By Opta Analyst | Created at 2024-11-15 16:15:21 | Updated at 2024-11-21 15:57:11
5 days ago
We’re back with our weekly dose of knee-jerk reactions to the weekend’s Premier League action, based on stats that we *might* have taken a little out of context.
Here at Opta Analyst, we prefer to use numbers to provide detailed analysis of top-level football, but every once in a while a stat pops up or something happens that gets us thinking.
And sometimes context isn’t entirely necessary. At least, that’s our excuse for writing this weekly column of knee-jerk reactions to the goings-on in the Premier League this weekend.
So, we’re back once again with a dose of hastily-made conclusions following another eventful round of fixtures. Here goes…
Nottingham Forest Are Champions League Contenders
After enduring a difficult battle to avoid relegation last season, finishing 17th in the Premier League, most would have expected another challenging campaign for Nottingham Forest.
But they’ve been the revelations of the 2024-25 Premier League season across the first 10 matchdays, with their 19 points already more than halfway to the 32 they accumulated last term.
Saturday saw them seal their fifth win of 2024-25, beating a hapless West Ham – who had Edson Álvarez sent off just before half-time – 3-0 at the City Ground, their biggest Premier League victory since August 1996 (3-0 vs Coventry City).
Chris Wood was among the goals again, scoring his 18th non-penalty league goal since Nuno Espírito Santo’s first game last December, a tally bettered only by Erling Haaland (19).
Wood’s form is invaluable. Not only were his goals vital in staving off relegation last term, but now they’ve got Forest dreaming of loftier achievements – after all, Saturday’s win saw them end a day in the top three of the top flight for the first time since 7 September 1998.
But it’s not all about Wood; others are shining, too. Callum Hudson-Odoi, Nicolás Domínguez, Elliot Anderson, Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic have all enjoyed stellar starts to the season, with the signs extremely promising for a Forest side who have lost just once.
Their toughest fixtures so far have involved trips to Liverpool, Chelsea and Brighton – they beat the Reds and drew against the other two. A difficult run is coming up as they tussle with Newcastle, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United in four of their next five matches.
But on the evidence of what we’ve seen so far, they have enough to get positive results in that sequence. It’ll take a while before they’re regarded by most as genuine top-four contenders, but some more positive results in the next few weeks certainly won’t hurt.
Even if they ultimately fade away, they can at least take comfort in the fact no Premier League club has ever been relegated after taking 19 points or more from their first 10 games of a season.
Top Half the Target for Rúben Amorim with Uninspiring Man Utd
Perhaps we shouldn’t have expected fireworks from the most-drawn fixture in Premier League history, but Man Utd vs Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday was underwhelming.
There was a feeling that Chelsea fans probably came away from the 1-1 draw more disappointed because Enzo Maresca’s side were unable to really impose themselves against a United team that were pretty ineffective and incoherent in attack.
It was United’s first Premier League game since Erik ten Hag’s departure, and their first game in any competition since Rúben Amorim was confirmed as their next manager on Friday, with the 39-year-old coach to take over on 11 November.
The match laid bare the size of the task awaiting Amorim, with United branded “boring” by former captain Roy Keane in his punditry role with Sky Sports after the game.
It wasn’t a completely unfair opinion, but the biggest issue was how disappointing they were in the final third. Alejandro Garnacho was wasteful with both his finishing and final pass; Marcus Rashford struggled to make much of an impact at all; and striker Rasmus Højlund managed just a single touch in the Chelsea box, winning a penalty in the process.
The draw leaves United on 12 points from their first 10 games, their worst start to a league season since 1986-87 (eight points); similarly, they’ve scored just nine goals, their fewest at this stage of a campaign since 1973-74 (also nine).
They did at least climb a place up to 13th, but that’s not exactly something to shout about. United are an unimpressive rabble at the moment, which is quite extraordinary considering how much their squad cost to put together.
At the rate they’re going, with trips to Arsenal and Manchester City on the horizon, Amorim will do well just to get them into the top half of the table.
Top Four Again? Villa Won’t Be Able To Juggle Competitions
Much of the build-up around Aston Villa’s trip to Tottenham on Sunday revolved around the club’s ambitions under Unai Emery. A pre-game segment on Sky Sports pondered how far they can go.
Could they gatecrash Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City to become the other regular top-four finishers? Might they even be able to emulate Leicester City and win the title?
Within a couple of hours they’d been soundly beaten 4-1 by a Tottenham side who’d been having something of an identity crisis not so long ago, and whose manager – Ange Postecoglou – had been courting a bit of criticism.
Villa took the lead at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium via Morgan Rogers but were second best practically all afternoon. They had great difficulty playing out from the back, with Spurs winning 13 high turnovers over the course of the match, and in the second half they struggled with the hosts’ quick transitions.
Emery’s side are supposed to be dangerous in that very same way, but here they just looked leggy. It was their third game in eight days, none of which they won, and they play again in the Champions League on Wednesday at Club Brugge before going to leaders Liverpool next weekend.
Some felt at the start of the season that Villa had the depth to cope better with the fixture congestion than Newcastle did upon their return to the Champions League last term, but are we starting to see signs of cracks?
Bournemouth: King Makers
Bournemouth’s start to 2024-25 might not have been as slow as it was last season, but they still only managed one win from their first six games across all competitions.
Since then, however, they’ve lost once in five matches and beaten both Arsenal and Manchester City at the Vitality Stadium.
Last month’s 2-0 defeat of Arsenal, while impressive, came with the slight caveat of the Gunners playing 60 minutes reduced to 10 men.
They had no such helping hand for the visit of the champions on Saturday, though. Sure, City piled the pressure on at the end and almost rescued a point, but few would say Bournemouth weren’t good value for the win – in fact, they probably should’ve been further ahead as they missed two glorious opportunities on top of goals scored by Antoine Semenyo and Evanilson.
It ended City’s 32-match Premier League unbeaten run and saw Bournemouth reach three league games unbeaten despite all three of those matches being against sides who finished in the top four last term.
Aston Villa were the only team to beat both City and Arsenal in the Premier League last season, a double completed by their April victory at the Emirates Stadium; Bournemouth have already done it and we’ve only just reached November.
Liverpool don’t visit the Vitality until February, and of course the season could look rather different by then. But if the past couple of weeks have suggested anything, it’s that Bournemouth could be the ‘King Makers’ of the 2024-25 Premier League season.
Spurs Have Their Next Harry Kane in Dominic Solanke
There was always going to be a sense that Tottenham were missing something last season; no club sells Harry Kane and doesn’t notice such a void.
Others stepped up. Son Heung-min was more like his old self, managing to have a hand in 27 Premier League goals (17 goals, 10 assists), while Richarlison, Dejan Kulusevski, Brennan Johnson, James Maddison and Pedro Porro all reached double figures for goal involvements, but they didn’t have a natural replacement for the England captain.
Dominic Solanke has been tasked with being that player after costing £60 million in the summer and there was a feeling that he had lift off with Sunday’s brace against Villa.
His first goal, a disguised chip, was Kane-like in its coolness, while his second was a proper centre-forward’s finish right in front of goal after busting a gut to make an off-the-ball run into the heart of the six-yard box.
After going without a goal in October, those strikes doubled Solanke’s Premier League tally for the season, taking him to four from eight games – maintain that ratio for the whole season and he’ll certainly have done his job. But, in a slightly different way to Kane, Solanke brings a considerable amount even if he doesn’t score.
Postecoglou told reporters after Sunday’s win: “The goals are great and of course as a striker I am sure he loves the fact he can score a couple of goals, but even if he didn’t, again I can’t speak highly enough of what he is contributing to our team at the moment. And long may it continue, because with him playing that way, it just makes us a better team.”
Solanke works tirelessly and selflessly up top, incredibly important traits for a forward in a Postecoglou team that requires a huge effort off the ball. But he also managed to combine such work rate with an impressive goals record last term at Bournemouth.
He may not be Kane, but Solanke could become just as important to Spurs – Sunday may well have been the turning point.
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