Premier League winners and losers: Villa, Fulham, Ten Hag brilliant but Cooper, Hodgson in trouble
Aston Villa
It’s amazing that the title match between Arsenal and Uni Emery, which everyone had anticipated would take place after the two bitterly split ways four years ago, is now happening. The club is currently in mid-table, and the manager has been written off and mocked by the English game. This Saturday is going to be exciting.
Before then, Aston Villa will bask in a phenomenal and entirely deserved victory. Never before in 535 league games has a Pep Guardiola team had so few shots, nor has one ever faced more. The previous biggest negative shot differential in one match of the Spaniard’s Manchester City tenure was -14, when Wolves had 21 efforts to their seven in December 2019. Villa had 22 shots to City’s two in midweek; from the 12th minute the hosts had 19 shots to absolutely no response.
Ederson was sent off in the 12th minute of that Wolves defeat. There was no such excuse on Wednesday night. Rodri and Jack Grealish were absent – the latter not being a part of such glorious dismantlement perhaps the only thing Villa Park will have regretted – but Manchester City had time to prepare, to sift through their squad for alternatives, to give £130m worth of options a front-row view from the bench to witness the particular annihilation of that midfield.
Douglas Luiz, Youri Tielemans and Boubacar Kamara cost exactly half a Mateo Kovacic, around one-third of a Kalvin Phillips and less than a quarter of a Matheus Nunes. And they dominated the players Guardiola chose to stock his engine room instead of those three.
Tielemans was one of only two Emery signings in that starting XI, with Pau Torres the other. Dean Smith bought five of those players, Steven Gerrard purchased three and Steve Bruce added one. Each manager got a tune out of them at some stage but Emery has improved a ridiculous number of players both inherited and acquired in such a short space of time. Villa have undoubtedly invested to reach this point but Emery’s specific success has been underpinned by a level of coaching on par with the established elite, if not a whole lot better on that evidence.
Emery dismissed Villa’s title credentials after the game while Guardiola spoke them up. That such conversations can be legitimately held in early December is remarkable. There has rarely been a more stark managerial upgrade.
Fulham
Fulham’s biggest Premier League win since August 2012. Marco Silva’s biggest Premier League win ever. The Cottagers’ previous four wins this season had come by a combined five-goal margin but they packed that difference into 90 dominant minutes against a side they were only two points clear of before the game.
They are closer to fifth than they are 18th now, and while Fulham need not concern themselves with hopes of European qualification, distancing themselves from latent relegation fears is welcome. This season had all the necessary ingredients for disaster: Aleksandar Mitrovic’s acrimonious sale, Willian having his head turned and Silva shuffling in the vague direction of the exit at one stage of a difficult summer. But Fulham will be fine.
It does offer the tantalising prospect of them staying up comfortably while never winning more than a single Premier League game a month. One victory each in August, September, October and November, with December boxed off nice and early.
Raul Jimenez
His previous three goals had occurred over a 47-game span; he now has three goals in four games. Jimenez hadn’t scored more than once in a single game since January 2020. It was strange but fair to hear the Mexican called “a player full of confidence” on the co-commentary, and it’s great to witness.
Erik ten Hag
Some other managers might consider losing half the dressing room if it garners that sort of response. A Manchester United side apparently torn apart through mutiny put together their best performance of the season against a major rival to defy the narrative and drown out what Ten Hag has termed “the noise”.
He needed that. Any sort of negative result or performance would have been fuel to the fire, oxygen to the leaks. The coverage and the crisis levels might well have become unbearable with another defeat.
But the Dutchman engineered a fine display in which another of his make-or-break calls – dropping Marcus Rashford in this case – was entirely vindicated. Even if he is fighting the strongest of currents when it comes to changing the culture of a squad that has undermined a series of managers, Ten Hag has shown a rare ability to keep his head above water when most would expect him to drown.
Arsenal
It’s not a coincidence anymore. Actually, it hasn’t been in a long time. With goals scored in the ninetieth or later minute, Arsenal has transformed draws against Southampton into victories, Aston Villa and Luton into victories, and Manchester United into draws twice this calendar year. Additionally, this season alone, that arbitrary mark eliminates late comebacks against Brentford, Chelsea, and Manchester City.
There were evident problems to solve, not the least of which was the ongoing dilemma of the goalie and an uncommon vulnerability from set-pieces. Mikel Arteta gave credit to “that drive, that energy, that risk and emotion” for a cause, though; the Gunners passed a test that the majority of their more recent incarnations would have categorically failed. In other words, some games must be won on character rather than class.
The irony is that, in any case, the result was far more indicative of what Arteta’s team has become as a result of their self-fulfilling prophecy of last-ditch comebacks than it was of what critics would have called “typical Arsenal.”
Maybe they are covering up some concerning background fissures by occuring a bit too frequently. Even still, Arsenal’s continued success in getting the required outcome is evidence of title-worthy tenacity, and it more than validates the manager’s ostensibly forbidden “excessive celebrating.”
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