Six Knee-Jerk Reactions to the Premier League Weekend

As is the case every Monday, we’re back with our weekly dose of snap judgements on the latest round of weekend action in the Premier League.

Haaland Will Break the 40-Goal Mark

Erling Haaland made it back-to-back Premier League trebles this weekend with three goals at West Ham as Manchester City kept up their 100% start to 2024-25. Having last season become the first men’s team in English football history to win four consecutive league titles, they are firing off an early warning to their rivals that they want to make it five on the spin this year.

With City and Haaland in the form in which they have started the new campaign, Pep Guardiola’s side are – once again – the team to beat. And Haaland is the man to stop.

He is now already up to eighth in the list of players with the most hat-tricks in Premier League history, after becoming only the first player to score two trebles in a team’s first three games of a Premier League season. He is also the first player ever to score seven goals in the first three games of a campaign.

He’s (probably) not going to continue scoring at this current rate (2.3 per game) for all that much longer – just look at how much he is overperforming compared to his expected goals – but it won’t be unreasonable for him to have his eye on his own record for the most goals scored in a single Premier League campaign (36). He’ll need 29 more goals in the remaining 35 games to break that record, which he is clearly capable of doing, or 33 in 35 to break the 40-goal barrier.

Given it’s hard to imagine anyone being able to stop him on this form, he could well make it to 40.

Liverpool Have a Gem in Arne Slot

Three wins from three, seven goals scored and none conceded: new Liverpool manager Arne Slot could not have hoped for a better start to life at his new club.

With Sunday’s 3-0 win at Manchester United, he became the first Liverpool manager to win his first league match at Old Trafford since George Kay back in 1936, and he did it in convincing fashion, too. United arguably should have found a way back into the game in the second half when Joshua Zirkzee missed a couple of chances, but Liverpool could have been even further out of sight by then.

In the first half, though, his side were rampant, and United simply had no response. Liverpool scored twice and took the game away from their fierce rivals to devastating effect.

Slot spoke after the game about how he wanted to keep dangermen Mohamed Salah and Luis Díaz – Liverpool’s goalscorers on the day – high up the pitch when they pressed, and it worked wonders. The visitors scored from one of their high turnovers (winning the ball within 40m of the opposition’s goal line), had a goal disallowed from another, and had three more shots following a high turnover.

It was about as convincing a display as Liverpool could have hoped for. In Slot’s early time at the club, he is giving plenty of reason for the fans to start believing in him.

Rice Needed a Longer Break This Summer

For the first time in 363 senior games, Declan Rice received a red card at the weekend. Two uncharacteristic yellow cards against Brighton led to the first dismissal of his career.

The first was a late lunge in midfield that was very unlike Rice, who is normally impressively assured and controlled in what he does, rarely giving away fouls – let alone picking up cards – despite doing so much combative work to win the ball back.

The second was rather more controversial, with Rice given a second yellow for delaying the restart by nudging the ball away as Joël Veltman went to – or at least shaped as if he wanted to – take a quick free-kick. It was a decision that divided opinion, not least because João Pedro avoided a caution in the first half for kicking the ball away when it had gone out for an Arsenal throw-in.

But the point remains that it was a poor decision from Rice, which isn’t something we normally see from him, and his performance had us wondering if he is fatigued after a long summer with England at Euro 2024 and a short break before an intense start to 2024-25 with Arsenal going for the title.

Rice has committed three fouls so far this season and successfully made only one tackle – that’s a rate of 0.33 tackles per foul. In every other one of his seven previous seasons in the Premier League, he has averaged at least 2.4 tackles for every foul, suggesting he is usually far more effective in winning duels than he has been at the start of 2024-25. And his numbers for this season don’t even include what he did to get his second yellow card as it wasn’t a foul.

Obviously, we’re only three games into the season, but Rice’s early displays suggest he might be in need of the break he’ll get as a result of his suspension for the north London derby.

Dyche is in Trouble

After opening the season with a 3-0 defeat to Brighton and a 4-0 loss at Tottenham, Everton finally managed to score a goal at the weekend when Michael Keane put them ahead against Bournemouth. Then they got another soon after, as Dominic Calvert-Lewin poked the ball home to make it 2-0.

Sean Dyche’s side appeared comfortable at that stage, and they were still in a position to be relaxed about the score for the next 30 minutes, too. As late as the 87th minute, they still led by two goals to nil.

Then they did something no team has ever done before, conceding three goals from 87 minutes onwards to lose 3-2. It was the latest a team had ever led a Premier League game by 2+ goals and then gone on to lose. Boos rang out at Goodison Park at the full-time whistle.

Dyche had faced all sorts of challenges last season, including two points deductions, and his side still came out well clear of relegation. On top of that, they underperformed their expected goals by 14.9 last season (40 goals from 54.9 xG) – by far the worst record in the division – suggesting that they were creating lots of chances and with some better finishing they could have been even higher up the table. Their impressive defensive record meant their problems at the sharp end of the pitch weren’t felt too badly.

But at the weekend, they scored in line with their xG (two goals from 1.97 xG) and capitulated in a historically embarrassing way. If Dyche’s Everton aren’t secure at the back, then they have real problems.

It’s too early to say he should be sacked, but after three dispiriting defeats from three, he needs to turn things around quickly.

Southampton Are Doomed

Southampton manager Russell Martin is unapologetic in his commitment to playing out from the back. It’s what worked for them in getting promoted from the Championship last season, and it’s how they’re going to play in the top flight this season, too.

But that approach caused some problems last term and it is already leading to goals being conceded all too easily this term, too.

Last season, only four Championship sides committed more errors leading to an opposition goal than Southampton (7), and they were in the bottom half of the league for goals conceded (63). In the second tier, they were able to make up for their issues at the back with a tonne of goals at the other end (87, excluding play-offs). The Premier League is a step up, though.

In three games so far this season, Southampton have made more errors leading to an opposition goal (4) than anyone else and, incredibly, they have already made more such errors than three teams did in the whole of last season (Man City, Wolves and Palace).

They played themselves into trouble time and again in their defeat at Brentford this weekend, with all three goals coming from an individual error. 

There are more than a few shades of 2023-24 Burnley about this Southampton team, at least in terms of their decision to approach playing in the Premier League in exactly the same way as they did the Championship, and we all know how last season ended for Burnley.

Howe is More Versatile Than People Think

With defensive absences already approaching the heights of Newcastle’s injury crisis from last season, Eddie Howe has had to think outside the box.

Usually a manager who asks his team to stick to playing ‘good’ football, staying on the front foot both with and without the ball, Howe has changed things up at the start of this season.

With so many defenders out through injury and suspension that Emil Krafth and Dan Burn had to start at centre-back against Spurs on Sunday, Howe instructed his players to defend much deeper and play a little more reactively. Newcastle had just 34.3% possession and ran out 2-1 winners. They only had less possession in three games in the whole of last season.

Perhaps buoyed by his side’s opening-day backs-to-the-wall 1-0 win over Southampton when they’d been reduced to 10 men, Howe was happy to let Tottenham have the ball for long periods on Sunday.

They might have ridden their luck a little, and Spurs missed some good chances, but Newcastle had even better chances, winning the xG battle 1.83 to 1.26, and were far more clinical which is ultimately all that matters. Howe deserves credit for getting Newcastle through this mini availability crisis unbeaten.

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