Chelsea took that chance with a comeback win against a shambolic Tottenham, who are rarely playing in any other way. Arsenal lost ground with a 1-1 draw at Fulham, while Manchester City also dropped points after a draw in London.
Below those two there is a huge scrum of teams all the way down to tenth, separated by just two points. Top of that pile are Nottingham Forest, who ended a bad week for Ruben Amorim with a 3-1 win at Old Trafford. Aston Villa have recovered some form with consecutive wins, while Brentford might be the best home team in Europe. Weird.
At the bottom, Leicester City clawed back a two-goal deficit but Ipswich Town did basically the opposite and are now slipping further behind. Southampton did some excellent Southampton-ing and Russell Martin seemed to blame the fans. Bold play.
Scroll down for our verdict on every team (listed in table order).
This weekend’s results
Saturday 7 December
Sunday 8 December
Chelsea
It has always been said that the mark of champions is the ability to win badly, and that was largely what Chelsea did against Tottenham. They were imperfect and chaotic, benefitting as much from Tottenham’s self-immolation as from their own excellence. But they ended with four goals and three points, an eighth game unbeaten in all competitions and breathing room above Arsenal in the Premier League table.
Does that make them champions elect, or even title contenders? Probably still not quite. Enzo Maresca is right in his increasingly tongue-in-cheek assertions this side shouldn’t be considered serious challengers over a 38-game season. There is a lot of learning and growing to do here.
In the first 11 minutes against Tottenham, Benoit Badiashile handed the ball to Dejan Kulusevski in space, Moises Caicedo booted a free-kick into Romeo Lavia’s side and Robert Sanchez nearly shanked a clearance out for a corner. This was all largely ignored because of Marc Cucurella’s twin slips, and forgiven entirely by the ensuing four goals. A lot of this was not good, and they still won 4-3.
There is no doubt that something is building here, and it is largely down to Enzo Maresca, who is doing a fair amount of learning and growing himself. Not unlike Carlo Ancelotti’s early years at Reggiana and Parma, he has shunned the tactical rigidity he relied upon at Leicester in favour of trusting the players in front of him. It’s working brilliantly.
With his increasing opposition-dependent flexibility and variety, Maresca resembles Ancelotti – who coached him at Juventus in 2000-01 – more and more by the day. This is about winning and making his players better, however that happens – a player-led approach rather than principle-led.
As Ancelotti’s Chelsea were in 2009-10, Maresca’s are the Premier League’s top scorers – and they even have the joint-third best defence. It almost feels unfair to burden this freewheeling cabal of footballing alchemists with title pressure, but thether this season or in the near future, Chelsea’s current Italian may just share similar success to his predecessor. By George Simms
Arsenal
Arsenal once again made their set-piece mark but games like this suggest they will have to come up with more than that if they are to chase down Liverpool.
It is not as though the Fulham brick wall came as a surprise. That’s three successive Premier League draws against Fulham. Arsenal of course bemoaned the cancelling of Bukayo Saka’s late header for a marginal offside, yet for all that, against a determined, well-organised opponent, Arsenal did not create enough despite their control.
Perhaps Arsenal’s plunder of the Seventies playbook might stretch to the long diagonal punt as well as big lads up for corners. Anything to break the monotony of their precision elegance. Arsenal’s style is so on trend the patterns are everywhere across the Premier League and, frankly, no longer surprising, no matter the class of those shaping the action.
Though it might seem absurd to aim a blow at the general excellence of Saka, Martin Odegaard, Declan Rice, Thomas Partey, William Saliba, et al, each exceptional again, the fact remains Fulham were a long way from capitulating.
Indeed, after ten minutes of relentless tiki-taka from Arsenal, Fulham swept through the Gunners’ highfalutin coaching manual with a welcome dose of simplicity. Remember the days when centre-forwards ran off centre-halves with pace and aggression? Raul Jimenez does, slipping off Jakub Kiwior’s shoulder to steal the lead with an arrow into the bottom corner. By Kevin Garside
Man City
Manchester City can’t afford to keep slipping up like this (Photo: Getty)
More dropped points. A mini Guardiola tirade at the officials on the pitch at full-time. The house that Pep built is crumbling even if a full-blown collapse was avoided.
Reports of Manchester City’s death had been greatly exaggerated, we were told as they brushed aside Nottingham Forest in midweek. Whatshould have been a hard-fought turnaround against Crystal Palace instead left the structure looking shaky, the rain largely coming in from one side.
City ended the game a full-back down after Rico Lewis’ controversial sending off. The reality was they might as well have been earlier. It was Kyle Walker on the other flank inexplicably frittering away the line and keeping Palace onside for Daniel Munoz’s opener after four minutes. Incredibly, no other side can match the seven goals City have let in during the first 15 minutes of games this season.
The winds transported Will Hughes’ name around a bellowing Selhurst Park in tribute to the pass he had picked out. The former England stalwart could have had a chorus too.
Walker’s form was at the heart of the six losses in seven games that blew open the title race, knocked City out of a cup and undermined them on the continent.
Once, you might have pointed to Ederson’s absence; Stefan Ortega might argue differently. Though he could have been stronger for the first goal, for Maxene Lacroix’s power header that put Palace back in front he was left powerless by Walker’s inept marking.
When Palace did miss chances, City could not take advantage of that reprieve largely because of what is becoming a glaring weak spot at right-back. The difference between Walker and a resilient Ruben Dias was stark – at times the Portuguese’s blocks kept the visitors in it.
As for Lewis, he could count himself a little unlucky. Though he was late in for the challenge on Trevoh Chalobah, he had the right to try and make the clearance and it was actually the Palace defender’s boot that made the contact. It seemed Guardiola was furious despite a cryptic reply when asked what he thought of the incident post-match: “I didn’t see.”
He denied that his side were tired and suggested that one-man deficit for the last 10 minutes was decisive. He can point to the injuries that made this a makeshift back line, Nathan Ake the latest man to fall with a hamstring complaint, alongside Manuel Akanji who has an unspecified issue. Josko Gvardiol was pushed into the centre with Lewis on the left.
Lewis may have had a torrid time against Munoz but he is still just 20 and the clear area to work on is his positioning. He has made no secret of his wish to play in central midfield and it was clear he was best equipped when veering higher up the pitch. With City up against it, he took their second goal well after timing his run into the box perfectly.
The versatile full-back has long been tipped as the heir to Walker’s crown but it is time a succession plan is hurried along, when City’s squad is full enough to allow it.
What makes that headache more puzzling though is Guardiola’s reputation for meticulous planning – Rodri was signed for three years before Fernandinho’s exit. One eye was on discovering the next Sergio Aguero long before his departure.
Guardiola is still keen to lean on what he knows – he has only given four outfield players more minutes than the veteran Ilkay Gundogan and Bernardo Silva this season. When Gundogan let fly and rattled one against the post, it was the kind of effortless ooze that made you feel as if you were watching the old City. The same cannot be said of another member of the old guard. By Kat Lucas
Nott’m Forest
Go on, get carried away. Why not? A first win at Anfield in 55 years, and now a first win at Old Trafford for 30.
After just 15 league games, Forest are only seven points off last season’s total, and have the faint smell of European football wafting in their direction, making Nuno Espirito Santo the joint-frontrunner with Arne Slot for manager of the season.
Too soon, though, of course it is, for Liverpool could yet stumble and Forest could fade away, but in the here and now Nuno is working wonders, getting the best out of a squad that are no longer the butt of transfer jokes but are instead proving a cohesive unit.
And while Manchester United are suffering from the constant changes, Forest are benefiting from consistency in their line-ups.
Their back four has barely changed all season, while Morgan Gibbs-White put a poor display against Manchester City behind him when dictating the outcome of the match at Old Trafford, scoring and then assisting for Chris Wood.
That said, though, it is Elliot Anderson who continues to shine brightest. The summer signing from Newcastle is creating chances down one end and stopping attacks down the other. No player won more tackles than Anderson’s three at Old Trafford on Saturday night, and no one topped him for key passes (four) either. It was some all-round display. By Michael Hincks
Aston Villa
After two home wins in four days to simmer down any talk of serious decline, it’s worth looking at how Unai Emery is seemingly becoming more prepared to rotate his team and thus keep things fresh. For the visit of Southampton, Emery rested both first-choice full-backs, his first-choice striker and a central defender. In those circumstances, the home win becomes more valuable than its own context.
It’s important because of how Villa had performed after their midweek assignments this season, forced to marry league and regular cup football. Their last six weekend results after midweek matches: 2-2 vs Ipswich Town, 0-0 vs Manchester United, 1-1 vs Bournemouth, 1-4 vs Tottenham, 0-2 vs Liverpool, 0-3 vs Chelsea. That is what had caused the slide.
It works to rotate because Emery can trust those deputies. Ezri Konsa is capable of slotting in at right-back, Ian Maatsen started the last Champions League final at left-back and the return of Tyrone Mings gives Villa a vital extra option in central defence. And then there’s Jhon Duran.
“Fantastic, he’s progressively helping us with everything, scoring goals, working,” said Emery after Duran started and scored. “We are very demanding with him, how we want him to respond on the field and today he did the work. We are happy for him and adding one more player scoring goals and doing the work we need.
“He listens and we had to try to stop his impassioned moments sometimes, but that’s natural because he’s young, he wants everything quick and the process he has we are doing. Today he scored a goal, but what was most important was how he worked.”
Given Ollie Watkins’ wastefulness when he came off the bench, Emery may consider more rotation between his two forwards. It would give Watkins a break and may persuade Duran that he should stay at Villa Park in the long term.
Brighton
Tariq Lamptey has been through some stuff. At the age of 24, he has already missed matches with ten different injuries; his potential risked getting stuck in the mud. This was only Lamptey’s 15th Premier League start since April 2022.
Lamptey’s opening goal against Leicester City was a thing of great beauty, a swing with his (much) weaker left foot that initially caught Mads Hermansen off guard and then left the goalkeeper scrambling with no hope of getting close to the ball. He will never score a better goal with either foot, let alone his left.
More pertinent was the reaction of Lamptey’s teammates. They sprinted as one, not just with delight that they had taken the lead but because they were so happy for the goalscorer. Lamptey was left in the centre of a scrum, every player wanting to rub his head and offer a hug.
Those players have seen what a young full-back has been through, a dream stopping and starting and muscle injuries keeping ambition in suspension
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