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It was a weekend of twists and turns in the Premier League as teams finished up the fixtures for another stretch of the Premier League before heading into yet another international break. There was a title challenger clash as Manchester City faced off Liverpool, a relegation scrap as West Ham entertained Burnley, and several other significant matchups in between. Here are all the winners and losers from the 11th weekend of Premier League action.
What a season set-pieces are having, eh? Arsenal's set-piece routine have become so famous that their set-piece coach, Nicolas Jover, has become somewhat famous, long throws are back in style, and while all this is going on, Brentford's former set-piece coach is having an amazing start to the season. The Bees stung Newcastle on Sunday 3-1 at the GTech. That win saw them enter the international break in 12th place with 16 points. And, just to underscore the magnitude of the job Keith has done, it's worth noting that though they're in 12th at the moment, they are only three points behind Sunderland in 2nd. In other words, in his first ever managerial job, Keith is not just keeping the boat afloat, but he might be in competition for European places come the end of the season.
It's highly impressive given how many people had Brentford struggling with relegation when they made their predictions at the beginning of the season. The reason? They didn't believe a set-piece coach could fill Thomas Frank's shoes. Well, he's doing more than filling it at the moment.
Well, it turns out that the wins against Aston Villa and Real Madrid were anomalies. Arne Slot and his boys succumbed to a fifth defeat of the season in embarrassing style against Manchester City on Sunday. The loss itself is bad enough, but it's the nature of the loss that will really worry Liverpool fans. Losing 3-0 to a potential title challenger in gameweek 11 without putting up too much of a fight is not great, whichever way you slice it. That loss also leaves them in 8th place, 4 points behind Manchester City, and 8 points behind league leaders Arsenal. Dreams of retaining the title are already slipping away, and we're not even a third of the way through the season. And with teams like Crystal Palace, Bournemouth, Aston Villa, and Tottenham in hot pursuit for European places, Liverpool might end up slogging it out with them just to make it back to Europe next season. These are troubling times at Anfield.
That last-minute equaliser from Brobbey was exactly what Sunderland needed to maintain their momentum going into the international break. For 90 minutes, they looked like equals with the best team in the league; they harried and hassled Arsenal, played a super physical game against them and made life difficult for the Gunners. I think everyone who watched that game will agree that they deserved to leave with something, even though it looked like Arsenal were going to walk away with all three points thanks to their superior firepower. It's pretty important that they maintain this momentum because their run of fixtures after the break is really tough. They play Fulham, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Manchester City, Newcastle, and Brighton right after. It will be their toughest run of fixtures yet, and how they navigate that will tell us more about what to expect from them this season. They'll be more confident to take on that fixture list after their performance against Arsenal.
The key to being a good mid-table club is that you have to be able to beat the other mid-table clubs at least as much as you lose to them. So far this season, Fulham are doing a horrible job of taking points off the teams around them. Victory against Wolves last gameweek offered them a chance to reboot their season after four losses in a row, but the real test was against Everton last week. Wolves are rock bottom and will almost certainly suffer relegation this season, but Everton is a mid-table club with the same aspirations as Fulham. Everton were one point ahead of Fulham at kickoff on Saturday, and had Fulham won that game, they would have ended the gameweek above Everton, but they lost. No one is calling for Marco Silva's head as of yet, but surely the pressure is mounting. Fulham, who almost ended up in a battle for the last Conference League spot last season, are slowly slipping into a relegation battle this season. Things need to change, and fast.\
It's back-to-back wins at the London Stadium for the first time this season, and suddenly, The Hammers have reasons to smile. It's been a dreary start to the season for West Ham under Graham Potter, and they are clearly going to be battling relegation this season. However, if Nuno is going to guide West Ham to safety, they need to take maximum points from fixtures like this one as often as possible. It won't matter to anyone what kind of football they're playing as long as they continue to take maximum points and give themselves a fighting chance of staying up. A 3-2 victory against Burnley brings them up to 10 points, level on points with Burnley, who are right above them, and 1 point behind Leeds and Fulham. The way out of the relegation places seems to be opening up already for Nuno and his boys.
Andoni Iraola's project seems to have faltered ever so slightly at the moment. A 3-1 defeat at the hands of Manchester City last time out was not the best, but this gameweek's 4-0 hammering at the hands of Unai Emery's Aston Villa will prove extremely painful. More so because Villa haven't had the greatest start to the season, and they will almost likely be in contention for European spots with Bournemouth again. Add in the fact that Villa have midweek European commitments at the moment, which means they had less time to prepare than Bournemouth did, and the picture gets even worse. Back-to-back defeats suddenly make their next game against a West Ham that seems to be in the throes of a revival look more difficult than it would have just two weeks ago. One thing is for sure: The Cherries need to win their next game in brilliant fashion to avoid this stumble turning into a protracted fall.
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it's a bit late, but here are all the winners and losers from gameweek 11 of premier league action before we head into the international break proper. keith andrews takes center stage as the ex set-piece coach is having a fantastic start to life as brentford manager. https://paragraph.com/@thefalsenine/epl-gw11-winners-and-losers