Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season, The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s Premier League football.
This was the weekend when Erling Haaland merely scored twice as Manchester City survived an early scare against Brentford, when Marcus Rashford broke his goal drought, when Everton found another way to cause their supporters despair by losing a two-goal lead for the second game running, and when Harvey Barnes produced a blinding strike to earn Newcastle United a win over Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Here we will ask if Ange Postecoglou’s dogmatism provides more negatives than positives, whether Liverpool’s defeat to Nottingham Forest was a blip or the sign of something more worrying, and whether we can interest you in some EFL chaos.
Should Ange Postecoglou be more like Mikel Arteta?
The good news for Tottenham Hotspur is they are top of one table in this nascent season.
The bad news is it’s only the possession table, one they sit astride with a very impressive 67.8 per cent of the ball over their four games. The really bad news might be that third in that table are Southampton, which perhaps indicates that it’s not a ranking that is necessarily good to be top of.
Spurs are also top of another, slightly more subjective table, that of the most frustrating team to watch in the Premier League. They were once again infuriating in the 1-0 defeat to Arsenal, having the vast majority of the ball but not really managing to do anything with it. That’s three of their four games that they could/should have won, but they have only four points.
By the end of the game, they had simply run out of ideas and were trying Hail Mary shots from way out: if one of them had gone in and they had salvaged a point, it would have felt like something of an injustice. Because Arsenal were terrific.
They have played some fantastic football under Mikel Arteta, but not in this game. Instead, they were tight, compact, brilliantly organised in defence and scored the winner from a set piece.
It wasn’t what Arteta necessarily wanted to do, but one he was compelled to given the absences of Declan Rice, Martin Odegaard, Riccardo Calafiori and others. “I had a clear game plan then, news, we lose a player,” he told his post-match press conference. “Then more news, we lose another player. I had to change everything.”
That should be encouraging for Arsenal fans because it displays a level of adaptability that his opposite number seems not to possess. Ange Postecoglou won’t be changing; he has his way of playing, he’s reached this far by playing it, so it’s unlikely he will alter that because of a defeat in a local derby.
And in some respects, that’s admirable. He almost certainly wouldn’t have got this job if he had been more pragmatic: his ‘philosophy’ was his selling point. Plan B is just more Plan A.
Postecoglou has his ways… and he’s sticking to them (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)
But sometimes, something different would be useful. Like here: everything was funnelled through the middle, and when Spurs did use width it was to toss increasingly ineffective crosses towards Dominic Solanke. Stretching play, trying to manufacture holes in the Arsenal defence, could have been a way through, but they didn’t do that.
Is it that Postecoglou is too dogmatic? Is it that the players he has simply aren’t doing — or aren’t able to do — what he wants? Either way, something isn’t working at the moment, and you would forgive Spurs fans if they yearned for something more like Arsenal.
GO DEEPER
How Mikel Arteta rebuilt Arsenal in his own image
Was this a blip for Liverpool, or a sign of their season to come?
Arne Slot’s first three games as Liverpool manager were close to flawless. Aside from a sticky first half hour or so against Ipswich Town on the opening day, they had controlled virtually every other minute, the centrepiece being the dismantling of Manchester United.
Their fourth game… not so much.
In some respects, it feels churlish to focus on Liverpool, given that Nottingham Forest beat them 1-0 with the perfect away performance. They started with a packed midfield and the intention to keep things tight in the first half. Then Nuno Espirito Santo gradually introduced some more attacking players, and when one of them, Callum Hudson-Odoi, curled in a brilliant strike, they locked down and saw out the win.
But the truth is that while Forest were tactically superb and did defend well, they didn’t have to produce a completely heroic rearguard display to win at Anfield for the first time since 1969.
Liverpool were worryingly off the pace and showed little of the fluency from their opening three games. Perhaps this had something to do with Slot picking many of the international players who had been off around the world this week, when it might have been more sensible to give, say, Luis Diaz a rest, especially with the Champions League game against AC Milan this week in mind.
The Slot honeymoon is over, courtesy of Nottingham Forest (Ian Hodgson/AFP/Getty Images)
So is this just a blip, or something more serious? Virgil van Dijk might have come close to summing it up when he said after the game: “The contrast between the games we’ve played is too big.”
This is a flawed Liverpool squad, one with the potential to be excellent but also to be extremely disappointing, and they’re working with a new manager. The performance against Manchester United might have tricked us into thinking that Slot has got all of his ideas across already, but this game pointed out what probably should have been obvious: that it will inevitably take time for him to truly make this his team.
So this game throws up one main question: was this simply an off day, the inevitable consequence of new manager teething problems, or an indication that this Liverpool team is inherently inconsistent, capable of brilliance but also troubling ineffectiveness, something that will scupper any grand plans for glory this season?
GO DEEPER
‘Unacceptable’: What went so wrong for Liverpool against Nottingham Forest?
Can we interest you in the chaos of the EFL?
For some, English football is the Premier League, and that’s a fair enough thing to think. It’s where all the money, attention and egos are, and the best football.
Well, actually, it depends on what you mean by ‘best’. If you mean the highest technical and athletic quality then, yes, the Premier League is the one you’re looking for.
But if you mean entertainment by way of chaos and unpredictability, where you’re captivated by things you had no idea you would ever want to be captivated by, then may we suggest: the EFL.
Take Derby County’s Ebou Adams, who did all of the hard work in creating an open goal opportunity for himself against his former club Cardiff City with some fine pressing and relentless running. The goal was at his mercy and he had the chance to seal the game for his side with a simple side foot into the unguarded net.
Ah. Yes. About that.
An EXTRAORDINARY miss!#EFL | #SkyBetChampionship pic.twitter.com/LdWCE0JjN1
— Sky Bet Championship (@SkyBetChamp) September 14, 2024
Or perhaps the game between Sheffield Wednesday and Queens Park Rangers could interest you. It was 0-0 going into the 92nd minute, so when Wednesday’s Barry Bannan hooked in a goal they would have quite justifiably thought the points were in the bag.
Cue one of the most chaotic goalmouth scrambles of all time in the 95th minute, as QPR looked for an unlikely equaliser. If you can figure out exactly what went on in this astonishing jumble of limbs, which looks like a cartoon fight with everyone disappearing in a cloud of dust and windmilling arms, do let us know. We haven’t a clue.
What we do know is that it resulted in a goal and that it was terrifically entertaining.
Alfie with the finishing touch 😎 pic.twitter.com/LC34RSmYUw
— QPR FC (@QPR) September 15, 2024
We can’t promise stuff like this every week, but if you’re EFL curious then perhaps the celeb derby tonight in League One, as Tom Brady’s Birmingham City host Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s Wrexham, would be a good entry point (it’s on Sky Sports in the UK). You won’t regret it.
Coming up
- If you’re a fan of long-awaited, incredibly complex, inevitable-to-upset-someone-and-invite-accusations-of-conspiracy-whatever-the-outcome legal proceedings, then this week is your Christmas. Manchester City’s hearing for the 115 charges of alleged breaches of financial regulations begins on Monday, and while nobody knows how long it will last, when the verdict will be and definitely not what the verdict will be, it’s probably best for all concerned that it is actually, eventually happening.
- Meanwhile, on the pitch: it’s the Chaaaaaaaaaaaampiioooooooooons. Yes, the Champions League is back, and with a brand new format, baby. The first batch of games comes on Tuesday, and it’s an exciting night for Aston Villa, as they start with a trip to Switzerland to face Young Boys, while Real Madrid begin their defence against Stuttgart, and Liverpool travel to play AC Milan.
- Also on Tuesday is the Carabao Cup, which isn’t massively thrilling but it does present the amusing juxtaposition of Manchester United being at home to Barnsley while their Liverpudlian rivals live it up in their slightly more glamorous surrounds.
- Wednesday sees another six games, featuring a repeat of the 2023 final as Manchester City host Inter Milan, while Paris Saint-Germain face Girona.
- And then on Thursday — yes, THURSDAY — the remaining sextet of fixtures sees Arsenal hop over to play Atalanta, while Barcelona play in the ‘Ludovic Giuly clasico’ against Monaco. The Europa League starts next week, and the Conference League the week after that.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
