Johnny Nicholson: If Newcastle’s slide continues, how safe is Howe?
STRUGGLES: Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe (second left) during the Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester. Pic: Martin Rickett/PA Wire
7 - 0! Seven nil! What an extraordinary match. It was Liverpool’s biggest win over Manchester United, surpassing the 19th century 7-1 win when United were Newton Heath.
It had been a bit of a slow start for Cody Gakpo at Liverpool as he took six games to score his first goal, but with four in the last five games and two excellent strikes against Manchester United, he seems to have found his form. He tormented the Manchester United defence all afternoon with slick, driving bursts of pace in the final third.
But it's not just the goals, his passing game was excellent throughout, sometimes dropping a bit deeper to play Mo Salah and Darwin Nunez into good positions, sometimes playing wide right. The Uruguayan scored his 13th of the season and, like Gakpo, is turning in more consistently effective performances. He’s still got a short fuse and seems easy to wind up, but he’s fast and physical and hard to stop. He scored twice, his second, a backwards header, was just fantastic.
When the ball fell to Salah 14 yards out, he simply battered it into the net with carefree confidence, his second goal took him ahead of Robbie Fowler’s 128 Premier League goals.
The Liverpool midfield dominated the game and this was a hint at what a refreshed Liverpool side could look like with a dynamic and dangerous front three and assertive midfield. Add in Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz when fit and they shouldn’t be short of goals.
They had lost just twice in 32 games, but United’s defence was unusually all over the place, the silk and steel of the Varane and Martinez partnership was torn apart and the attack was almost completely muted.
The Champions League place is surely Liverpool's to take. United will have to lick their wounds and pretend this thrashing never happened.
On paper it looked like a regulation 2-0 win for Manchester City but it was one which was only achieved because Newcastle are so poor in front of goal. They have scored just three times in the last eight games and have now lost three fixtures consecutively without scoring, have no wins in five league games, have slipped to sixth with Brighton, Fulham and Brentford on their shoulders. If the club is still in business next season - and given the revelations about the nature of their ownership this week, revelations that surprised no-one and should lead to the most severe of consequences - they need to put money into resolving their lack of goals. And if the slide continues, how safe is Eddie Howe, really? His blanking of questions about the ownership might, on the surface, be understandable, he’s just a football coach. But what has the game come to when a manager has to avoid questions about the carpet bombing of Yemen or mass executions? How has this been allowed to happen? Who can stop it? We may soon find out.
It was a strange, thrilling game at the Emirates. After conceding from a great kick-off routine in nine seconds, the Gunners threw the kitchen sink at the Cherries. They had 86% possession in the first half, but couldn’t find a way through. It was a test of their self-belief in the second half when they conceded again. The fact they pulled it back to win with a Reiss Nelson left-footed strike in the dying seconds was a significant moment in the title race, not just because it preserved their five-point lead over Manchester City but because of the galvanising effect such a dramatic win will have on the team. Being tested in adversity and coming out as the victors is the greatest way to bind and inspire a team and the fans, who, understandably, absolutely lost their minds as the ball hit the net. This was a win for the history books, Bournemouth played their part but the result meant Arsenal have good reason to think that this is their season, that this is their time and that the title is within their grasp.
The Seagulls absolutely battered a woeful West Ham United 4-0. They had 20 shots at goal to the visitors' three. They completed 633 passes to the Hammers' 259. Brighton had 68% possession. They were just too good for them, too quick of feet and speedy of thought. At times it felt like a top Premier League team was playing a failing Championship side, and as the Hammers slipped to 16th, one point above the drop zone, that was perhaps the most significant thing. Roberto De Zerbi has given Brighton a clear method of playing on the front foot, whereas West Ham have no identity and are drifting, aimless and ineffective. They were naive and second best to everything. This is a problem undoubtedly rooted in the management of the team.
David Moyes is often accused of being a negative manager who sets up the team not to lose first and foremost and one who doesn’t know how to change a game with substitutions. But it's worse than that. He was made to look outdated on Saturday. A man out of time and out of ideas.
Six points and seven goals away from home all season is a a poor return for £160 million spent. Stick with Moyes and they will likely be the most expensively assembled squad ever to be relegated. But replace him with Frank Lampard - which it is easy to imagine happening - and the same result is just as likely.
When you watch Chelsea play, you wouldn’t think you were watching a football club that has spent £600 million on 18 players in two transfer windows. It is an absurd amount of money which somehow seems to have made Chelsea a worse team. They created a couple of opportunities, didn’t take them, the crowd grew restless and Leeds grew into the game, though looked as goal-shy as ever. Chelsea simply did not play at a high enough tempo and spent 50 minutes within themselves until Wesley Fofana’s headed goal, his first in the league, gave them the lead. But even that didn’t uncork their bottle and the crowd went quiet again. It was a win but it was an unconvincing performance which will not have won over the Graham Potter doubters and didn’t feel like the start of an upward climb.
At the City Ground on Sunday, Everton were literally fighting for their survival. Sean Dyche seemed to have sent his team out to exert maximum physicality with minimum skill. It was an ugly game with pushing and shoving breaking out all the time, as well as those hold-me-back, all wind and water catfights that footballers pathetically indulge in. This was all deliberate by Everton, designed to disrupt Forest.
This was throwback stuff, with Dyche on the touchline barking and waving as though he was directing a crane lifting steel girders on a building site. He was in a permanent state of indignation at the officials as if the world was against him.
When his team tried to be a little bit skilful, they looked like a heavyweight boxer trying to do ballet. Man Of The Match, Brennan Johnson - the best player on the pitch - scored two fleet-of-foot goals which left the Everton defence looking heavy-legged and cumbersome.
Everton did everything they could to bully and to wind up the opposition, picking up the ball and throwing it away, protesting en masse every decision the referee made and feigning injury at every opportunity. It was horrible stuff which Dyche will justify as ‘commitment’.
But there’s only so far brutalist football will get you. Dyche will hope that it is 17th. In fairness to the Everton players, they seem to enjoy this form of football, though once they have avoided relegation how many people will be happy to pay to see it remains doubtful.
Dyche had tried to bully his way to a victory and it had failed. The 2-2 draw leaves them in the bottom three. Sending out a side to play dumb football like this will do his reputation no good at all. It plays to every cliche about Dyche, a cliche he has long protested isn’t accurate.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
