Football writer Alex Keble highlights the hot topics and tactical lessons from Matchweek 29, including:
- Nothing will stop Forest's UEFA Champions League dream
- Brentford’s win makes Champions League race more open than ever
- Chelsea lack squad depth
- Marmoush as a No 10 represents a tactical shift
- Fernandes is reaching club-legend status despite Man Utd’s lost decade
- Spurs' Europa League campaign is affecting league results
- Wolves have a 98.9 per cent chance of staying up
- Potter might need to consider a formation change
Nothing will stop Forest’s UEFA Champions League dream
While eight clubs vie for fourth and fifth spot, above them are three teams whose place in next season’s UEFA Champions League now appears safe: Liverpool, Arsenal and Nottingham Forest.
Forest’s season has been so consistently remarkable they are almost starting to go under the radar, with their victories too often taken for granted.
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But while the rest of the top half trip over one other, it is all the more impressive that Nuno Espirito Santo’s side are simply unshakeable. We should not lose sight of that.
They have won 54 points from their 29 matches. Only four times in Premier League history has a team failed to finish in the top five having won as many points at this stage of the campaign, the last coming in 2018/19.
Fans won’t relax – won’t believe it’s even possible – until a place in the Champions League is mathematically certain, but the rest of us suspect that Forest will not slip up from here.
Brentford’s win makes Champions League race more open than ever
This match followed recent trends in more ways than one.
AFC Bournemouth lost their third home match in a row and Brentford won their fifth away game in succession; Bournemouth continued their poor sequence (one point in four games) while Brentford kept up their hot streak (10 points in five matches).
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But beyond their respective form, Brentford’s win at Vitality Stadium also helped ensure the continuation of a quite incredible scrap for Champions League football.
With nine matches to go the race is tighter than ever after Brentford’s win at Bournemouth pulled Thomas Frank’s side into contention.
There are now only eight points between the eight teams from fourth to 11th place, thanks to a weekend in which just two of those eight clubs recorded wins.
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 |
Chelsea
CHE
|
29 | +16 | 49 |
| 5 |
Man City
MCI
|
29 | +15 | 48 |
| 6 |
Newcastle
NEW
|
28 | +9 | 47 |
| 7 |
Brighton
BHA
|
29 | +6 | 47 |
| 8 |
Fulham
FUL
|
29 | +5 | 45 |
| 9 |
Aston Villa
AVL
|
29 | -4 | 45 |
| 10 |
Bournemouth
BOU
|
29 | +12 | 44 |
| 11 |
Brentford
BRE
|
29 | +5 | 41 |
Arguably the clubs who gained the most from the weekend's Premier League action were two of those who didn’t take part in it - Aston Villa and the victors of Sunday's EFL Cup final, Newcastle United.
The Magpies can enter the top four if they beat Crystal Palace in their match in hand while Villa, who looked out of the race a fortnight ago, are now only three points off Man City in fifth.
Not that Villa fans will feel especially confident. Nobody does. As has been proven again and again, the race for Europe is just too erratic for favourites to emerge.
Chelsea lack squad depth
Chelsea’s seventh consecutive away Premier League match without victory, defined by an Expected Goals (xG) of 0.35, the lowest of the Enzo Maresca era to date, and just eight shots on the Arsenal goal, has once again raised the issue of their reliance on Cole Palmer.
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Since Palmer joined the club, Chelsea have lost all three domestic away matches without him, while failing to score a single goal.
The correlation is clear, yet Maresca’s problems seem to go even deeper than that after Chelsea looked short in several departments at Emirates Stadium.
Reece James seemed uncomfortable in central midfield. Pedro Neto laboured as a No 9. Christopher Nkunku was anonymous on the left wing. Enzo Fernandez couldn’t find his feet in central attacking midfield.
That’s four players all used out of position, combining to create a fractured attacking performance, as their disordered "average positions" shape indicates.
Injuries to Noni Madueke, Nicolas Jackson and Palmer is all it has taken for square pegs to be put in round holes and for Chelsea to stumble badly. Six points from their last five matches leaves Maresca’s side only four points above Aston Villa in ninth.
The conclusion, after their lavish recent spending, is a surprising one: Chelsea lack squad depth.
Marmoush as a No 10 represents a tactical shift
A frantic end-to-end contest at the Etihad Stadium was among the best examples yet of how Pep Guardiola’s attempt to revive Manchester City’s fortunes has him stuck between a rock and a hard place.
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As symbolised by the use of the urgent and direct Omar Marmoush behind Erling Haaland, Guardiola is beginning to lean in to the modern trend for transitions - and lean away from slower possession. There are as many upsides as downsides.
On the one hand, Marmoush, Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Savinho - a fast-dribbling front four that would have been inconceivable under Guardiola a couple of years ago - broke forward effectively, leading to their two goals.
But by playing a more direct game, Man City risked becoming overly stretched, allowing Brighton & Hove Albion to rush back the other way. Over and over again, Kaoru Mitoma and Yankuba Minteh had space on the wings, with Doku and Savinho nowhere in sight.
At 2-2, Brighton squandered two golden opportunities – Minteh missed the ball at the back post, then Carlos Baleba skied from 12 yards – with Savinho, Doku, and Marmoush caught well behind the play.
Guardiola must work out how to embrace the modern fashion for quick transitions without losing defensive solidity.
Fernandes is reaching club-legend status despite Man Utd’s lost decade
It’s a question that’s been asked many times before over the last four-and-a-half years, but it bears repeating: where would Manchester United be without Bruno Fernandes?
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His capacity to continue scoring and assisting, to put in elite performances - no matter what’s going on around him - is a remarkable quality for which Fernandes does not get anywhere near enough credit.
He assisted two goals and scored the third at Leicester City on Sunday, making it a hat-trick of involvements for the ninth time in a United shirt – and second time in as many matches, after leading the charge against Real Sociedad on Thursday night.
His contribution on Sunday took Fernandes to 112 Premier League goal involvements, the 10th-most for Man Utd in the competition. Fernandes also became the sixth United player to reach 50 Premier League assists, after Ryan Giggs (162), Wayne Rooney (93), David Beckham (80), Paul Scholes (55) and Eric Cantona (51).
In fact, since his debut in February 2020, only Kevin De Bruyne, with 90, has recorded more assists in all competitions for a single club in Europe's big five leagues than the 80 of Fernandes.
In years to come, Fernandes will be remembered as a true Man Utd legend, not because of his achievements at the club but despite them; not because he led them to glory but because he notched such incredible numbers during some of the darkest days in Man Utd’s modern history.
Spurs’ Europa League campaign is affecting league results
Ange Postecoglou is all too aware of the dangers of focusing solely on the UEFA Europa League.
"I said to the players, I'm not going to allow anyone to think about the Europa League and nothing else," he said after the defeat at Fulham. "We can't let this league season go the way it has. We have lost way too many games. Unacceptable."
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Ten points adrift of 10th spot means Tottenham Hotspur are destined for a bottom-half finish, and yet if they allow their focus to drift they may struggle to raise their levels again for a crucial Europa League quarter-final against Eintracht Frankfurt.
One thing is for sure: Spurs are unlikely to win the Europa League if they play like they did at Craven Cottage on Sunday.
Spurs were dominated by Fulham, holding only 43 per cent possession, their third-lowest figure in the Premier League this season after a 4-3 defeat at home to Chelsea and 4-0 victory at Manchester City.
Postecoglou believes that some of his players are lacking in confidence, and that is an issue he hopes will improve following the international break.
"I just feel Biss [Yves Bissouma] can sometimes let the game drift by him," said Postecoglou. "It's fair to say Biss and a few others are probably lacking a bit of confidence.
"That's affecting him, but we're at the point of the season now where we need guys to get out there and put those things to one side and perform."
Waning confidence is no longer an excuse as far as Postecoglou is concerned. He will be hoping the international break offers the chance to reset - and refocus minds ahead of a crucial two months.
Wolves have a 98.9 per cent chance of staying up
This is the win that clinches it for Wolverhampton Wanderers and could all-but relegate Southampton, Ipswich Town, and Leicester.
For that to be the case with nine matches still to play, and with Wolves on track for only 34 points, does not reflect well on the promoted clubs.
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Opta’s season simulation gives Wolves a 98.9 per cent chance of safety. Southampton are given zero per cent, Leicester 0.5 per cent, and Ipswich 0.7 per cent.
That rather miserable state of affairs for the bottom three clubs, and Saints in particular, was summed up by the way Wolves won at St Mary’s Stadium without playing particularly well.
They had five attempts on goal, the fewest shots by a winning team to score two or more goals in a Premier League away match since Crystal Palace against Burnley in November 2023.
Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton have picked up only one point between them across their last 15 Premier League matches. Hope is dwindling for all three, although for Southampton there is another anxiety.
Saints still need one more win to surpass Derby County’s record low points haul of 11 in 2007/08. They are by no means guaranteed to get it.
Potter might need to consider a formation change
A point at Goodison Park is far from a bad result for West Ham United, not when you consider Everton have drawn five of their last six Premier League matches, but the Hammers’ start to life under Graham Potter is a slight cause for concern.
Eleven points from nine matches is adequate, although putting results to one side, the Potter era so far has been defined by slow and uninspiring performances, particularly in the final third.
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Their xG has dropped from 1.46 per game prior to Potter’s appointment to 0.99 per game.
The issue here could be the formation. Potter, unusually for him, has largely stuck to a back five since becoming West Ham head coach, which inevitably limits the number of bodies committed to attack.
Certainly starting three central defenders felt like overkill at Goodison Park, where Potter could have afforded to take off the handbrake and risk something a little more adventurous.
This, after all, is what he was hired to do after the sluggish football endured under Julen Lopetegui.
Perhaps Potter will use the international break to coach his tactical ideas in more detail – and, in the process, introduce a more dynamic and attacking formation.
