Premier League: Five things we learnt from gameweek 15 | OneFootball

The Premier League was well and truly destabilised last week, as the gap to leaders Arsenal narrowed further and several surprise contenders entered the race for Europe – or better. With plenty to unpack as with every week, FromTheSpot discusses five things we learnt from gameweek 15 as the season nears the halfway point.

Slot doesn’t need Salah as scapegoat

It would be impossible to ignore Mohamed Salah’s stunning interview last Saturday.

Liverpool had been frustrated once more, drawing 3-3 with Leeds in a Premier League classic, and the normally media-shy Salah, who was benched again, then accused Arne Slot in the mixed zone of throwing him “under the bus”.

He added: “I think it’s very clear that someone wanted me to get all of the blame.”

But this accusation doesn’t seem to add up just by looking back on the game.

Liverpool’s defensive pair of Ibrahima Konaté and Virgil van Dijk looked incredibly low on confidence, the former inexplicably sliding in on Willy Gnonto to try and block a cross and conceding a penalty, with both of their backs turned in trying to block Anton Stach’s equalizer.

On this performance alone, Slot doesn’t need to pin the blame on Salah for Liverpool’s poor form, neither would he get away with it. Liverpool are just poor defensively.

Now with the Anfield legend being widely panned by the media for his comments, perhaps the most notable of which being Jamie Carragher, who branded his comments “a disgrace” (for which he later apologised), his future at the club is now hanging dangerously in the balance.

Left out of the squad which travelled to Milan, training on his own, and at risk of a similar fate in the league before the Africa Cup of Nations gets underway, it marks one of the most extraordinary fallings out since Sir Alex Ferguson relived Roy Keane of his duties in 2005.

Arsenal vulnerable without defensive rocks

If you told Aston Villa fans they would rock Arsenal’s latest title bid a few months ago, you’d probably be laughed at. But to suggest that they would be the ones closing in on top spot? Now that’s a good one.

Only now it’s true. Unai Emery defied the Premier League leaders’ ability to not only win football matches but dictate them, beating Arsenal 2-1 while equalling them for shots and prevailing in expected goals and big chances created having seen less of the ball.

And the absence of Gabriel Magalhães and William Saliba and their militaristic orchestration of the Gunners’ back line and those in front of them is already starting to show.

They failed to close down the cross and get the first contact as it curled into the penalty area, while losing track of Matty Cash running free towards the back post before his powerful finish under David Raya.

And from Arsenal’s point of view, the less said about that last-gasp goalmouth scramble, the better.

While Jurriën Timber was provenly competent as a centre back at Ajax, he hasn’t had much practice in the role as of late and his teammates Ben White and Piero Hincapié have been in and out of the squad.

It’s clear they need time to adjust in order to provide cover to the same level of Mikel Arteta’s stricken centre halves, but at the same time can’t afford any ‘free hits’ if they want to maintain a gap to Manchester City and Villa.

Villa’s guerrilla are tactics shaking up the league

It wouldn’t be farfetched.

While Villa caught off guard an Arsenal side dealing with injuries to several key players, there aren’t many teams in the division who could reasonably beat them right now – particularly at Villa Park.

They’ve collected 19 points at home – a record only bettered by the Gunners and Manchester City – and are the in-form team in the Premier League with five wins in a row.

What’s most impressive though is their extensive goal threat. Amadou Onana, John McGinn, and Boubacar Kamara have all chimed in with goals as well as the usual suspects, including from distance. They have goal-scorers everywhere.

For all the control that the best sides in the division can exert on a game, teams have been powerless to resist such moments of brilliance when Aston Villa carve out the space by moving up the pitch at speed.

So much for the era of positional play – they’ll get the ball and try their luck from anywhere. It’s Villa’s guerrilla brand of football that is winning games at the moment.

Their commitment is also second to none. Emery clearly wouldn’t settle for a draw, and his players powered on right to the end and Emíliano Buendía’s emphatic finish deep into added time.

A team that doesn’t see any reason to dig in against the best side in England, and arguably Europe right now, also doesn’t see any reason why they couldn’t go on and win the whole thing.

Manchester City may have found De Bruyne’s replacement

How were City able to snatch the Premier League title away from Liverpool on the final day of the 2021/22 season? Kevin De Bruyne’s pass to İlkay Gündoğan.

And the same goes for the other 118 goals that came directly from the midfielder’s unrivalled intellect with the ball at his feet. But with De Bruyne now playing his football at Napoli, Man City needed to find a successor.

Enter Rayan Cherki.

The vision to set up Rúben Dias for his piledriver into the top right, the ball control to waltz past three defenders before dinking it back to Erling Haaland, the audacity to execute that Payet-esque rabona cross into Phil Foden: the Frenchman’s bag of tricks was virtually bottomless in City’s 3-0 win over Sunderland.

He offered the complete package, who themselves are no pushovers defending their own penalty area, with two assists to his name and – going by last Saturday’s impression – many more to follow.

He described himself to the Express and Star as a ‘free soul’ who desires to entertain fans, having taken time to adapt to Pep Guardiola’s rigorous tactical system before turning on the style.

Signed from Lyon for an initial £30m in the summer, Cherki looks prepared to fill KDB’s shoes and is beginning to look like a genuine steal given the standard price tags for world class players in his position nowadays.

Wolves fans have had enough

What only seemed like a matter of time came to fruition on Monday night, as plenty of Wolves supporters chose to boycott the opening moments of their 4-1 defeat at home to Manchester United.

And can you blame them?

West Ham supporter group Hammers United released an open letter calling for fans to steer clear of their home match against Brentford in October in protest against the board, despite lending support to Nuno Espírito Santo.

But Wolves’ situation is much worse. They have consistently sold their best players over the last two years – Matheus Cunha, Ruben Neves, Rayan Aït-Nouri, João Moutinho, the list goes on – and struggled to replace them.

And the inevitable comparison to the Premier League’s worst ever side, Derby County in the 2007/08 campaign, doesn’t make for pretty reading. Wolves need 10 points to steer clear of the unwanted record, and three points couldn’t look further away right now – with nearly half the season gone.

With Arsenal, Brentford, and Liverpool up next before a rematch with Ruben Amorim’s side at Old Trafford, we can expect to see similar signs of frustration or worse as they continue to find difficulty in picking up points.