Football writer Alex Keble highlights the hot topics and tactical lessons from Matchweek 16 including:
- Is Robinson now the best left-back?
- Amad is the face of Amorim's project
- Chelsea's title bid is gaining momentum
- Arsenal are looking down, and not up
- Forest can go the distance in top-four race
- Wolves defeat encapsulated O'Neil era
- Southampton chasing history to avoid drop
- Sarr starting to fill Olise's boots
- Newcastle win is just what Howe needed
Robinson might be Premier League’s best left-back
On another difficult day for Liverpool left-back Andrew Robertson, who might have kept out Fulham’s opener prior to his first-half red card, Fulham’s Antonee Robinson staked his claim to be the best left-back in the Premier League.
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Robinson was superb yet again, shepherding Mohamed Salah well at one end and contributing significantly to his team’s attack at the other, assisting both Fulham goals and having 57 touches of the ball, more than any of his team-mates.
He has now assisted 11 Premier League goals since the start of last season, the most of any defender in the competition.
Robinson also made the most tackles (five), the joint-most interceptions (four) and created the most chances (four) of any player on the pitch in a typically dominant display down the left channel.
The contrast with Robertson was stark, and served to highlight just how important Robinson is to the way Fulham play. Marco Silva’s side funnel most of their attacks down that flank and refused to change tack, even though it meant risking Salah finding space on the same wing.
It is a testament to Robinson’s growing reputation in the Premier League that he was the dominant player on that side, and not Liverpool’s Egyptian.
Amad the driving force of Amorim project
Two late goals sealed an extraordinary win for Manchester United and Ruben Amorim, who became the first United manager to win his maiden Manchester derby since Sir Alex Ferguson, and in the process condemned Pep Guardiola to yet another damaging defeat.
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The headline story remains Manchester City’s astonishing collapse. They have won just one of their last 11 matches in all competitions, losing eight of those, and are closer to the bottom half of the table than they are to Chelsea in second.
But no less significant was the performance of Amad, who has emerged as the driving force of the Amorim project – and the one player embodying the characteristics the new Man Utd head coach wants to see.
Amad may have benefited from mistakes, but he was sharp to get on to the short Matheus Nunes backpass that led to Bruno Fernandes' equaliser from the penalty spot, and clinical in rounding Ederson to score the winner, in both cases playing with the urgency and energy that defined Amorim’s Sporting side.
Throughout the game, Amorim looked agitated on the touchline.
He wanted his team to press harder off the ball and play more vertically on it, and arguably the only player doing so was Amad, buzzing up and down the right wing to good effect long before his matchwinning moments.
The lesson for Man Utd’s other players, to those both in and out of the team, is to follow Amad’s lead.
Unerring Chelsea could be top by January
Chelsea are expected to win games like this; Brentford have only picked up one point on the road all season and were huge underdogs at Stamford Bridge.
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But in an unpredictable Premier League season that refuses to settle down, Chelsea’s capacity to grind out unglamorous wins – that’s five in row now – marks them out as something different, something special.
They are now only two points behind Liverpool, and with Arne Slot’s side visibly slowing down in recent games, Chelsea suddenly look capable of reeling them in.
It would be an extraordinary feat given Liverpool were a supposedly unassailable nine points ahead as recently as late November, yet the fixture list tells us it could happen by January.
Chelsea have trips to Everton, Ipswich Town and Crystal Palace, along with a home London derby against Fulham, before the break for the FA Cup third round in early January.
On current form, they could easily win all four.
Enzo Maresca’s men have won 15 points more this season (34) than the 19 they managed from the corresponding 16 matches played so far in 2024/25, the biggest difference of any Premier League side.
Last season they beat Fulham at home and Palace away, and took seven points from three away games against promoted teams. Even if they only match last season’s results, Chelsea could be top in the New Year.
Another missed opportunity leaves Arsenal looking down
Arsenal have drawn back-to-back Premier League games for the first time since April 2023, missing out on the opportunity to capitalise on Liverpool’s difficult week by only matching the leaders’ tally of two points from two games.
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That is a deeply frustrating outcome for Arsenal fans, who watched their side labour to no avail against Everton on an afternoon of constant irritations.
Only Arsenal, with 17, have kept more clean sheets than the 13 of Everton in 2024, and Sean Dyche’s side have kept six of these across their last nine games, so breaking down the visitors was always going to be tough.
That made it all the more surprising when, in the 62nd minute, Mikel Arteta decided to withdraw Martin Odegaard for Ethan Nwaneri, rather than field the two playmakers together.
“It was a tactical decision to try to change their rhythm on that side,” Arteta said after the game.
Clearly the gamble did not pay off: Arsenal created 13 chances with Odegaard on the pitch and just three after he was withdrawn.
It leaves the Gunners looking down, and not up. A record of 30 points from 16 games is well below pre-season expectations and means they’re a mere six points ahead of Fulham in ninth.
Arsenal still expect to challenge for the title, but at the current rate, even UEFA Champions League qualification is not a given.
Relentless Forest can last the distance
Nottingham Forest are relentless.
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This is around the time of the season when you might expect a fast starter to begin to wane, but Nuno Espirito Santo’s side continue to break records and defy the odds.
On Saturday evening they beat Aston Villa despite being 1-0 down after 86 minutes and 14 seconds, the latest they’ve ever trailed in a Premier League game they’ve gone on to win.
It was also only their second-ever stoppage-time winning goal in the competition and first since October 1995.
Nuno is breaking down barriers and taking Forest back to highs they haven’t seen in 30 years. On 28 points, Forest have their best return after 16 games since 1994/95 (also 28), a season in which they went on to finish third.
A top-three finish still sounds a little far-fetched, but fans have every right to dream.
Particularly impressive was the manner of Forest’s winning goal. Three times Matty Cash was dispossessed in the build-up, exemplifying a self-belief that is driving Forest towards an unexpected push for Champions League football.
Fourth in the table and just two points behind Arsenal, Forest can start to think seriously about that prospect.
Wolves defeat epitomised issues under O’Neil
Gary O’Neil’s tenure as Wolverhampton Wanderers head coach has come to an end after a disappointing defeat to relegation rivals Ipswich Town.
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In many ways it was a defeat typical of Wolves’ season - and a crash course in the problems under O’Neil towards the end.
The most significant has been Wolves’ vulnerability to set-pieces. Ipswich’s late winner, scored from a corner, was the 13th set-piece goal Wolves have conceded in the Premier League this season, five more than anyone else.
Set-pieces aside, when analysing the club’s defensive record, O’Neil might point to the sale of Maximilian Kilman in the summer as the mitigating factor, but the truth might be more mundane: bad luck.
Wolves have conceded 40 goals from an Expected Goals (xG) of 16.5, an enormous (and league-topping) 23.5 goals more than "expected", which tells us they have either been very unlucky with the quality of opposition shots or the goalkeeping has been exceptionally poor.
So, a comedy own goal (which has an xG of 0.0) and a set-piece goal pretty much sum up the Wolves defence.
Whoever succeeds O'Neil will know exactly what to focus on first.
Southampton must make history to avoid drop
Southampton supporters leaving the stadium before half-time against Tottenham Hotspur was a damning critique of their side’s performance on what must go down as a new low point in a campaign of little cheer.
Russell Martin was relieved of his duties just hours later.
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It will take an all-time great escape for Southampton to avoid the drop from here, not because of the psychological toll of a defeat like this but because of the simple mathematics.
Sheffield United in 2020/21, with two, are the only team to have picked up fewer points at this stage of a Premier League campaign than Southampton’s five. The Blades finished rock bottom on 23 points.
That’s ominous enough, but it gets worse when you dig down. For Southampton to even hit 32 points, the number with which Nottingham Forest stayed up in 17th last season, they will need 27 points from 22 matches.
That’s 1.23 points per match: the amount that Fulham averaged in 2023/24 when they impressed on their way to 47 points and 13th place.
The next Southampton manager will have to perform miracles.
Sarr becoming Palace’s Olise replacement
Things are starting to come together at last for Crystal Palace, now five Premier League matches unbeaten and entering the busiest period of the season in high spirits after defeating their rivals for the first time since February 2021.
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The match winner was Ismaila Sarr, who scored twice and assisted the other at Brighton & Hove Albion, making it the second time he’s managed to both score and assist in an away Premier League match this campaign.
Sarr, who took Michael Olise’s No 7 shirt when he arrived from Marseille in the summer, has taken a little while to settle but now looks like the Olise replacement Palace have badly needed.
“We knew that we couldn’t replace Michael one-for-one, because he’s got his own profile and his own qualities,” Oliver Glasner said after the game.
“Ismaila is more of a direct runner with a lot of pace. We knew if we get him into the right areas in the right moment he will get chances to score goals.
“He’s getting better and better. But now is not the time for him to relax. He shows why we signed him and he gets all the credit.”
Newcastle’s dominant win just what Howe needed
It’s been a complicated first half of the 2024/25 Premier League season for Newcastle United and Eddie Howe. Their best performance of the campaign came at just the right time.
Lewis Hall, Anthony Gordon and Alexander Isak combined superbly down the Newcastle left to blow away a Leicester City side whose defending was roundly criticised by manager Ruud van Nistelrooy.
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But the match was defined more by Newcastle’s strengths than Leicester’s flaws.
Newcastle’s xG of 3.79, goals scored (four), shots (27), and shots on target (11) were all season highs, providing a much-needed boost to confidence after a tough few weeks.
Howe’s side had only picked up 10 points from their previous 11 Premier League matches. More worrying still, they had won just two of their league games against teams in the bottom half, beating Southampton and Wolves, the Premier League’s bottom two.
The strength of the opposition feels irrelevant then. A first win at St James' Park since September wipes the slate clean ahead of their hugely significant EFL Cup quarter-final against Brentford on Wednesday.
