Football writer Alex Keble highlights the hot topics and tactical lessons from Matchweek 24 including:
- Slot’s tactical tweak shuts down Bournemouth’s left flank
- Arsenal emphasise title credentials with swagger at Emirates
- Attacking trio star for Forest as Hurzeler’s midfield exposed again
- Mainoo ‘false nine’ experiment highlights Amorim’s growing struggles
- Ipswich’s failure to beat rivals could send them down
- Emery will hope signings can solve post-Europe exhaustion
- Spurs dig deep with solid defensive strategy as Postecoglou leaves ‘plan A’
- Garner and Beto show Everton's surprising strength in depth
- Fulham’s substitutes highlight Newcastle’s lack of options
Slot’s tactical tweak shuts down Bournemouth’s left flank
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This was supposed to be a challenging game for the league leaders but instead Liverpool calmly dispatched of AFC Bournemouth at Vitality Stadium as if Andoni Iraola’s side weren’t on an 11-game unbeaten run.
The defining feature of Arne Slot’s debut season in England has been small and subtle changes that keep Liverpool ticking over. On Saturday we saw another vital one.
“[Bournemouth] have many good things, but their left-back [Milos Kerkez] is definitely a threat going forward,” Slot told reporters after the game. “If you leave Trent Alexander-Arnold alone with Antoine Semenyo and Kerkez in a two-versus-one, then that is not the best idea I can come up with.”
That explains Slot’s decision to move Ryan Gravenberch into a right-sided midfield position, where the Dutchman was instructed to play almost like a right-back when Liverpool had the ball.
It worked superbly, restricting Bournemouth to their first goalless game since Boxing Day as Semenyo and Kerkez struggled to make an impact.
A minor tweak, but a crucial one. Slot has barely put a foot wrong.
Arsenal emphasise title credentials with swagger at Emirates
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Any suggestion that Liverpool will simply walk to the Premier League title this season were emphatically rejected the next day when Arsenal hammered Manchester City in front of a jubilant Emirates crowd.
It wasn’t just the size of victory, but also the swagger with which Arsenal’s youngsters tore through the champions that tells us Mikel Arteta’s side will look to push Liverpool all the way.
Six points just don’t seem like a big deficit now, not with Liverpool travelling to a resurgent Everton for their game in hand, and especially not with Arsenal reawakened by the likes of Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri.
Lewis-Skelley and Nwaneri became the youngest players to score in the Premier League against the defending champions since Wayne Rooney in March 2003, while only Michael Owen and Rooney’s nine goals aged 17 or under for a Premier League team are more than Nwaneri’s seven.
Their youthful energy could be the catalyst for a more open and expressive Arsenal in 2025, giving impetus to what had looked a faltering title challenge.
Arteta’s narrow 4-4-2 was typically tough to break down for long periods, but that strong defensive showing was punctuated with two spells of furious pressing and attacking verve, first in the opening 10 minutes and then after Thomas Partey had restored Arsenal’s lead.
It’s the latter part – surging away from opponents – that has too often been missing in 2024/25. After Sunday, fans have renewed hope that Arsenal are back to their best.
Attacking trio star for Forest as Hurzeler’s midfield exposed again
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A sensational performance from Morgan Gibbs-White, Anthony Elanga, and Chris Wood inspired Nottingham Forest’s biggest league victory – in any division – since April 1991, confirming Nuno Espirito Santo’s side are here to stay.
But it’s hard not to focus on what Brighton & Hove Albion got wrong, most importantly fielding Jack Hinshelwood alone at the base of midfield in a 4-1-4-1 formation.
Hinshelwood had far too much to do on his own, allowing Gibbs-White and Elanga to flourish in the half-spaces while pulling other Brighton players out of position in an attempt to cover.
This happened throughout the game, the best example being the all-important opener. Here, Tariq Lamptey is pulled out of his left-back position to help Hinshelwood, which became a theme of the game.
Still, it would be remiss not to mention Wood’s hat-trick goals and Elanga’s hat-trick of assists. Forest were ruthless, continuing to enjoy their football at the City Ground in a way not dissimilar to Leicester City in 2015/16.
There’s no reason to assume Forest won’t keep riding this wave through to May. The two-time European champions could be back in the competition this year.
Mainoo ‘false nine’ experiment highlights Amorim’s growing struggles
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It felt poignant that on the day Marcus Rashford moved on loan to Aston Villa, Ruben Amorim decided to leave £110m pair Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee on the bench and try teenage midfielder Kobbie Mainoo as a “false nine”.
Of all the experiments made by the new Manchester United head coach, this one has to go down as the most surprising.
There was nothing particularly surprising about the result. United have now lost seven of their 13 home Premier League games this season, their joint-most at this stage of a campaign along with 1893/94.
It gives Amorim yet another unwanted record, being defeated in five of his seven home Premier League games so far. As pointed out by The i's journalist Daniel Storey, he’s lost more league games at Old Trafford than Jose Mourinho (four) and as many as Louis van Gaal (five) managed in total.
Lisandro Martinez going off in tears with what looked like a serious injury completed another miserable day for Man Utd, and one that left Amorim looking increasingly unsure of how to get his team out of this slump.
The Mainoo experiment didn’t last long and probably won’t come back. What the Man Utd manager tries next is anyone’s guess.
Ipswich’s failure to beat rivals could send them down
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This was a must-win game, plain and simple, and the kind of result that could have bad consequences for Kieran McKenna’s side.
Worse, it fits the pattern of their season. Ipswich Town have played four home games against the current bottom eight. They have won only a single point. That isn’t good enough.
Too often this season Ipswich have scrapped well and earned plaudits for being competitive, only to let big chances slip through their fingers.
They’ve won one point from three games against fellow promoted clubs and recorded only a single victory from six matches against the bottom six.
In those relegation-candidate mini-leagues Ipswich are underperforming. They still have four matches against the bottom six still to play, but three of those are in the final four matches of the season, when it might already be too late.
It is surely too late for Southampton, although ending their 13-game winless run – and getting their first away win of the season – does at least give Saints a good chance of avoiding a record-breaking failure.
They are now on nine points, two short of Derby County’s total of 11 in 2007/08.
Emery will hope signings can solve post-Europe exhaustion
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Vitor Pereira got his first win in seven at Molineux to lift Wolverhampton Wanderers back out of the relegation zone and restore some of the optimism that had come with his fast start in the West Midlands.
Perhaps we ought to have seen this coming. Aston Villa haven’t won any of their last seven matches following a Champions League fixture, winning only three points and scoring three goals.
It’s pretty clear that Unai Emery’s side have struggled to cope, just as Newcastle United did last season, which partly explains why Villa have brought in Rashford and are reportedly close to adding Paris Saint-Germain's Marco Asensio.
Villa have failed to score in six of their 24 Premier League games this season, as many times as in the whole of the 2023/24 campaign. Four of those have been after midweek European games.
More firepower is needed, then, to ensure recovery in a hectic schedule that Emery will be hoping continues through the campaign.
Spurs dig deep with solid defensive strategy as Postecoglou leaves ‘plan A’
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Ange Postecoglou has faced repeated accusations that he is unwilling to adapt his tactics, but there has been increasing evidence to the contrary in recent weeks – and the best we’ve yet had at the Gtech Community Stadium on Sunday.
Tottenham Hotspur held a meagre 46 per cent possession, their third-lowest total of the campaign after Manchester City (42 per cent) and Chelsea (39 per cent).
The visitors had to dig deep, grit their teeth, score a scrappy corner goal, and survive a Brentford onslaught to grind out a solid away win. Brentford had 20 shots and 2.29 Expected Goals (xG), their highest totals in a Premier League game this season without scoring.
It was clear evidence Postecoglou is prepared to shake things up, and further evidence that Spurs are starting to play a less expansive game.
Three of Spurs' bottom five possession shares this season have been recorded across their last six Premier League games. Ange is finally showing some flexibility.
Garner and Beto show Everton's surprising strength in depth
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Injuries to Orel Mangala and Dominic Calvert-Lewin forced David Moyes into two changes he certainly would not have wanted to make. Neither James Garner nor Beto have had a good time at Everton recently.
But everything Moyes touches turns to gold at the moment, and Garner and Beto were arguably the two best players on the pitch as Everton made it three wins on the spin to move nine points clear of the drop zone.
Beto’s movement and sharp finishing ensured Everton capitalised on their very early lead through Abdoulaye Doucoure, while Garner’s composure in possession helped carve open the Leicester defence.
It was Garner’s first start under Moyes and first assist, too, while Beto scored his first brace in a top-flight league game since September 2022 for Udinese, in doing so matching his entire goalscoring tally of three for last season.
From Jesper Lindstrom (10 league starts this season) to Jake O’Brien (four starts) to Garner (three starts) to Beto (two starts), Moyes is showing there is surprising strength in depth at Everton.
Fulham’s substitutes highlight Newcastle’s lack of options
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A difficult weekend for the majority of top-half clubs means Newcastle United didn’t lose any ground in the race for the Champions League, although consecutive home Premier League defeats for the first time since January 2024 is cause for mild alarm.
As is the rise of Fulham. Marco Silva’s side have gone under the radar so far, but they are now only five points off fourth – and very much in the race for Europe, thanks in no small part to the impact of their substitutes.
Rodrigo Muniz scored his second winning goal as a substitute in the Premier League this season, with only Jhon Duran, with three, netting more. Fulham also have had more match-winning goals scored by a substitute (three) than any team bar Bournemouth's four.
That statistic is in stark contrast to Newcastle, who once again failed to turn the tide with their second-half subs.
Eddie Howe has made just one change to his starting line-up over the last five league games, suggesting a lack of trust in his back-ups.
Eight Newcastle players have been involved in at least 22 of Newcastle’s 24 Premier League games, or 92 per cent of their league matches.
Howe is loyal to a small group, which is great when riding a wave of confidence but a problem as legs tire, hence Newcastle’s streaky form.
By the looks of things, they are entering another downward spiral.
