
Some title challengers faltered again, someone got sent off for slapping his teammate, and a North London Derby unfolded in typically dramatic fashion. Another gameweek of football has come to a close and here are the winners and losers from the weekend's action.
That was a statement win in so many ways. It was the first win for David Moyes as an away manager at Old Trafford in the Premier League. It was Everton's first win at Old Trafford since 2013 under Roberto Martinez. And perhaps most importantly, it was a win that maintains the momentum this Everton side were building up before the international break. Idrissa Gueye's sending off for striking teammate Michael Keane on the face threatened to mar the game. But Drewsbury Hall had other ideas, and if there's one thing we know about Moyes teams, it's that they can defend, and defend they did. On to the next for the Evertonians!
Liverpool officially have a crisis on their hands now. Nottingham Forest at home was supposed to be the first in a run of easy fixtures to help Arne Slot stabilise the ship. But the ship is more unstable than ever before. Sean Dyche's teams are not well known for scoring lots of goals but they put three past Liverpool at Anfield without reply. If there is one thing Liverpool have been able to do this season, it's score goals. With their defence faltering, if their attack is also becoming unable to deliver then they may be in far worse trouble than we realise. Michael Edwards and co will now be weighing up the possibility of sacking a title winning manager before he has completed a title defence. Crazy.
If there is another man who needed to steady a rocking ship this weekend it was Marco Silva. During the international break he admitted to having had talks with Fulham's owner about his future, a reflection of their poor start to the season. But the thing with Fulham is everyone knows they have a team that should be doing better than hanging in relegation places. The task is for the manager to figure out how to get the best out of that team. Against a high flying Sunderland, it looks like Marco Silva has begun to figure it out. They were the better team for ninety minutes, walked away with a clean sheet, and should have scored more than one goal. Sunderland who looked so menacing against Arsenal before the break looked subdued against Fulham. It's a good building block for the rest of their season.
At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I don't think Thomas Frank understands the occasion that is a London Derby yet. And yes, I know he coached a London club for a long time and has experienced his fair share of London derbies. But, it's different at Tottenham. Arsenal vs Tottenham is just a game of much greater magnitude than Arsenal vs Brentford. This is not the kind of game where fans want to see their team setting up to defend deep and be risk averse and minimise damage. This game is much more than the three points. Each team want to hurt the other one badly, dent the pride of their opponents, and cement their status as North London's top dogs until the next derby. Thomas Frank seems to have completely misunderstood that and he paid a heavy price for it. If he's going to really cement himself as a top manager, his approach to big games really needs to evolve.
Everyone said over the international break that Newcastle's problems would start abating once their fullbacks returned from injury. Their fullbacks did indeed return in time for the Manchester City game, but that left them in a tough spot. Lose the game and people would begin to wonder if the problems are deeper than the lack of fullbacks. The proposition turned a game against a Manchester City on somewhat of an ascendancy with a red hot Erling Haaland leading the line into a must win affair. And they won. Two goals from Harvey Barnes were enough to seal the victory and begin life after the international break on a wonderful note at St. James Park.
Brentford led until the 71st minute through an Igor Thiago penalty before Brighton mounted a comeback that saw them claim all three points. The Bees have had a good start to life under Keith Andrews after a summer of outgoings left their future in doubt. However, if they are to go up a level and challenge for European spots, these are the kinds of games they have to learn to see out. For a mid table club, taking points off those around you is crucial to progress. It's early days still for Keith Andrews so I'm sure there'll be time for him to learn how to manage these sorts of games going forward.
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Champions League action resumes in just over an hour. But before then here's our roundup of all the winners and losers from last gameweek of Premier League action. Find out what you might have missed, from a Sunderland upset to an amazing stat from Everton's shock win at Old Trafford. https://paragraph.com/@thefalsenine/epl-gw12-winners-and-losers
Always looking forward to these, but they arenβt the same now when we always end up on the loser list ππ
you're almost in wolves territory rn. i no longer put wolves on the losers list because they lose every week. πππ
Dude.. it's so bad its gotten to the point I'm just thinking about betting against them on Bracky.. π I won't though I will rather die before betting against my own team hahah
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