Football writer Alex Keble highlights the hot topics and tactical lessons from Matchweek 31 so far, including:
- Nuno's formation backfires to help Villa close in
- Fulham show league's quality and Liverpool's need for full-backs
- Why the Manchester derby ended the way it did
- Squad rotation threatens Chelsea's Champions League spot
- Arteta selection signals Europe is Arsenal's priority
- Fullkrug injection helped West Ham but Potter abandoned his tactics
- Wolves show how promoted clubs faced toughest-ever task to stay up
- Double over Brighton gives Palace the chance of a record-breaking season
- It might be a while before Southampton are back
Nuno's formation backfires to help Villa close in
By the end of the match Nottingham Forest had created enough chances to get at least a point at Villa Park, but the initial Nuno Espirito Santo tactical error proved too much to recover from.
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The visitors began in a surprising 5-2-1-2 formation, with Morgan Gibbs-White supporting two strikers, leaving just two central midfielders to cover all the width in front of a flat back five.
As their average positions from the first half show below, it left enormous amounts of space in the middle of the park, where Marco Asensio and Morgan Rogers controlled the match.
Reacting to all that room in front of them, Forest’s defenders often lunged out of position and, unfamiliar with the system, were in a zig-zag shape that allowed Aston Villa to create chances at will, scoring twice.
Forest regained some control after Nuno pushed his wing-backs higher up to help that middle line, before moving to a back four in the second half, while Villa lost composure and started kicking long.
But the damage had been done, and a rare Nuno tactical error has left Villa just six points behind Forest with seven games remaining.
| Position Pos | Club | Played Pl | GD | Points Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 |
Nott'm Forest
NFO
|
31 | +14 | 57 |
| 4 |
Chelsea
CHE
|
31 | +17 | 53 |
| 5 |
Newcastle
NEW
|
30 | +13 | 53 |
| 6 |
Man City
MCI
|
31 | +17 | 52 |
| 7 |
Aston Villa
AVL
|
31 | 0 | 51 |
| 8 |
Fulham
FUL
|
31 | +5 | 48 |
| 9 |
Brighton
BHA
|
31 | +2 | 47 |
| 10 |
Bournemouth
BOU
|
31 | +11 | 45 |
With Chris Wood still out, and Anthony Elanga leaving the field at half-time, Forest – having lost four of their last five Premier League away games – might be looking nervously over their shoulders.
Fulham show league's quality and Liverpool's need for full-backs
The growing murmurs that Liverpool have won a low-quality Premier League title are wrong.
Fulham’s win at Craven Cottage seems to have fuelled the fire in some quarters, when in reality this was evidence of the division’s strength; Marco Silva’s side are part of a strong middle class that Liverpool have done very well to sweep aside up until now.
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At this point, Liverpool are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Win their last seven matches and they "prove" to some that the league is weak this season. Fall away over their last seven and it’ll "prove" Liverpool aren’t particularly good champions.
Arne Slot and Liverpool supporters will ignore the noise, and instead look to focus on what needs to improve to retain their impending title next year.
This is easy enough to spot. A misjudged touch from makeshift right-back Curtis Jones gifted Fulham their equaliser, before left-back Andy Robertson made not one but three errors in the build-up to Fulham’s second goal.
Robertson has faded over the last 12 months and Liverpool could do with an upgrade here, while if reports of Trent Alexander-Arnold’s departure at the end of the season prove to be true, Slot could be looking for two new full-backs.
Fulham, meanwhile, are back in the hunt for Europe after beating the side starting the day top of the table for the first time since 2009.
They have also won back-to-back Premier League home games for the first time this season. Three points behind Villa in sixth, Silva’s side will believe they can disrupt a top seven that has threatened to pull away this week.
A trip to AFC Bournemouth on Saturday will give us an answer.
Why the Manchester derby ended the way it did
Former Manchester United pundits reacted angrily to the low-energy performance of Ruben Amorim’s side after their 0-0 draw at Old Trafford, with Gary Neville calling the match “robotic” and claiming that the Premier League has become overly structured.
“This robotic nature of not leaving our positions, of basically being micro-managed within an inch of our lives, of not having any freedom to take a risk, to go and try and win a football match, is becoming an illness in the game, is becoming a disease in the game,” Neville said on Sky Sports after the game.
This is an unfair way of looking at both this game and the league as a whole.
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“We are not in the best moments to give the best spectacle,” was Amorim’s direct response to Neville’s criticism, referencing that Manchester City’s below-par season and United’s struggles meant the game was inevitably of low quality.
That is true, but equally in the context of their seasons, it was legitimate that Man City feared counter-attacks (having lost to an Amorim side twice this season, with the first defeat coming in the UEFA Champions League against Sporting Lisbon) and that Man Utd were happy to avoid losing at all costs.
Man City kept consecutive Premier League clean sheets for the first time this season; United avoided the ignominy of a derby defeat in this most morale-sapping of campaigns.
Sometimes a dull game simply suits both sides, and, unluckily for the neutral, this time it happened to be the game in the headline Sunday afternoon slot.
As for the “disease” of “robotic” football, the Premier League’s increasing move towards fast transitions makes it one of the most entertaining leagues in Europe. It’s only some of the traditional “Big Six” – Man Utd, Chelsea, and Man City – who, in a tough period, are playing without freedom.
Squad rotation threatens Chelsea's Champions League spot
Chelsea were on a seven-game winless run in away Premier League matches and had scored three goals in their last four matches in all competitions.
It was a huge surprise, therefore, to see Enzo Maresca rotate Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson out of the team.
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They attempted 21 shots at Brentford, their most without a goal in an away match since December 2017, but at the same time Chelsea never really looked like scoring – and were fortunate to get a point.
Maresca’s side were flat again. Remarkably, there have been just four goals in total in Chelsea’s last five matches in all competitions, which shows that his slow-possession tactics might be affecting his team’s creativity.
That made it all the more surprising to see Jackson on the bench, given Chelsea have struggled to create chances without his runs in behind.
Their place in the Champions League spots now looks under serious threat. After hosting Ipswich Town this weekend, Chelsea face a very tough run-in. They will need Palmer and Jackson at their very best to fend off Villa and Newcastle United.
Chelsea's next five fixtures
Arteta selection signals Europe is Arsenal's priority
Leaving Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, and Gabriel Martinelli on the bench gave a clear signal that Mikel Arteta is rightly prioritising the Champions League over the Premier League.
Unsurprisingly it created a disjointed game, with Arsenal never really finding their rhythm despite taking the lead through Leandro Trossard. A draw against Everton was a fair result.
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Arsenal’s squad rotation will no doubt have a negative effect on their league form. Their five-point gap to Forest suggests they are probably safe in second place, although if the Gunners go deep in Europe then we might see them fall further.
However, the upside of losing too much ground on Liverpool is that Arteta is able to focus fully on the Real Madrid tie this week. Carlo Ancelotti’s side, locked in a title race, laboured with a full-strength side in Saturday's 2-1 defeat to Valencia.
Arsenal’s forwards will be considerably more refreshed than Real’s when they lock horns on Tuesday. That could make a huge difference.
Fullkrug injection helped West Ham but Potter abandoned his tactics
In a game of two halves, Graham Potter will be pleased with West Ham United’s response, but perhaps mildly alarmed by what he had to do to haul them back into the contest.
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In the first half, they looked like a Potter team. Lucas Paqueta came in from the left wing to make a box-midfield and West Ham played lots of neat one-touch passes around Bournemouth, playing structured possession football.
But they also ended the half with an Expected Goals (xG) of 0.05, again raising concerns that Potter-ball is a little too slow to create chances.
West Ham improved dramatically after making substitutions. Niclas Fullkrug held up the ball and dragged them up the pitch, receiving more direct passes from sub Carlos Soler, while Jarrod Bowen was much better from the wing, getting the ball from Fullkrug and driving forward on the break.
Where Fullkrug has placed his shots, PL 24/25
A big man up front, vertical passes into the forward line, and counter-attacks through quick wingers: Potter essentially simplified the West Ham tactics, in doing so letting go of his principles.
It’s going to be a huge summer for Potter and West Ham. On the one hand, he needs to get his ideas across during pre-season training. On the other, it looks like those ideas might need some updating.
Wolves show how promoted clubs faced toughest-ever task to stay up
Surely now the relegation battle is over. Only Southampton are officially down, but a 12-point gap from 18th to 17th with just seven matches to play is virtually insurmountable, especially when the nearest opponent is as good as Wolverhampton Wanderers.
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Wolves have now won three consecutive Premier League matches, all without their star player Matheus Cunha.
The consensus seems to be this year’s promoted clubs were not good enough. But a more accurate read might be that the Premier League is simply stronger than ever, and that Ipswich never really stood a chance.
Wolves, still in 17th, are on track to hit 40 points. They have a team that could have finished somewhere towards the middle of the table just a few years ago, with quality like Jorgen Strand Larsen – with four goals in his last three matches – still not enough to sit higher than fourth from bottom.
It has been an unusually strong year. There’s no shame in going straight back down.
Double over Brighton gives Palace the chance of a record-breaking season
For the first time since 1932/33, and the first time ever in the top flight, Crystal Palace have done the double over their rivals Brighton & Hove Albion.
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That alone makes this a season to remember for Palace fans, although it increasingly looks like Oliver Glasner can oversee an historic campaign.
Palace have won 11 of their last 14 matches in all competitions, a run that puts them in a good position ahead of an FA Cup semi-final and gives them a good chance of breaking their own Premier League records.
Their 10th-place finish and 49 points last season were both joint-Premier League records for Palace.
They are currently just six short of their best-ever points total with seven games remaining, and only two points off 10th-placed Bournemouth with a game in hand. Both of those records could fall.
It might be a while before Southampton are back
Southampton have become the first team in Premier League history to be relegated with as many as seven games of the season remaining.
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That’s a disappointing record to hold, and of course there’s another one hovering over Southampton that they are desperate to avoid. They still need two more points to avoid beating Derby County’s record low of 11 in 2007/08.
A bigger issue, in the grand scheme of things, is how Southampton recover from this to come back up next year.
Looking at the teams with the five lowest points tallies in Premier League history, three finished in the bottom half of the Championship the following season:
How clubs with lowest PL points tallies fared
| Club (Season) | Points | Championship position in next season |
| Derby County (07/08) | 11 | 18th |
|---|---|---|
| Sunderland (05/06) | 15 | 1st |
| Sheffield United (23/24) | 16 | 2nd* |
| Huddersfield Town (18/19) | 16 | 18th |
| Aston Villa (15/16) | 17 | 13th |
*Season is ongoing
But Sheffield United’s rapid turnaround from last year to the current campaign is a more optimistic sign for Southampton.
Nevertheless, Saints may lose Tyler Dibling in the transfer market and will do extremely well to hold on to Mateus Fernandes.
They came up as playoff winners in 2023/24 after finishing fourth in the Championship under Russell Martin, only to abandon his tactical ideas midway through this season.
In many ways, then, Saints are starting from scratch, after parting company with Martin's successor, Ivan Juric.
