Premier League winners and losers: ‘Angry’ Howe in busy sack race while Arsenal force more rule changes | OneFootball

It is a particularly Sacked In The Morning-flavoured edition of Winners and Losers, with Hurzeler, Parker, Howe and Dyche all racing to the bottom.

But Nuno Espirito Santo is back, baby.

And there is cause for celebration at Leeds, Arsenal, Manchester City and even Thomas Tuchel’s living room.

Premier League winners

Leeds under the lights

It turns them into 2011 Barcelona. Everyone else should fear the TV rescheduling.

England’s World Cup midfield options

From Declan Rice having no viable partner to head to the States with, England suddenly have a surfeit of decent options again.

Kobbie Mainoo is back thriving at Manchester United to the surprise of only one Portuguese man.

Jordan Henderson is enjoying a career renaissance at Brentford and can no longer really be described as a legacy pick.

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is unlikely to force his way in but there is depth where once the alternatives were so drastically shallow.

Thomas Tuchel has some decisions to make, especially with Elliot Anderson starting to struggle under the sheer weight of Dycheball.

Arsenal

A despicable institution seemingly hellbent on forcing rule changes across the entire sport.

Once set-pieces have been overhauled to eradicate the horror that is teams scoring from them, attention must be turned to the newest contemptible Arsenal loophole: shooting really accurately from outside the area.

And after that, the authorities have to do something to combat the creeping scourge that is Viktor Gyokeres scoring while falling over. It’s ruining the game.

Nuno Espirito Santo

West Ham’s first two results of the calendar year underlined one of the main shortcomings dragging them into the Championship. Their substandard performance in relegation six-pointers was summed up by a humiliating defeat at Wolves and a damaging home loss to Nottingham Forest.

By that second game on January 6, Graham Potter had won as many Premier League fixtures against Spurs, Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Burnley and Wolves this season as Nuno, who was the opposition manager for that August victory.

But the late win against Spurs and relative cruise at Burnley has breathed fresh life into the Hammers, with whom the momentum lies out of anyone from 12th-placed Newcastle down.

This is for Nuno to savour. His big calls paid off at Turf Moor, with the first clean sheet of his tenure delivered by the returning Mads Hermansen, the defence far more robust for the presence of loan signing Axel Disasi, and Callum Wilson proving an effective enough foil.

The emergence of someone capable of shouldering some of Jarrod Bowen’s attacking burden in Crysencio Summerville, a first goal for Taty Castellanos – so definitively a Nuno signing and with a chant to match – and no cameo whatsoever for Max Kilman rounded off an exceptional day for an improving team.

Brentford

A season of ludicrous overachievement continues, with Brentford pocketing six points alongside the £55m they banked from Newcastle for Yoane Wissa.

With that, they have already completed the double over the Magpies and Aston Villa this season, clubs whose PSR complaints while challenging the elite feel quite hollow in comparison to what Brentford face as a small fish in the Premier League ocean.

They are behind the champions by virtue of a single goal scored, with ‘relegation’ long since removed from their lexicon in 2025/26.

Keith Andrews will follow his obligations as a high-flying manager in insisting that mention of ‘Europe’ has been banned from the premises too, but Brentford are tantalisingly close to one of the single greatest Premier League accomplishments ever, all things considered.

Manchester City

The events from the 80th minute onwards at Anfield reinforced – not that such support was necessary – quite why Manchester City invested so heavily in world-class players in the sport’s most individualist positions.

When Gianluigi Donnarumma can produce a save of such quality, and Erling Haaland banishes the memory of his non-performance with a goal, an assist and the forcing of a daft red card, it almost doesn’t matter what Manchester City do in between either net.

The gap to Arsenal actually increased over the course of the weekend but there are different ways to win and lose. Scraping a 1-0 at Liverpool or even cruising in a game of little consequence would have done less for Manchester City than emerging victorious in the character-building nature they did.

It was a vital comeback in the wider picture of Manchester City’s season. The longer they stay in the same Quadruple hunt as Arsenal, the more belief they will build on admittedly shakier foundations than usual. Which could be crucial if they are to face each other FIVE TIMES in one month.

Marc Guehi’s replacements

While Jefferson Lerma has played in central defence frequently enough before, this is a midfielder by trade filling in for arguably Crystal Palace’s best centre-half ever, and FA Cup-winning captain.

He led the team for tackles, clearances and headers won as a rock of reliability.

Dean Henderson took Guehi’s armband and embodied every element of the spirit, the knee slide, the badge-kissing and the chorus-leading the club needed to pull itself through A Difficult Moment.

Cole Palmer

Level with Mo Salah, Dwight Yorke and Jermain Defoe among a great many others for Premier League hat-tricks. Only 15 players in history have more than a forward who only turns 24 in May. And none have more for Chelsea.

He is also the first player in Premier League history to score three first-half hat-tricks. Sod Manchester United, he’s off to the Bundesliga.

The net at that one end at Bournemouth

What a privilege it must have been to accommodate two finishes of such absurd quality. The Morgan Rogers one was also delightfully unnecessary, while Rayan is clearly already on the Antoine Semenyo diet of ball-striking.

Premier League losers

Fabian Hurzeler

Not the first manager to receive the “sacked in the morning” treatment from his own supporters this season, nor will he be the last. But these do feel like his final few months in charge before a summer split.

Scott Parker

There is a remarkable lack of attention being given to the Premier League manager currently on a 16-game winless run, particularly considering how widespread the praise and England links would be in certain corners if he somehow stitched an unbeaten streak a fraction of the length.

Parker is the closest contender to the obvious sack race leader, but many still seem to believe Burnley can do no better.

That does not include the supporters who chanted about his morning-based P45, with Jacob Bruun Larsen getting caught in an increasingly toxic firing line. It probably includes Parker, who sought to emphasise how he was leading a “young group” and “starting out some of them in their careers”. It definitely includes chairman Alan Pace, who echoed the age sentiment before the game by saying “we’re going to try and be the best parents that we can possibly be for this family”.

Yet he has placed a broken “family” in the custody of a guardian who is not fit for purpose at this level. Parker has a 15.6% win rate from 77 games as a Premier League manager with three different clubs. He has the second-worst PPG of any coach to have overseen at least 50 Premier League games, beating only Rob Edwards, who voluntarily tanked his own record by taking on the Wolves job.

If he was allowed to transplant his entire Premier League manager career record into the current table, Parker would still sit second and a point behind an Arsenal side which would have 52 games in hand.

Even before last season had concluded, there was discussion as to whether Leeds and Burnley would actually be better off dispensing with the managers who won them promotion to the Premier League, so shambolic were their respective records in the division.

Daniel Farke has shown a level of growth and adaptability previously deemed beyond him; Parker has only reinforced the sense he is not equipped for this challenge.

Cristian Romero

It definitely feels like a timeline exists in which Romero can be the fall guy for a culture reset; Liverpool had one in Mamadou Sakho, Mikel Arteta can point to a handful at Arsenal and Sir Alex Ferguson even built Manchester United on one such dressing-room immolation.

Of course, it is slightly awkward when that sacrifice is the captain and a popular squad figure, while the manager who would be making it sits on a foundation with the structural integrity of custard on water. But the option is there if Spurs dare.

Howe’s “I’m obviously not doing my job well enough at the moment, I’m annoyed with myself, angry with myself and blaming myself” moment of self-introspection was stark but also welcome in a division short of such managerial soul-searching.

But it is becoming difficult to shift the idea that both parties might benefit more from a clean break than just ploughing through and hoping things work themselves out.

And his pledge to “step aside” if he felt the players needed a new voice didn’t seem like an empty threat. It was positively Keegan.

Sean Dyche

He did call Elland Road one of the more aggressive stadiums “in terms of the modern game”, and “always a tough place to go”. But Dyche said Nottingham Forest had “a good competitive edge” of their own, adding that “the balance feels right at the moment”.

The same could not be said of his team with a right-back in Ola Aina at left-back, a centre-half in Zach Abbott at right-back and a central midfielder in Nico Dominguez on the right wing.

Injuries and suspensions alone cannot account for that degree of square-peg-in-round-holery.

Abbott also might not be particularly grateful for being given a full Premier League debut out of position at such “a tough place to go”, especially when the older and considerably more experienced Luca Netz was left on the bench as “one for the future” who was not yet “ready” for the English game.

Dyche argued that Netz had not been at the club for long enough and “I don’t want to put players out there until they know what to do”, but those he selected in the roles he put them in seemed absolutely oblivious too.

That Dyche made no changes until the game was irretrievably lost at 3-0 down is negligent. Forest had no shots – and a single touch within 20 yards of the opposition goal – between the 45th and the 72nd minutes in what felt like a complete surrender.

The Wolves game in midweek is critical. But with fans already disillusioned and the Championship trapdoor looming ominously, it feels more likely with each match that this awkward, unsatisfying marriage of convenience ends in the summer whether Forest stay up or not.

Liverpool

Further proof of how febrile it is right now at Liverpool as they equal the record for the most winning goals conceded after the 90th minute in a single Premier League season.

No team has scored more Premier League goals this season after the 81st minute in games than Liverpool’s 11, while only Burnley, Leeds and Newcastle (all 11) have conceded more than their ten.

When almost every game is decided by late drama either way, there is little wonder nothing feels sustainable.

Fulham

“What we had this afternoon I think is a good Premier League bench and a bench that can give us solutions for what comes ahead of us,” said Marco Silva.

Fulham might never have had a stronger one. Calvin Bassey, Antonee Robinson, Kenny Tete, Harrison Reed, Josh King, Oscar Bobb, Kevin and Rodrigo Muniz provided a wide array of game-changing possibilities to a manager with a proven track record of making impactful substitutions.

Silva brought a couple of players on in both the 75th and 83rd minutes, including Bobb’s debut and Muniz’s long-awaited return from injury. Everton scored within seconds on both occasions, which was sub-optimal.

Pedro Lima

Definitely worth recalling a player featuring relatively regularly on loan at Porto B, just for him to play four minutes in three Premier League games and nine minutes in the FA Cup since January for Wolves.

Regis Le Bris

Whoever Lucas Digne was throwing his arms up at

The resistance he offered to Rayan was hilariously risible so whoever Digne seemed to hold responsible for the Bournemouth equaliser must have had an absolute ‘mare.

Emiliano Buendia and Douglas Luiz both seemed to think the culprit was stood precisely where Digne was so the plot thickens.