben Amorim has been here before. “I had this and worse in Sporting in the beginning,” he said after suffering consecutive league defeats for only the second time in his career.
“I know the feeling for me is the same. For the world it’s completely different because you know Sporting is in Portugal, but in Manchester you have a lot of attention, but for me it’s the same. The same feeling,” he added. And therein lies the problem: while growing pains in Portugal amount to an eight-game unbeaten start, in England it results in as many defeats as wins from the first five matches.
This was always going to take time. The problems Amorim inherited cannot be solved in a matter of weeks, no less in the middle of the most congested period of the schedule. Across his four league games so far there have been 20 different players used in the starting line-up; experimentation is inevitable, necessary and never the best foundation for immediate success.
But these setbacks do chip away slowly at belief, which will be the biggest test of Amorim’s suitability and aptitude. This is a fundamentally fragile team and while performances may slightly outweigh results in terms of importance currently, that cannot go on for too long. Even just to navigate this midweek-to-weekend grind it might be necessary to pause these trials in favour of more pragmatism, because these players have shown enough times already that their confidence levels can undermine any manager.
And while the exit of Dan Ashworth is ostensibly a positive for Amorim, it is also proof that this regime will not stick with something which is not working. The Portuguese is not at all close to that stage but stressing the need for time and patience less than a month into the post does not bode particularly well.
Kyle Walker
The reports of his demise have, if anything, been greatly understated. This has been a drop-off of monumental proportions, a fall from grace to contend with the very worst in Premier League history.
For years Walker defied the process of time. His athletic prowess and reading of the game belied his age and so often this winning machine leaned on him to carry out the thankless tasks and dirty work required to prop Manchester City up. Those six fingers Pep Guardiola held up recently would have been burned without that famed recovery pace.
But it no longer feels like a game goes by without the right-back making at least one costly mistake. He played Munoz onside for the first Palace goal and failed to even jump against the might of Lacroix before throwing his arms up in the air in existential angst.
Manchester City have won one of the eight Premier League games Walker has started this season. His continued presence in this team might be the most damning evaluation possible of their abhorrent recent squad building. No other serious side would have him near their starting line-up.
Newcastle
There is always a Rafael Benitez quote for any given problem.
“I have talked in the past about the ‘short blanket’…if you cover your head, you have your feet cold, but if you cover your feet, you have your head cold,” the Spaniard once said during his Newcastle reign about the “balance” between having a solid defence and strong attack.
It appears to have been handed down to Eddie Howe, who is no closer to solving the problem. Newcastle scored three goals and conceded just four in five games from the Manchester City draw to the Arsenal win, then scored nine and conceded 11 in their next five from the Forest victory to the Brentford defeat.
There is a maddening inconsistency to their performances, results and output. Only Crystal Palace, Ipswich and Brighton have earned a higher proportion of their overall points in games against the Big Six than Newcastle, and two of those teams are fighting relegation while the other has supplemented that tally well enough against the rest to be in contention for European qualification.
As well as Newcastle raise their game against Your Liverpools and Your Arsenals, it does feel like Howe’s tactical approach has leaned too far into that aggressive underdog mentality which cannot translate nearly as effectively against Your Brentfords and Your Crystal Palaces.
In the Premier League this season, Newcastle have failed to win any of the five games in which they have had 57% possession (their total against Brentford) or more, while going unbeaten in the five matches in which they have had less than 50%. It would be difficult to find a neater way to sum up the strengths and weaknesses of any given manager’s philosophy.
Arsenal
Not a poor result by any means in itself but at a time when Arsenal need something closer to perfection, there are just too many chinks apparent in the armour.
The set-piece criticism feels misdirected; chance creation through corners and free-kicks is hardly a stick with which to beat any team, yet it has helped obscure a drop-off in open play. Arsenal still rely heavily on Saka and Martin Odegaard to make the difference and while their quality generally does, the lack of a plan in case of emergency is clear.
Yet again, scratching away at the surface of a world-class first team is uncomfortably revealing. Jakub Kiwior is not of the requisite standard. Mikel Merino and Ethan Nwaneri are still getting up to speed from drastically different starting points. Gabriel Jesus cannot change the course of games anymore. Raheem Sterling no longer even seems trusted enough to be given the chance.
Arsenal will look back on those four games in October and November and know full well what cost them if Mikel Arteta does not turn this around by season’s end, but that has only increased the pressure on results since and that relentlessness they displayed in the second half of last season is nowhere to be seen.
Brighton
“We got punished for two easy mistakes. I think it happens now several times in the season, so I think learning from it is difficult to use. We need to find the right game management in this period of time to take away the three points,” said Fabian Hurzeler.
Only the current top four have led a greater proportion of their Premier League games this season than Brighton (36.1%), whose position in seventh tells the rest of the story: they have dropped points despite leading as late as the 68th and 70th minutes against Nottingham Forest and Liverpool, while this was their second draw from 2-0 up in the 86th minute against a team battling relegation.
As brilliant as Brighton are, there can only be frustration at how they should be even higher.
Aro Muric
It feels absolutely right that the record for most errors leading to a goal in a single Premier League season is currently shared at seven by Ali Al-Habsi (2012/13) and Heurelho Gomes (2008/09). That is unimprovably just correct in all manner of ways. And fair play to Muric for racking up four in 15 games to challenge them.
