Author: dmitriy.vasyura@gmail.com

Neither Pep Guardiola nor Unai Emery had lost four consecutive games before this weekend. By 10pm on Saturday both had been swept up in this Liverpool wave.

“Maybe after seven years winning six Premier Leagues, maybe one year another team deserve it,” was passive-aggressive Pep perfection, a precursor to the principal pretenders proving their proficiency.

Liverpool certainly deserved it in the one exception to Manchester City’s monopoly since Guardiola started his Premier League medal collection. Having capitalised on – and arguably triggered – a collapse from the champions in 2019/20, they are threatening to repeat the feat in this glorious possible Last Dance of a season.

It was the most ‘over to you, [insert name of title challengers]’ game imaginable. The combination of a surprise Manchester City televised evening defeat, allowing for a good half-hour of earnest analysis before leading straight into a rare late kick-off time which facilitated some lesser-seen Under The Lights At Anfield weekend action, set the stage superbly. And both teams played their parts with relish.

Aston Villa were the ideal spoilers, a side brimming with individual brilliance knitted together by an elite-level manager with a fine record on such occasions.

But this Liverpool team feels different. It controls games, knuckles down, finds a way. Jurgen Klopp should be commended for leaving behind such phenomenal foundations and Arne Slot can only be applauded for using them to create a team built in the image of two wonderful coaches.

It does make you wonder how much of this is muscle memory, a more sophisticated version of Everton finishing with their highest Premier League points total ever in 2013/14 because they still had the residual defensive resilience established by David Moyes to mesh with the attacking proclivities of Roberto Martinez. It is difficult to imagine this being the start of an infernal self-destructive cycle which ultimately ends with Liverpool appointing Sean Dyche but you never know.

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Watching Darwin Nunez open the scoring was to be taken back to the Klopp times. Liverpool turned an Aston Villa corner into an insatiable counter-attack once Virgil van Dijk finally cleared his lines. Mo Salah burst through, Leon Bailey tumbled him over, Darwin Nunez latched onto the loose ball and finished expertly after taking a touch to open an angle on Emi Martinez.

It was a shame in a perverse sort of way. The sight of referee David Coote gesturing that no foul had taken place between Bailey and Salah offered a tantalising view into a future in which Anfield would have imploded with rage had Nunez not ultimately taken on the responsibility himself. The trend of opposition infringements against Salah being entirely ignored by the officials is firmly entrenched but that would have been quite something to witness; the idea he was only fouled twice in this game is hilarious and preposterous.

Little over ten minutes later Liverpool had plotted the same route to goal: a Villa corner, eventually cleared, made its way to Salah who sent Nunez on his way. With longer to think, the Uruguayan produced a quite risible finish to crown a first half-hour which summed up his Liverpool career so far perfectly.

At that point Austin MacPhee probably ought to have resigned. Aston Villa’s set-piece coach presumably did not plan for their first two corners of the game to backfire so catastrophically. The next two at least produced chances for Amadou Onana and Diego Carlos, both of which were saved by Caiomhin Kelleher. Villa’s biggest strength was also their most glaring weakness.

Liverpool reached the break ahead and might not have thanked the boffins for one particularly foreboding statistic: they were unbeaten in their last 144 Premier League games when leading at half-time. Not particularly anxiety-inducing data by itself, but only hours earlier it had been pointed out that Manchester City were unbeaten in 71 Premier League games when leading at half-time, with Brighton adding emphasis on the past tense.

In the end an entirely different parallel could be drawn to define the perfect day for Liverpool: neither Guardiola nor Unai Emery had lost four consecutive games as a manager before this weekend, yet by 10pm on Saturday evening that had changed for both mildly crisis-ridden coaches and there was one chief beneficiary.

The second half followed much the same pattern as the first. Morgan Rogers wasted a golden opportunity early on, while Liverpool relied on fast breaks – still generally from Villa corners – to provide an ever-present threat.

The sealing goal shattered any modicum of Villa momentum and underlined why some might consider Liverpool favourites in this title race. A mistake from Diego Carlos on the halfway line was punished thoroughly by Mo Salah, who is seemingly using speculation over his future as fuel to become the world’s most effective player again in the present. He may leave in the summer but the determination to ensure a remarkable parting gift is biblical.

Liverpool have been burned before and will know not to get carried away by five-point leads at the Premier League summit in November. But Manchester City have left the door wide open and the current overwhelming evidence suggests only one team will be able to push through until May.

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Brentford 3-2 Bournemouth: Cherries further stake their claim as the Premier League hipsters at the fortress of fun
The wins over Arsenal and Manchester City weren’t smash and grabs. Bournemouth had the superior xG in both of those David and Goliath victories, which have made Andoni Iraola’s side one to be considered in discussions about European football – probably even more so than Nottingham Forest, with big scalps a better determiner of quality and ability to stay the course than position in the nascent table.

They’re threatening Brighton for the honour of being Premier League club of the hipsters, thanks to their entertaining football, engaging manager and success as disruptors of the elite. But Bournemouth and Iraola will want to avoid another key factor in determining hipster levels: the capacity to crumble against a lesser opponent on the back of monumental wins. Whoops.

That’s very unfair on Brentford, who aren’t so much a different animal at home but an animal compared to an inanimate object. Incredibly they’ve won all of their 16 points this season at home, with a ridiculous 29 goals scored in those six games.

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Evanilson coolly rounded Mark Flekken after a Sepp van den Berg error to open the scoring, before Bournemouth failed to deal with a Brentford long throw and Yoane Wissa equalised. Justin Kluivert then finished off a lovely corner routine to put the Cherries back in front, only for Mikkel Damsgaard to draw the hosts level seconds later thanks to some suspect front-post goalkeeping from Kepa Arrizabalaga.

Wissa’s second goal of a thoroughly entertaining end-to-end game featuring just as many mistakes as moments of quality was a fitting winner.

With four touches Brentford progressed the ball from their own half and into the Bournemouth net. Ethan Pinnock played the ball down the line for Vitaly Janelt, who stepped over the ball, spun behind the Cherries midfield, took a first-time pass from Keane Lewis-Potter and played his own first-time pass – a through ball – for Wissa to run onto and dink over Kepa. Beautiful.

We’ve all heard plenty about Thomas Frank’s obsession with his players turning down any opportunity to score and increasing their chances through an extra pass or a bit of patience; Wissa is the embodiment of that philosophy. He’s got six goals from eight shots on target in the Premier League this season and only Erling Haaland (19) has scored more than his 15 non-penalty goals.

Crystal Palace 0-2 Fulham: Keane criticism of Henderson still rings true as Wilson does it again
Whenever we see Dean Henderson fail to make a save Premier League goalkeepers definitely should make – a frequent occurrence – we’re reminded of Roy Keane’s criticism of the then-Manchester United goalkeeper in a 4-2 defeat to Liverpool in 2021.

“He looked so small in the goal.”

Henderson was at that stage the man set to squeeze David de Gea out at Old Trafford but he instead finds himself as Crystal Palace’s No.1, and it’s after moments like this against Fulham – where he got both hands to a relatively tame Emile Smith Rowe shot and failed to push it round the post – that he should be counting his lucky stars that he did play for Manchester United; it’s hard to imagine he would be a Premier League goalkeeper without that on his CV.

We imagine Harry Wilson will be knocking, even pounding, on Marco Silva’s door this week after he scored another goal off the bench following his dramatic stoppage-time brace to turn the Brentford game on its head on Monday.

Palace were down to ten men after Daichi Kamada’s studs-over-the-ball tackle on Kenny Tete and Alex Iwobi sliced them open with a fine pass from the left, which Wilson latched onto before forcing his shot under Henderson.

If we were to have put money on one of Fulham or Palace being sixth and the other being in a relegation battle after 11 games, no-one would have had it this way around in the summer.

West Ham 0-0 Everton: The Moyes derby ends in only possible result
Not many Premier League fixtures in 2024 can pit together two teams whose fanbases boast an element which long for the coaching stylings of David Moyes, but West Ham and Everton could at least share extensive notes on Being Careful What You Wish For at the London Stadium.

The Scot would not solve the issues at either of these sides. West Ham’s form in the second half of last season underlined that for the hosts; Everton could swap Sean Dyche for their former manager now without telling anyone and it would take months to notice any negligible differences in playing style.

A goalless draw was a far better result for Everton and really their current problem is the opposite to that of their opponents. The supporters know exactly what being a Dyche team represents; they just don’t like it. Only three Premier League clubs have scored fewer goals so far, although this was closer to last season’s existential struggle with xG.

Eighteen shots is the most the Toffees have managed in a single Premier League game this season, while this was the first time in eight months they have had the majority of possession in an away league match. It was in many ways the perfect Dyche performance: the 0-0 he played for, with enough variance to suggest they could have won – or indeed lost – on another day, within a performance containing plenty for his critics to lament. The substitutions were wonderfully uninspiring as a case in point.

But that is remarkably damning for Julen Lopetegui, who does not even have the benefit of a clear idea, principles or philosophy. It is easy to spot a Dyche team just from watching them and that is a credit to his coaching, whether you agree with such an approach. West Ham are just an expensive mess of random players trying different things with no discernible connection. It is a mystery exactly what they are trying to do. They have no identity. They are a tactical abyss.

The decision to part with Moyes was right; it was time for that marriage of convenience to end and for both parties to go their separate ways towards happier things. Everton went through the same process once but at least their Spanish successor built on those foundations, even if only temporarily. The Hammers have squandered their chance already.

Moyes nobly advocated for his replacement to be given more “time” and “that opportunity to set things the way he wants them to happen.” this week, but keeping Lopetegui for much longer would feel like doubling-down to turn a lamentable mistake into a critical, season-ruining error.

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Wolves 2-0 Southampton: O’Neil turns a Cunha thanks to archenemy
It seems unlikely that the thoughts of Gary O’Neil on VAR will dominate the headlines after a first win of the season for Wolves. But it would be vaguely interesting to hear whether he thought this result meant they represent “the big guy” to Southampton’s “little guy” in the collective “subconscious” of the Premier League powers that be.

That is an absolute nonsense because of course it is. But after months of perceived injustices being wrought upon them, Wolves obviously dragged themselves off the foot of the table thanks in no small part to a couple of contentious decisions.

The disallowed Ryan Manning equaliser was One Of Them, an incident which could be read in a variety of different ways depending on subjectivity. The permitted Matheus Cunha strike to make it 2-0 existed in a rather less grey area: Wolves committed at least one and very possibly two fouls in the build-up to a phenomenal hit from the inspired Brazilian.

Cunha had set up the early opener for Pablo Sarabia and was the game’s best player by a laughable distance. But even with his ability on the ball Wolves never felt comfortable. The Molineux atmosphere was verging on toxic even when leading by a goal in the first half and the nerves were as tangible as they were understandable.

But ultimately Southampton mustered nine shots with none of them testing the decidedly testable Jose Sa, with Russell Martin’s side claiming nearly three-quarters of the ball with zero per cent of the cutting edge.

So soon after the relief of the Everton win have they reverted to type, even replacing Wolves at the bottom. O’Neil’s team are suddenly on a three-game unbeaten run only Liverpool and Nottingham Forest can beat, but Howard Webb’s olive branch will most likely be ignored.