A typically brilliant day of Boxing Day action saw Liverpool take a decisive step towards the Premier League title, but the banter club title remains locked in a magnificent three-way battle between the Manchester clubs and Spurs from which it remains impossible to pick a winner. Or loser.
Winners
Liverpool
They’re going to win it, and they clearly absolutely know they’re going to win it. A home victory over Leicester isn’t particularly compelling evidence of anything much on its own, but the serenity is. Even after going a goal down early on there seemed little genuine reason to suppose something out of the ordinary might occur, that Liverpool might not solve this little puzzle they’d set themselves.
Those mildly irritating draws against Newcastle and Fulham have been forgotten in a flurry of goals this week, with Mo Salah’s late points-sealer making Liverpool the first team to reach 40 this season.
But the best result of the day for Liverpool was perhaps not even their own, but Chelsea’s late and unexpected collapse at home against Fulham. It was a reminder that Enzo Maresca’s side are – entirely understandably – not yet truly ready for a title challenge.
Liverpool’s main and possibly only rivals for the title are currently, therefore, to be found in fourth place and nine points off the pace.
Having started the season as a forgotten third wheel expected to need time to adjust post-Klopp, they will end the first half of the season as overwhelming favourites for their second Premier League title. It’s not been a bad few months.
Mo Salah
And while the reasons for Liverpool’s excellence are many and varied and layered, there’s no point being too clever about identifying the main one.
Whatever Mo Salah’s future may hold, his present involves being better than he has ever been for Liverpool, which is really quite startlingly good indeed.
His late goal against Leicester takes him three clear in the race for the Golden Boot with a game in hand, while across just his last 10 Premier League games he’s contributed 12 goals and seven assists. Or, you know, a pretty solid whole season’s contribution for a normal wide forward. Salah, as absolutely nobody needs telling, is not a normal wide forward.
Nottingham Forest
Just a thrillingly wonderful time to be alive. Fears that the utter mortifying embarrassment of contriving to lose a game of association football against Manchester City might derail their hitherto excellent season have proved unfounded, with the response being a four-match winning run in which they’ve seen off Manchester United, Aston Villa and Tottenham while perhaps genuinely most impressively of all also coming away from Brentford with all three points, an achievement football scientists had long considered impossible.
Nobody should get over-excited by a win against silly old Spurs, of course, and nor should there be undue praise for adopting the very obvious tactics that make it so very easy to first stifle and then punish this profoundly idiotic football team. But few have done it so efficiently and unfussily as Forest, who happily allowed Spurs to have two-thirds of the possession while backing themselves to ensure that got the visitors precisely nowhere while also knowing they would never be more than a few seconds and a few crisp passes away from that soft, soft underbelly.
The goal that would turn out to be Forest’s winner was the perfect microcosm of a flawlessly executed 90-minute plan.
They will surely fall back below Arsenal tonight, but even that is a sentence that feels absurd to write. It is very real, though, as is the five-point cushion Forest now enjoy over fifth place.
Forest could also now lose all 20 remaining games this season and very probably not get relegated. We don’t think they will or should do that, but it’s still nice to be that certain of avoiding relegation with half a season still to play, and also it would be funny if they did now go ‘Well that’s our season’s goal achieved’ and just down tools for the next six months.
Fulham
A huge bonus win at a ground where Fulham rarely thrive sees them eighth in the table and very much above the cut line just beginning to develop among all that mid-table shod.
After the disappointment of the goalless draw with Southampton, here was a win to have Fulham once again looking up and dreaming big. There is already a very strong likelihood that fifth place will deliver a Champions League place this season and the delicious prospect of a mass scramble to claim it.
Fulham have currently positioned themselves in that scramble, which is more than can be said for Tottenham or Manchester United.
Wolves
Back-to-back wins under Vitor Pereira to lift themselves out of the relegation zone for the first time this season. And also for the first time this season just generally having the look and feel of a team that is going to be okay. It’s not just that the table now shows them to be better than Leicester as well as Ipswich and Southampton, it’s that you know the truth of it deep in your bones.
Manchester United were yet again willing participants in their own downfall, of course, but few could argue Wolves were not deserving of the three points that eventually came their way after Bruno Fernandes’ red card. They were the better team against 11 and compellingly so against 10.
And talking of taking your chance to inflict further misery on a very silly Big Six club in the midst of a full-blown panic attack, Wolves’ next task is a trip to Spurs to take on their literally, metaphorically and philosophically non-existent defence.
Vitor Pereira
Easy game, this Premier League management lark. Don’t know why others continue to shamble around making it look so difficult, to be honest.
Matheus Cunha
Legitimate questions remain around the vaguely farcical way he remains available for some really quite significant matches when a ban for the Ipswich shenanigans is so obviously in the offing, but here is a man making the best of the situation as it appears before him.
With Arsenal’s latest INJURY CRISIS seeing not just one but a genuinely unthinkable two players out for a little while, they are already casting eyes in Cunha’s direction and he did nothing to take himself out of the shop window with his all-round starring display against United.
Do still wonder about the long-term repercussions for his future from that ridiculous reaction at Ipswich, though.
West Ham
Not the most convincing of wins against Southampton, but a powerfully useful one. For a while now, West Ham have been an interesting team, one whose place was not yet certain. Were they in the relegation picture, or were they just another one of those teams in the vast mid-table morass between about fifth and 14th? Two wins and two draws in the last four appear to have answered the question decisively for a side that now sits three points closer to the top six than they do the bottom three.
Newcastle
Have spent large parts of this season looking wildly unconvincing and there’s little doubt they are the grateful beneficiaries of three Big Six teams descending into genuine farce, but clear signs now that Newcastle have emerged from their stumbles to place themselves perfectly to cash in on all the nonsense going off elsewhere.
Okay, fine, they like the rest of us didn’t quite account for Nottingham Forest doing what they’re doing but a serene victory over fellow contenders Aston Villa makes it three wins from three games with 11 goals scored and none conceded to leave them in prime position for at least fifth and the already seemingly near-certain Champions League place that will bring this season.
And their current form means they can approach the next week with its games against Man United and Spurs as one of huge potential opportunity to consolidate that status rather than one that jeopardises it.
Alexander Isak
A tricky start to the season riddled with doubts over form and fitness has been swept away by a run of 10 goals in 10 games that have lifted him to fourth on the Premier League goalscoring chart. Some effort for a player who didn’t score his second goal of the season until the final weekend of October.
Sean Dyche
Absolutely in his element, isn’t he? Arsenal, Chelsea and now Man City all brought to heel and unable to find a compelling answer to the Dycheball puzzle.
We must admit we wondered what the actual point of having Sean Dyche as your manager was if you’re just going to concede goals all the time as Everton did so dreadfully at the start of the season.
But a side that conceded 13 goals in its first four games has shipped only a further nine in the subsequent 13, four of which came so bafflingly at Old Trafford.
Sure, nobody in the entire division has scored fewer goals than Everton and all this effort has still only dragged them three points clear of the bottom three, but say what you like about the tenets of Dycheball at least it’s an ethos.
Losers
Manchester United
It’s been a mess of a year on and off the field for Manchester United and all the indications are that it may yet get worse before it gets better in 2025.
Off the pitch, we can only hope that Jim Ratcliffe was visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve. Otherwise it seems safe to assume his reign of cartoonishly petty terror will continue unabated, with nasty pointless little swipes in every direction that always, always, always by some unfortunate coincidence target the little guy.
We do understand why at the time United fans were so keen to welcome Ratcliffe as neither Glazer nor Qatari but the idea of some benevolent billionaire was always far-fetched. Although we must surely all admit none of us predicted he would be quite such a cliched megarich super-villain.
On the field, it’s been one chaotic disaster after another. Even the FA Cup win is tainted by the long-term problems it’s caused by earning Erik Ten Hag an unjustified and unjustifiable stay of execution that was a) never going to last long and b) always likely to f*** things right up.
And now we are where we are. United have brought in one of the best young coaches in Europe but in the worst possible circumstances. Everyone knew Ruben Amorim was a coach who likes to do things a certain way. Everyone knew United didn’t possess a squad anywhere close to being capable of doing things that way. To bring him in at the busiest time of the season was a dereliction of duty from the club’s new and already fracturing brains trust.
Ruben Amorim
We like him a lot and do think he can make this work if given the time and backing required. But it’s increasingly clear that it’s going to be a lot of time and a lot of backing. We’re really not at all sure any longer that United will be able to ride out the storm to get the potential benefits. They’ve f***ed this so badly.
But while Amorim has been dealt a bad hand he hasn’t played it flawlessly either. He’s been impressive with his handling and understanding of the scale of the job in his off-field duties; he doesn’t – like so many United managers before him – appear simply too small for so large a job. That gives hope for the future if meaning little in the present.
He knew what he’d inherited and had this squad’s number from the start – that ‘storm coming’ line after a superficially impressive win over Everton was not some vague expectation-checking cliché but a precise prediction based on known and understood factors. Nevertheless, one does wonder whether an absolute rigid insistence on cramming assorted sh*tty square pegs into his predetermined round holes isn’t making things even worse at a time when things are already bad.
They are miserably underpowered as an attacking force; all 13 of the teams above them and two of the five below have scored more goals than United this season, and that’s a problem when you also have a defence that can’t be relied upon to avoid conceding two direct corners in the space of a week.
Bruno Fernandes
Man United’s captain and talisman continues to define their 2024 in almost absurdly perfect fashion. Talented but vulnerable, completely unsure of himself in the new system and so desperate to show how much he cares that he frequently makes a bad situation worse.
His first yellow card was soft, but his second – so early in the second half too – was brainless. Two red cards in two painfully damaging defeats before the season is halfway done isn’t ideal captaincy, it has to be said.
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Chelsea
No need to panic, no need to go overboard. Missteps in the Enzo Maresca era have been few and far between. But failing to secure even a point at home to Fulham having led with 81 minutes on the clock is a major stumble at a wholly inopportune time.
A victory that appeared for so long to be on the cards would have consolidated second place and put pressure on leaders Liverpool in the late game. As it is, Chelsea may have proven Maresca right about where they fit into a title race (i.e. not at all).
It’s not all bad, of course. Chelsea’s own competence and the nonsense going off elsewhere means they still find themselves well placed in the scrap for third place with Nottingham Forest that we all definitely expected at the start of the season.
Enzo Maresca
Don’t want to go in two-footed here on a manager who has exceeded all reasonable expectations at a club bedevilled by nonsense in recent years, but what doubts there have been about him have centred on the management of his defenders’ workload, and the game management across the last two games has left much to be desired.
Maresca has been adamant all along that his team and squad is not yet ready for a title challenge, and that’s fair enough. But maybe there was a bit of self-reflection in that assessment too.
Tottenham
Yet another defeat and a timely, perhaps vividly necessary reminder that not all their losses are the carefree wild ‘entertaining’ ‘fun’ of the Liverpool or Chelsea or Brighton games.
Throw this miserable effort into a big bowl of sh*t alongside the performances in defeat against Ipswich and Palace and Newcastle and Bournemouth and Arsenal, as well as in the draws against Leicester and Fulham.
That adds up to nine league defeats already – only three teams have suffered more this season – and the vast majority of them not some heroic ‘glory, glory’ nonsense but just a team that is a bit crap.
The mitigation that undoubtedly exists in their defensive injury crisis is more than outweighed by the sheer paucity of their full-strength attacking endeavours here. And again, it’s no one-off.
There are several myths and delusions around this Spurs side that need nipping in the bud, and the idea that even in defeat they are always thrillingly entertaining is right at the top of the pile.
However brilliant their very best football is – and it is absolutely brilliant – that really is not their default level. And nor even is thrillingly excitingly vulnerable. Their default, standard level of performance based on straightforward frequency of occurrence is Quite Boringly Drearily Sh*t. For a team that so proudly sets out to win every game, they don’t half lose an awful lot of them.
Ange Postecoglou
He’s finished. Firmly in when-not-if territory now, and it would be a major surprise if he sees out the season. This was the worst kind of defeat for him to suffer against the worst kind of opponent on the back of the wild win over Man United and the ludicrous thrashing from Liverpool.
This was both a stark reminder of just how drab and lifeless so many of Postecoglou’s many, many, many Spurs losses have been, while also the most pointed of all possible rejoinders to the increasingly unhinged idea put forward by fans and rivals alike that Postecoglou cannot be expected to deliver any more than mid-table irrelevance at a club that for all its penchant for nonsense has finished outside the top six only twice in the last 15 years. Spurs are Spurs and the club is run by fools appeared to be the main reasons Ange should be spared any blame.
This is now guaranteed to be Tottenham’s worst first half of a Premier League season since 2008/09 with its infamous two-points-from-eight-games start and subsequent Harry Redknapp rescue job.
It was always ridiculous to let the manager off so easily for a run of form worse than those that saw any of his predecessors up to and including Mauricio Pochettino sacked, but even more so when you lose meekly at Evangelos Marinakis-owned Nottingham Forest, for whom victory lifts them above Arsenal into third. Is it still a resigned shrug of the shoulders and ‘Can’t expect any better than this while Daniel Levy remains?’ Will it take Spurs being dragged into an actual relegation fight for some to wake from their deluded slumber?
Tottenham’s defence against Wolves
Radu Dragusin limped off injured and Djed Spence got himself sent off late on to leave Spurs’ already threadbare defence looking actually non-existent for the weekend’s clash with an improving Wolves side who beat them home and away last season.
That pair join Guglielmo Vicario, Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven, Ben Davies on the list of confirmed absentees, while Destiny Udogie continues to struggle with both form and fitness.
Quite who joins the suddenly untouchable and vital Archie Gray in that Tottenham defence on Sunday is now a complete mystery.
Manchester City
Just not even remotely a surprise now to see Manchester City fail to beat Everton at home, and the fact Sean Dyche’s side are in the middle of one of those gloriously stubborn spells they enjoy from time to time in which they simply refuse to lose to good teams having spent much of the season losing spectacularly to bad ones like Spurs or Man United provides only the flimsiest of silver linings.
The stark overall picture is now one win from the last 13 games for a manager and group of players who genuinely appear to have no explanation for what’s happening or any answers for how to solve it.
Pep Guardiola
This is a run that would have seen any other Premier League manager sacked, make no mistake about that. Mikel Arteta could not have survived a drop-off this bad. Everything Guardiola’s achieved at City understandably makes things different, as does that increasingly awkward and desperate-looking – from club and manager – new contract he recently signed.
But there’s a reason why a run this bad with no obvious solution at hand would in almost all other imaginable scenarios lead to the manager being replaced. City won’t sack Guardiola and fair enough, but we surely can’t be far from the point where he decides he’s just lost the strength and stomach for the fight. Does he really have the energy for the rebuild City need in both the immediate short-term and more importantly over the next couple of years?
Guardiola’s preference for a small squad is a big factor in what’s been allowed to happen to a group that leans too heavily on too few old warhorses who are no longer able to do what they once did. For multiple reasons both on-pitch and off, change is coming one way or another for City. And never has it looked more likely that this will also involve a new manager.
He’s been absurdly sensational for an absurdly long time, but he and his ageing team look totally, utterly done.
Erling Haaland
After 10 goals in his first five Premier League games of the season it’s now three in the subsequent 13 and a missed penalty for a player struggling desperately to get himself involved at all now City’s all-round play has so thoroughly collapsed.
Even in his goal-laden first season the lack of touches Haaland had in general play became a running joke, with one hat-trick coming from a total of 16 touches in the match seeing Haaland seemingly perfect the role of goalscorer, distilling the job to its very purest form.
That was fine when City were playing well and the chances were coming. In a struggling team, Haaland becomes the ultimate luxury passenger.
Early in City’s current run of woe, Haaland was at least still getting shots away. They weren’t going in, but they still happened. He had seven attempts on goal in the defeats against Brighton and Spurs, but since then hasn’t managed more than three shots in any of his last six Premier League games.
With his wider contribution as negligible as ever – his combined total of passes across those six games is 84, 33 fewer than Mateo Kovacic made against Everton alone – you do start to wonder at the wisdom of City deciding they didn’t need any competition or back-up at all for the big man.
Aston Villa
Sort of sums up Villa’s season in many ways that their own Boxing Day struggle was masked by the graver calamities befalling the more conspicuously ridiculous Spurs and Manchester United.
But it’s been a largely unconvincing league season when compared to last year’s ruthlessly efficient one. The fixture list has been kind to Villa recently which has helped them along with straightforward wins over the away version of Brentford as well as the contrasting but enormous struggles going off at Southampton and Man City, but the brutal truth is that Villa have now lost to two direct rivals in the Champions League chase in the space of 12 days.
It may well be that fifth is enough for Champions League qualification this season, and Villa may now have condemned themselves to a place in the large group targeting such a finish; by this evening it’s highly likely the top four will be six points away.
Leicester
We’re really not at all convinced Ruud van Nistelrooy was the right answer for a relegation scrap, and while defeat at Liverpool itself is of no great concern in isolation the fact it represents three consecutive compelling defeats at a time Wolves, Palace and Everton all appear to be getting their acts together to a greater or lesser degree is a concern.
Leicester have suffered a six-point swing compared to Wolves over the last two games to drop into a bottom three that starts to have a compelling look to it, containing as it now does all three of last year’s promoted clubs.