F365’s 3pm Blackout: Thomas Frank sack as inevitable as Harry Wilson | OneFootball

Thomas Frank’s sacking is as inevitable as Harry Wilson and Manchester City got the job done without Erling Haaland.

Burnley 2-2 Tottenham: Frank sack cannot be delayed any longer

“Sideways and backwards everywhere we go,” was the chant from the visiting Tottenham fans – for whom a Champions League victory over Borussia Dortmund did close to nothing to assuage doubts over Thomas Frank’s ability to manage their football club – ironically just before Micky van de Ven hammered the ball into the bottom corner to give Spurs the lead.

It was just about deserved, but there was again a very evident lack of attacking fluency and confidence from Spurs, and no notable uptick in midfield grit despite the £35m signing of Conor Gallagher, who rarely registered on the (fairly frequent) occasions that Burnley played through the midfield and put Armando Broja through to miss chances.

Burnley drew level just before half-time, as Xavi Simons watched Kyle Walker deliver a stunning cross for an unmarked Axel Tuanzebe to side-foot home. And having grown into the game in the second half as a familiar lethargy gripped Spurs to the point where it looked as though they might nod off, Scott Parker’s side played through the Spurs midfield with consummate ease before some wonderful play from Jaidon Anthony on the edge of the box set Lyle Foster up to give them the lead at the second time of asking.

Cristian Romero was diddled in the build up to that goal, along with centre-back partner Van de Ven, but popped up once again, for the third game in a row, to score with a bullet diving header to secure a point for the visitors.

Frank’s decision to match Burnley up by fielding three centre-backs will provide further sack ammo for those questioning whether a worthy big-club manager would play relegation fodder at their own game. But the result should be the final nail anyway. You simply cannot lose to West Ham and then draw with Burnley to make it two wins and eight defeats in 14 Premier League games and expect to keep your job, particularly when your next four fixtures are against Manchester City (H), Manchester United (A), Newcastle (H) and Arsenal (H).

Fulham 2-1 Brighton: Harry Wilson is inevitable

The Harry Wilson story continued at Craven Cottage, and it’s becoming quite the epic. His stoppage-time free-kick, curled gloriously into the far corner beyond Bart Verbruggen (who admittedly probably should have done better) was his eighth Premier League goal of the season. Only Erling Haaland (20), Igor Thiago (16), Antoine Semenyo (11) and Dominic Calvert-Lewin (9) have scored more.

Perhaps more notable than the number of goals has been how brilliant those goals have been. Even before his eighth of the season, Wilson was the biggest xG overperformer (+3.27) in the Premier League this season, scoring 7 goals from an expected 3.73.

Definitely more notable has been how crucial his goal contributions have been. The 12 including his four assists have been worth ten points to the Cottagers; the difference between seventh, where they currently sit in the Premier League, and 16th.

Has a manager ever been more delighted at a deadline day transfer falling through than Marco Silva? Incredible.

Manchester City 2-0 Wolves: No need for Haaland and Semenyo is great

After dropping Erling Haaland to the bench for the first time this season on the back of a run of just one goal in his last eight games in all competitions, Pep Guardiola was almost immediately justified in that decision as his replacement, Omar Marmoush, stole in front of the Wolves defenders to poke home Matheus Nunes’ pinpoint cross in the sixth minute at the Etihad.

City had remarkably lost three of the four games Marmoush had started before this one, against Tottenham, Brighton and Bayer Leverkusen, but rock-bottom Wolves never looked likely to offer all that much resistance.

Farai Hallam risked the wrath of PGMOL chief Howard Webb on his very first outing as a Premier League referee by being invited to review a decision on the pitch-side monitor and deciding to stick with his original decision not to award City a penalty as the ball hit Yerson Mosquera’s arm “in a natural position”.

He will presumably be read the riot act in his post-match assessment but for our money he made no ‘clear and obvious’ error, so fair f***s to him for telling VAR to stuff it.

City did go two up before the break though, as Antoine Semenyo got his first Premier League goal for his new club with some simple brilliance. He made a bit of a mess of a chance early on as he latched on to a stunning ball over the top from Marc Guehi, who secured a clean sheet on debut. But his goal was the perfect indicator of the benefits of being a genuinely two-footed footballer, as he took a lovely touch with his right before curling the ball into the corner with his left in what felt like one movement. Glorious.