Alex Keble analyses where the weekend fixtures could be won and lost, including:
- Will Man Utd answer lingering questions?
- Arsenal face bogey team Aston Villa
- Everton are the perfect opponents for Spurs
- Wolves can put early pressure on Maresca
- Liverpool duo can expose Brentford's weak spot
- Palace's home form a concern for Lopetegui
- Can Ipswich cause an upset against Man City?
- Southampton must show they can handle teams like Forest
- Can Evanilson replace Solanke up front?
- Berge v Skipp will be key in battle of debutants
Brighton test will answer questions about Man Utd
It’s easy to be drawn into the mistake of extrapolating patterns from the opening weekend of the season.
The sample size is just too small to deserve such scrutiny, but when it comes to Manchester United, well, the temptation is irresistible.
We are desperate to know whether 2024/25 will be another season of struggle or a new beginning and, infuriatingly, the 1-0 victory over Fulham could be read either way.
On the one hand, Fulham tore through an open Man Utd formation for the first 20 minutes, and the game became hopelessly stretched in the final 20 after Erik ten Hag’s substitutions destabilised things. Marco Silva’s side could have taken at least a point.
On the other hand, United had a 45-minute period when they pressed, hustled and attacked with tactical coherence.
Tellingly, they topped the Premier League charts last weekend for combined attempted tackles and interceptions, with 40, and recoveries, with 58. They completed 14 of those attempted tackles, the fourth-best total in the league.
Man Utd tackles and recoveries v Fulham
| Total | PL rank | |
| Tackles won | 14 | 4th |
|---|---|---|
| Interceptions | 19 | 1st |
| Recoveries | 58 | 1st |
A visit to Brighton & Hove Albion – who have won four of their last five Premier League meetings with Man Utd - will shed some light on the situation.
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Fabian Hurzeler’s side were superb in a 3-0 win at Everton, where his wingers exploded into life thanks to the way Brighton squeeze midfield and then use the transition to break forward at speed.
Man Utd’s new hard press might be vulnerable to this feature of Hurzeler’s football. As United work out the kinks of the new tactics, they will continue to have those 20-minute spells of disorder, giving Kaoru Mitoma and Yankuba Minteh a chance to stretch their legs and cause damage.
Alternatively, Brighton’s confrontational style of football could raise Man Utd’s level, giving them the fiery midfield battle that Casemiro and Mason Mount will want.
The Fulham win was a promising start. How United perform against Brighton will answer a lot of the lingering questions.
Will Villa be Arsenal’s bogey team again?
Arsenal would have won the Premier League last season had it not been for Aston Villa. That is the message Mikel Arteta will surely use to rile up his players before the trip to Villa Park this weekend.
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Villa did the double over Arsenal without conceding a single goal, a feat so unusual that those wins accounted for a remarkable 40 per cent of Arsenal’s five defeats across the whole 2023/24 Premier League season.
In fact, Unai Emery’s side are the only team who have beaten Arsenal in the Premier League this calendar year.
Going back further, Villa have won five of their last eight meetings with Arsenal, all to nil, and on Saturday evening are looking to make it three successive wins against the Gunners for a second time since their promotion, having also done so in 2020/21.
Villa are an important psychological block that Arsenal need to get over.
If the Gunners are to win the Premier League this season, they need to make a start confident enough to knock Manchester City off their stride – and you can’t exactly send that message to your rivals if you lose to your bogey team in Matchweek 2.
Arteta must see this as an opportunity: a chance to lay down a marker and prove early doors that Arsenal have moved another step forward this summer.
Spurs can capitalise on Everton's issues out wide
The sight of Ange Postecoglou with his hands on his knees, exhausted and disappointed with what he’d seen in Monday's 1-1 draw at Leicester City, was not the way Tottenham Hotspur supporters had envisioned the start of year two under the Australian.
Spurs needed a fast start to eradicate fears that their decline in 2023/24, when they took only 40 points from the final 28 matches, was not a sign of things to come. They definitely cannot afford a slow start.
Fortunately, Everton are the perfect opponents for a course correction.
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Sean Dyche’s side are winless in 11 away matches and, just as significantly, they were blown away by Brighton on the opening weekend, where Everton’s problems in the full-back positions were badly exposed.
It just so happens this is where Spurs are strongest. Postecoglou’s tactics are geared towards spreading the ball out to the winger who, isolating the full-back, looks to beat his man and cut the ball back for a tap-in.
It’s easy to imagine Mason Holgate and Vitalii Mykolenko struggling to contain Son Heung-min and Brennan Johnson, especially with James Maddison drifting wide to support them.
Will Wolves counter-attacks leave Maresca with two defeats?
This is a big match given the pressure that has immediately weighed down Chelsea and their head coach Enzo Maresca, as he seeks to manage his bloated squad and build positivity around the club with early results.
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Wolverhampton Wanderers have won each of their last three Premier League meetings with Chelsea, while the Blues have not lost their first two fixtures of a league season since 1973/74.
Should Wolves make it four in a row you can expect to hear that date repeated a lot over the days that follow.
It could easily happen.
The danger of Maresca’s possession-centric football was immediately apparent against Man City last Sunday, when Pep Guardiola’s side found gaps through midfield after the ball was turned over.
Mateo Kovacic’s goal was the most glaring example, as we highlighted in our post-match analysis, but it wasn’t the only time their 4-4-2 shape looked awkwardly stretched as the players tried to get used to the new style.
Wolves’ fast breaks, led by Matheus Cunha and Hwang Hee-chan, can cause serious damage – as they did in the 4-2 win at Stamford Bridge and 2-1 win at Molineux last season.
If Maresca’s first match is anything to go by, Chelsea are even more vulnerable than they were in those two defeats.
Can Liverpool duo target Brentford’s weak spot?
The last Liverpool manager to win his first two league matches in charge was Graeme Souness back in April 1991. Arne Slot is already on the verge of making Premier League history at Anfield.
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After a sluggish start at Ipswich Town last weekend, Liverpool were good value for their 2-0 win, recovering after the break to dominate the final third. Their 50 touches in the Ipswich box were the most in a manager’s first ever match in charge in the Premier League, since records began in 2008/09.
The graph below shows the strength of each team's attack as the match progressed (from left to right), highlighting how dominant Liverpool were in the second half.
There is danger if Liverpool again start slowly.
Brentford are an in-your-face team who will mimic the way Ipswich snapped at Liverpool's heels in the first 45 minutes at Portman Road, and of course Yoane Wissa and Bryan Mbeumo are a serious threat on the counter-attack should that strategy work.
But there is a tactical mismatch in Liverpool’s favour that ought to put anxious minds at rest.
Rico Henry’s injury means Brentford are forced to play centre-back Kristoffer Ajer at left-back, giving Slot an obvious target.
Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah played a pivotal role last weekend once the Liverpool right-back had been moved out wide – a response to Ipswich’s narrow shape causing problems in the first half.
The interactions between these two could overwhelm the out-of-position Ajer.
Alexander-Arnold's highlights v Ipswich
TAA in #IPSLIV 💫 pic.twitter.com/ZCVqwxGCL8
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) August 19, 2024
Can home form help Palace recover - and put Lopetegui under early pressure?
There are always goals in this fixture. And since Oliver Glasner arrived there are always goals at Selhurst Park.
The last four Premier League meetings between Crystal Palace and West Ham United at Selhurst Park have seen 24 goals, or six per match, and on each occasion both sides scored at least twice.
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The most recent, a 5-2 win for Palace, was the first of four consecutive home wins for the Eagles to see out the 2023/24 season.
Glasner’s side scored 16 goals in total during that run.
It points to another big win for the hosts, and if that happens new West Ham head coach Julen Lopetegui might find himself under a little bit of pressure.
A trip to Man City follows next, so defeat on Saturday would risk seeing the Hammers fail to earn a single point in August.
Lopetegui will be hoping the loss of Michael Olise puts an end to Palace’s free-scoring home form.
Is there hope for Ipswich at Etihad Stadium?
The numbers would tell you that the answer to the question above is surely no.
Man City have won 17 of their last 18 Premier League matches against promoted sides, last losing in April 2021.
They are also unbeaten at home in 44 matches in all competitions (W37 D7), and the way they easily dispatched Chelsea last weekend tells us City are still in their groove.
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Ipswich, on the other hand, played out of their skin against Liverpool at Portman Road but tired significantly in the second half as the difference in quality showed. Travelling to City is a considerably bigger challenge than that.
To make matters worse, the way Salah and Alexander-Arnold played through left-back Leif Davis will encourage Guardiola to again field either Savinho or Jeremy Doku on the right wing.
As shown below, 85 per cent of City’s attacks last weekend were down the wings.
With Davis breaking forward at every opportunity, the speed of Man City’s wingers should prove too much for Ipswich.
Will Forest reveal the dangers of Saints’ possession-based football?
Russell Martin’s football hasn’t yet been tested.
Newcastle United were down to 10 men for more than an hour last Saturday, meaning we cannot read too much into how Southampton’s possession-based football will work at Premier League level.
Nottingham Forest will give us plenty of evidence. Nuno Espirito Santo is the most purely counter-attacking coach in the league, and in Anthony Elanga and Callum Hudson-Odoi, he has just the players to break behind Saints’ high line.
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Southampton must show they can deal with ruthless counter-attacking opponents while imposing themselves on a team that must be at least their equal.
In that respect, there is a lot riding on Southampton's first Premier League match back at St Mary’s Stadium. They can afford to drop points, but they must be competitive – and they must not reveal a fatal flaw.
How will Evanilson fare on his debut?
AFC Bournemouth have moved fast to replace Dominic Solanke, bringing in 24-year-old Brazilian striker Evanilson.
Our analysis suggests it is a good fit, both tactically and to replace Solanke’s goals.
Evanilson might have only scored 13 league goals for FC Porto last season, but he also netted a hat-trick in the UEFA Champions League against Royal Antwerp, and across all competitions his stats compare favourably to Solanke's.
Evanilson v Solanke stats in 23/24
| Evanilson | Solanke | |
|---|---|---|
| Matches | 34 | 42 |
| Goals | 17 | 21 |
| Assists | 4 | 4 |
| Goals/90 | 0.60 | 0.53 |
| Expected Goals/90 | 0.51 | 0.53 |
| Shots/90 | 2.87 | 2.97 |
| Touches in opp. box/90 | 6.56 | 5.85 |
There is of course a period of adaptation required, but after the opening-weekend draw at Forest, Bournemouth need their new striker to hit the ground running against Newcastle.
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Which debutant, Berge or Skipp, will win midfield battle?
In their 1-0 defeat to Man Utd last Friday, Fulham looked notably light in central midfield, where Andreas Pereira and Emile Smith Rowe struggled to get a grip as dual No 8s ahead of Sasa Lukic.
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Leicester City, meanwhile, were overrun by Spurs' midfield during a first half that could easily have ended in a three or four-goal lead for the visitors.
It was no surprise, then, to see both clubs splash out on a new midfielder.
Oliver Skipp and Sander Berge will both be thrown into the deep end for Leicester and Fulham respectively on Saturday. Judging by how both teams struggled through certain sections of their opening matches, the battle between the two debutants could well be the decisive factor at Craven Cottage.
