Premier League winners and losers: Rogers, Romero, Leeds, Ugarte, Broja, Palace and more… | OneFootball

Cristian Romero is a liability as Spurs captain and Manuel Ugarte is a historically bad problem for Manchester United. But at least Morgan Rogers is good.

We also have thoughts on the winnerification of Leeds, Pep Guardiola and his replacement, and the loserisation of Wolves, Newcastle and many others.

Do refresh your minds with a glance at the Premier League table before perusing.

Premier League winners

Morgan Rogers

The season’s biggest xG overperformer so far, with the last three players to claim that Premier League crown of particular pertinence to Rogers.

Bryan Mbeumo used it as a platform for a £71m transfer to Manchester United that summer.

Phil Foden was ultimately able to fool England into crowbarring him into the team for Euro 2024 when he reigned that season.

Harry Kane secured a career-defining £100m switch to Bayern Munich after achieving the feat in 2022/23.

Rogers is firing an unlikely Premier League title tilt and Europa League challenge while striking a fine balance between being linked with multi-million-pound moves and forcing his way into the England picture. It’s a neat trick.

Leeds United

It is difficult to recall many instances of such a drastic turnaround in a struggling team’s fortunes without any specific changes either in manager or squad.

Daniel Farke has introduced Jaka Bijol in a central-defensive three, deployed Brenden Aaronson as a far bigger nuisance through the middle and warmed to the concept of chucking a couple of big lads up front together in Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Noah Okafor.

The starting line-up for their best win of the season, the dismantling of Crystal Palace, could hardly have contrasted more with the side Farke picked to open the campaign, especially in attack.

But that is testament to Farke’s ability and willingness to adapt and adjust to the strengths and weaknesses of his squad under immense pressure.

It took the imminent threat of losing what will surely be his last Premier League job to force that alternate approach, but it has been maintained and delivered the longest unbeaten run of his entire top-flight managerial career, as well as a healthy gap to the bottom three.

The hope will be that this run can continue rather than culminate in such an impressive victory over an obdurate opponent battered into set-piece submission. And it is no blind hope either: Farke and Leeds do appear to have belatedly cracked it at this level.

Armando Broja

There might have been an element of frustration in the Burnley fraternity at Scott Parker keeping his reign on life support by ending a seven-match losing run with a spirited draw which will nevertheless see at least one of Fulham or Nottingham Forest render that point moot in a relegation battle which the Clarets seem increasingly chronically underequipped for.

But Broja won’t have been among them after scoring his first Premier League goal in 810 days.

That was so long ago that Mykhaylo Mudryk scored in the same game, and Mauricio Pochettino sent Raheem Sterling on to replace a typically injured Broja after an hour.

Loan spells with Fulham and Everton have only accentuated Broja’s sense of frustration since. The faith Burnley showed to sign him for £20m on a five-year contract despite those well-documented struggles was finally partially repaid against Bournemouth.

The Florian Wirtz haters

The seamless move from 007 agent to ‘no goals or assists outside of Germany’ to ‘no goals or assists against 11 men’ is genuinely exceptional work.

Liverpool supporters get to quietly enjoy a player clearly finding his feet, while his denigrators need not stop in their quest to downplay everything he does. There is abundant cake being both had and eaten.

Keane Lewis-Potter

No longer a defender, with Rico Henry finally back in the Brentford fold to free up Lewis-Potter further forward.

Keith Andrews “inherited Keano as a left-back” and is still “not sure what his best position is”. But a compelling case on the right of a front three was made against admittedly pliable opposition.

Lewis-Potter still had to take his chances against Wolves and did so with either foot to become the first non-Igor Thiago-shaped player this season to score twice in a game for Brentford.

Enzo Maresca

It is a glorious reflection of both ludicrous manager and ridiculous club that Maresca’s “worst 48 hours” in charge of Chelsea immediately preceded their only win in five Premier League games, and one of just two in seven matches across multiple competitions.

Chelsea’s seasonal crossroads of a cup semi-final, sitting fourth in the Premier League yet closer in terms of points to 12th than 3rd, and likely reaching the Champions League knock-out phase but in the play-offs rather than last 16, feels entirely fitting for a club which often seamlessly flits between glory and disaster.

That general disposition was contained within 90 maddening minutes against Newcastle, whose myriad weaknesses were actively overlooked in the first half before Chelsea finally reacted in the second.

Maresca might feel mysteriously unsupported in the Chelsea boardroom – it remains unclear precisely what his thoughts are in that regard – but the reaction after half-time underlined how he retains the backing of the players, even if Joao Pedro had to pull rank and specifically request the sort of service he belatedly received from Robert Sanchez.

Pep Guardiola

Seven consecutive wins across three competitions has given Manchester City that usual inevitable, ominous winter air. And Guardiola has still felt comfortable enough to indulge in his actual favourite pastime of basically calling his players a bit rubbish as they briefly returned to the Premier League summit.

Bernardo Silva is his “weakness” who Guardiola was relatively cryptically “not happy with” after thrashing West Ham. But really it could have been anyone who bore the brunt of the Spaniard’s renewed energy.

He does not instinctively sound, look or feel like a man preparing to step down and be replaced by Enzo Maresca. After riding out their considerable struggles around this time last year, Guardiola and Manchester City are approaching their typical winter marathon sprint in good fettle.

Sunderland

It will be a source of immense pride for Regis Le Bris that Sunderland’s Premier League games have featured the fewest goals of any team – 38, joint with Everton in an obvious show of loyalty to David Moyes.

That attribute is only heightened on the road. Sunderland’s away games have involved just 14 goals, the lowest in the league. So although only Wolves have scored fewer away goals, the Black Cats have picked up a healthy proportion of their points away from the Stadium of Light.

Arsenal

Premier League losers

Cristian Romero

Thomas Frank should probably consider winning more home games, or even just putting together some more consistent, sustainable and enjoyable performances which don’t rely on Richarlison being the world’s greatest agent of chaos.

But when his World Cup-winning captain gets bullied for what was essentially the winner, having lost possession for the first goal, before being sent off for dissent and then an act of unnecessary petulance, one can easily sympathise with his plight.

That Spurs responded so well and almost salvaged something from the wreckage should not mask just how miserably and hilariously Romero let them down in that moment.

But as Jamie Redknapp said, “what Romero did is what Romero does”. There can be no surprise at his ridiculousness. And when one of your supposed leaders cannot be trusted to manage their emotions, then what hope does the manager or rest of the squad have?

Manuel Ugarte

It is genuinely impressive that Ugarte has played 25.5% of Manchester United’s Premier League minutes this season, but been on the pitch for the concession of precisely 50% of their goals against.

His personal goal difference of -9 being the mirror of Manchester United’s best this season, Casemiro on +9, is also a little too on the nose.

The only players with a worse or as bad personal goal difference in 2025/26 all represent clubs in the bottom five. Patrick Dorgu (-6) has the next worst record in the top half.

Ugarte is now on the second-longest run of starts without a victory by a Manchester United player in the Premier League (seven), after Kleberson (10) between January 2004 and May 2005. But at least he isn’t an entitled prick from the academy.

Crystal Palace

Write it off as a bad job – an atrocious one really – and move on.

After all, Palace don’t play in the Conference League again until mid-February, and their record in Premier League games immediately after midweek European matches is now: P8 W1 D2 L5 F7 A13.

Each of their Premier League defeats this season have come in those games straight after a Conference League fixture, much like 68% of the goals they have conceded.

Knowing the cause of the problem does not make it any easier to solve until money can be spent again in January, but it does make contextualising those issues much simpler.

How Glasner will help his players manage their Dominic Calvert-Lewin flashbacks and night sweats is another matter entirely.

Wolves

In the words of the only man to have endured a worse start to a Premier League reign after being appointed mid-season: it can.

It can get worse for Wolves. Jeff Shi has gone – but also not really, considering the nature of his role as chairman and chief executive of club owners Fosun – and there have been sparks of life against Manchester United and Arsenal.

But it can get worse. Not historically, for no team has ever had fewer points after 17 games of a professional English league season since 1888. No team has ever had a worse record at this stage of a Premier League season. No team has ever looked quite this hopeless and, as Matt Doherty put it, like a group of disconnected “cowards”.

The most senior player at Wolves, their oldest and most seasoned professional, described them as “scared” and “nervous” just to be ahead in a game – something they last experienced on October 5 and have rarely looked like doing since.

Doherty forlornly adding that Wolves “have to somehow find something” summed up the plight of a club ambling through life, desperately hoping for a sudden and random change to rescue them.

Having already changed managers and now executive chairmen, and with their approach to the transfer window landing them in this mess rather than seeming likely to save them in January, the options for salvation seem scarce.

Rob Edwards has lost all six of his games in charge, with only Mick McCarthy’s nine-match streak of defeats after being thrown in at the deep end by Sunderland in March 2003 worse. The circle of parity might simply never close this season.

Newcastle United

While no team has conceded fewer goals in the first half of Premier League games this season, only four have allowed more in the second than Newcastle. The Magpies truly excel at setting a pace they themselves cannot match.

“The thing from our perspective is we want to continue the momentum, continue to dig deep athletically and the intensity of our game has to remain high,” Eddie Howe said at half-time, Nick Woltemade having given his side a two-goal lead at home with significant assistance from Anthony Gordon and Paolo Magdini.

Chelsea had pinned them back, equalised by the 66th minute and neutralised St James’ Park, even if the complaints over some curious non-penalty calls were entirely legitimate and justified.

It remains the case that the earliest goal Newcastle have conceded in the Premier League this season was in the 35th minute. That it has happened twice – against Liverpool in August and West Ham in November – and they ultimately lost both games does not feel like a coincidence.

While Howe generally sets them up phenomenally well, the outcome of Newcastle games becomes a lottery once weary minds forget the preparation and suffer a setback. One of the best teams out of the traps is among the worst when the race is in full flow.

Max Kilman

Fabian Hurzeler

Has literally never won a game of association football held in December in his nine years as a professional first-team manager.

That sort of woke nonsense is sustainable when such snowflake leftism as a winter break removes that entire month from the calendar, as it did at FC Pipinsried and for the majority of his time with FC St Pauli.

But in the packed, non-stop Premier League it will not wash. Hurzeler has overseen 10 games for the Seagulls in December, returning with six draws and four defeats. Of course their last win in that month came against Spurs.

Everton

If only there was a way Everton could have naturally avoided Tyler Dibling looking barely half-cooked and Jack Grealish seeming entirely knackered heading into a congested part of the schedule in which they have lost crucial players to a mid-season tournament.

Dwight McNeil starting a Premier League game for Everton in big 2025 ahead of Dibling, a £40m summer purchase who has played less than Merlin actual Rohl, is really quite remarkable the more you think about it.