Premier League winners and losers: Slot, Newcastle, Sunderland, Spurs, Emery, West Ham and more… | OneFootball

Newcastle, Spurs, West Ham, David Moyes and Scott Parker receive particular kickings, but Arne Slot, Sunderland and Unai Emery deserve plenty of praise.

There are also words for Malo Gusto, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Scott Parker, Wolves and, well, everyone who played at the weekend.

Refresh your minds with a glance at the Premier League table and then laugh at these losers (after celebrating with the winners).

Premier League winners

Arne Slot

If you wait long enough, Jamie Carragher and Rio Ferdinand’s perpetual and palpable desire to undress one another will always emerge as a distraction.

Sunderland

Outcome bias is inevitable, hence words like ‘bullied’ are thrown around to describe a game in which the number of fouls and aerial duels won were split evenly between both teams, with tackles, possession, shots and ball recoveries roughly even too.

It was a 0-0 which featured a bizarre own goal in which Sunderland defended comfortably.

But those games happen and ensuring they fall in your favour is a handy knack to develop, especially for a promoted team under a manager new to the league. Sunderland, perhaps motivated by the home support, did seem to have a far clearer grasp of how important this was.

Unai Emery

Aston Villa being third in both the Premier and Europa League tables and on a run of nine straight wins is great and all, but Emery reappropriating a Manchester United spare part just underlines his coaching acumen.

With 25 Premier League minutes to his name all season, Victor Lindelof was trusted to step into the shoes of one of the more difficult players to replace in the entire country. The Pau Torres role is sacred under Emery but a free agent made it work.

“We signed him for it,” Emery said. “He showed his experience today. Playing in our structure, he was comfortable and calm with the ball in the build-up.

“It is not easy in the build-up on the left side when he is right-footed. He managed the passes we needed from him to the next players. He did fantastic.”

It does make you think precisely what Harvey Elliott is doing in training to the extent that Emery finds his mere presence in matchday squads unpalatable. But Lindelof, with that uncharacteristic carry, then simple and effective pass into space for Morgan Rogers to venture and fire home the winner, showed that any player can thrive under the Spaniard if they listen and learn.

Erling Haaland

Only one player has ever scored more goals in the first 16 games of a Premier League season, and as with most bars 25/26 Erling Haaland cannot quite reach, it was set by past Erling Haaland.

The bloke continues to be ridiculous and some of his teammates are even pitching in too now.

Malo Gusto

The perfect hat-trick of a goal, an assist and a question about his latent goalscoring threat prompting the most cryptic of responses from his manager.

Enzo Maresca did not expand on his “worst 48 hours” in charge of Chelsea, saying only that “many people didn’t support us,” clarifying only that he was not referring to the supporters.

But he did use Gusto and fellow full-back-midfielder hybrid Reece James as an example of the “effort”, the “open mind” and the willingness to “learn” that he wants every member of his squad to exhibit.

A player who signed under Graham Potter, started only half the Premier League games during Mauricio Pochettino’s only season, then developing into one of Maresca’s most trusted lieutenants in multiple roles, who can make an indelible impact at both ends, perfectly sums up those non-negotiables.

And his personal improvement across almost three years as a contracted Chelsea player rather contradicts the idea that Maresca has not improved anyone at Stamford Bridge. The next time the manager feels undermined, he should cite one of his most effective projects with great Gusto.

Nottingham Forest

The curious quest to emerge from all games against Champions League teams with a 3-0 scoreline continues: Forest have now beaten Liverpool and Spurs by as much, while losing to Arsenal and Chelsea by that same margin.

Newcastle couldn’t finish the job with a mere 2-0 win in October, while the greatest Brazilian pair since Pele’s sildenafil-addled testicles – John Victor and Igor Jesus – will sort Manchester City out in a fortnight.

The keeper commanded his area well, impressed with his distribution and dispelled pre-match concerns over his Premier League debut with a clean sheet. The forward looks tailor-made for Our League with his energy, aerial presence and selflessness.

Both were bought from Botafogo, along with Jair Cunha and Cuiabano, this summer. That relationship with John Textor has proved pretty beneficial over the last few months.

Whoever stopped Fulham selling Harry Wilson

Perhaps the Premier League’s form player, with at least a goal or an assist in each of his last four appearances. And that’s just for Fulham; Wilson’s last Wales cap was marked by his first international hat-trick.

It is not known precisely who pulled the plug on the deal to sell Wilson to Leeds which had progressed to the point of player and buying club signing on the dotted line. But that Fulham employee is due a raise for essentially rescuing their season.

“He was my first signing and I have to say it is clear that he is in the best moment of his career so far,” said Marco Silva after his latest match-winning turn. Wilson at 28 has matured into the player most felt he could.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin

Definitely not yet on the plane. The departure lounge feels a considerable stretch too. He’s probably checked his passport expiration date and is keeping an eye on ticket prices just in case.

For Calvert-Lewin to be even earwigging the England World Cup conversation is testament to his character. Since scoring 20 times in a single season for the first time in 2020/21, the battle between his injury and goals record has been overwhelmingly one-sided: from 21/22 onwards the respective score is 67 games missed to 23 goals scored.

That is why netting in four consecutive Premier League games for the first time since October 2020 is arguably less important than putting together a consistent run of minutes.

But ultimately Calvert-Lewin the free agent having as many goals as Nick Woltemade (£69m) and more than Alexander Isak (£125m), Benjamin Sesko (£73.7m), Viktor Gyokeres (£64m), Matheus Cunha (£62.5m) and Joao Pedro (£60m) is just funny. The only new signings outscoring him are Ekitike and Bryan Mbeumo.

The only two Premier League forwards to win more headers than Calvert-Lewin this season both play for Everton. A goal that could easily have lit up Goodison Park two years ago has instead kept Leeds on track.

Daniel Farke

A three-game unbeaten run is quite literally his best ever in the Premier League. Holy Farke.

Arsenal

A piss-boiling win like champions which will only reiterate to the players how high the standards are and that they cannot slide at this level against any opponent? Perfection.

Premier League losers

Newcastle

It is very cute that Newcastle seem to think they can yield so pathetically to Sunderland but “make it right” in a cup quarter-final against Fulham.

Spurs

After spending well over £100m on attacking players to add to a Europa League-winning squad which only really lost a knackered Heung-min Son in the summer, the expectation might have been that Spurs would improve going forward.

They have mustered fewer shots (153) than West Ham (161) and Everton (169) so far this season. And any defensive refinement Thomas Frank oversaw in his first few weeks in charge have been summarily lost to the ether.

At least under Ange Postecoglou they were identifiable. Often identifiably shit, granted, but identifiable all the same. This is just a mess of players making bad decisions in what barely qualifies as a fundamentally flawed system.

Those substitutions were damning and Frank insisting he needs “time” and that there is no “quick fix” feels desperate when nothing about Spurs right now suggests this is worth pushing through in the forlorn hope it figures itself out.

West Ham

Do not be surprised when West Ham spend £50m each on Conor Coady and Willy Boly in January, such is Nuno Espirito Santo’s increasingly desperate need for an actually functional and reliable defensive security blanket.

Eight different centre-half combinations have been used by a team which has conceded 35 goals in 17 games this season. The last clean sheet West Ham kept came against the manager they appointed close to three months ago.

No blend of Kilman, Todibo, Mavropanos, Aguerd, Julio or Wan-Bissaka has worked, which is sub-optimal considering those options cost £136.8m. Few argued against dropping Kilman based on his recent displays, but one of his stand-ins scoring an own goal after nine minutes did sum up the issue in terms of both personnel and system neatly.

While not quite at the levels of the West Ham striker curse, their centre-half hex is pretty powerful too.

David Moyes

The last Everton substitute to assist a Premier League goal was Dwight McNeil from a corner against Fulham in May. For their last goal from the bench one must venture back to October 2024, when an Ashley Young cross set up a Beto header.

That was under Sean Dyche, which can only reflect miserably on Moyes. Everton are the only team yet to have a single goal contribution from a substitute in the Premier League this season.

It does not feel like a coincidence that they have used at least two fewer players than everyone else. A relatively thin squad will be stretched further by AFCON soon and Moyes needs to find some solutions.

Scott Parker

It’s genuinely starting to feel like he won’t be appointed by Bayern Munich in the summer. Had Parker played his cards right the recent trajectory of relegated Burnley managers might have taken him into the vacated Real Madrid hotseat but overseeing the club’s worst top-flight losing run in actual millennia does slightly undermine his candidacy.

There is mitigation in that this is not a strong squad and no club in Europe’s top five divisions has lost more league games this season by a single goal than Burnley.

But fine margins and “the final little bit” cannot be cited ad infinitum without patience and belief being eroded each time. The fans are booing and the axe will likely swing on statistically one of the worst managers to ever do it in the Premier League over such a sustained period of largely miserable time.

Wolves

There are clear and obvious improvements, but from such an absurdly low position that Wolves players can score all three goals in a game and still lose, having not once been in the lead.

That remains something they have not experienced since October 5.

The pressure is on Rob Edwards to actually take those steps forward in terms of organisation, desire and unity and use them to build something more sustainable, which doesn’t collapse in on itself when they host Brentford and have to take some initiative instead of simply arriving many hours early to ensure they have somewhere to park the bus against a ludicrously superior side.

Right now, even after the spirited performance against Arsenal, the biggest winner of Wolves poaching a Championship manager as their “95%” certain leader of a “long-term project” is the club to whom they paid compensation to take him.

Edwards losing all five of his games might be precisely as enjoyable to Kim Hellberg winning all four of his to some Middlesbrough fans. The only thing separating those two clubs right now is Coventry City.

Brentford

If Brentford really do insist on losing every away game bar their annual visit to West Ham, it significantly reduces the amount of leeway they are afforded at home.

Their only previous dropped points at the Gtech this season came when hosting Chelsea and Manchester City. While Leeds have improved recently, they are precisely the sort of opponent Brentford cannot really slip up against at home if this absurd balancing act is going to work.

Keith Andrews will also hope Brentford’s nasty habit of dropping points from winning positions hasn’t returned. One of the worst teams for that last season is the current leader in 2025/26.

Brighton

Keep it tight, let the pressure build through an impatient crowd, wait for the struggling, unconfident players to make mistakes, then expose the fragility of a manager who does not feel far from the sack.

Or lose the ball within seconds of kicking off, smash it aimlessly high when you retrieve it, mark precisely no-one and concede the fastest goal of the Premier League season so far to settle the opponents’ nerves and build their belief. Could try that.

Crystal Palace