Things You Might've Missed in the PL - Matchweeks 8 & 9
Again, two at once.
Matchweek 8 came with a yellow weather warning attached, and you could tell. Matchweek 9 came with Liverpool forgetting where the goal was.
Here's what you might've missed.
Worst Start Ever (Again)((for the 53rd time?))
There's a joke doing the rounds at the moment that every year, without fail, Manchester United have the worst start to a season in their history. Every single year. It keeps landing because it keeps being true, they just somehow seem to get worse.
Their 3-0 home defeat to Bournemouth on Sunday 25 October left United on 7 points from 8 games. That was their worst ever start to a Premier League season, beating the previous low of 9 points from 2019/20 under Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Go back further and it's their lowest tally at this stage of any league season since 1986/87, when they had 4 points and Ron Atkinson was gone by November.
The best part? They'd been setting 'worst start in 40 years' headlines for weeks by then. Each one just gets replaced by the next.
And because the joke has to keep landing, United went to Stamford Bridge the following Saturday and lost 2-0. That's 7 points from 9 games, and they've failed to score in 4 of them. Only Coventry have blanked more often.
See you this time next year.
6 Wins, 16 Goals, 0 Conceded
Yes, Bournemouth again.
On 10 October they lost 5-1 at Chelsea, still without a league win all season. Since then: Sturm Graz, Sunderland, AC Milan (3-0), Manchester United (3-0, see above), Aston Villa (3-0 in the Carabao Cup) and Leeds. 6 games, 6 wins, 16 goals scored, not a single one conceded.
Leeds actually had the ball in the net first on Saturday 31 October, but VAR chalked off Dominic Calvert-Lewin's 11th-minute effort for handball. Then on 31 minutes James Trafford ('extremely windy' James Trafford) played a short goal kick, Leeds gave it away, Justin Kluivert pounced and Evanilson finished. That's 4 league games in a row with a goal for Evanilson, his longest scoring run in the Premier League. Amine Adli added a second in the 4th minute of stoppage time.
Credit to Tyler Adams, Lewis Cook and Ryan Christie, who've filled the midfield gap while Alex Scott has been out injured for the entire run. A month ago Marco Rose couldn't buy a league win. Now he can't stop winning.
Gabriel's First Open-Play Goal, at the 21st Attempt
Gabriel Magalhães scores a lot of goals for a centre-back. Before Saturday 24 October he had 20 in the Premier League for Arsenal, and every single one had come from a set piece.
On 68 minutes against Everton, Arsenal put together a neat move, Ben White overlapped and whipped it to the back post, and Gabriel rose above everyone to head it in. Open play. In his 200th league game, his 21st Premier League goal was the first that didn't start from a dead ball.
It was still a header, mind. His 14th headed league goal for Arsenal, level with Ian Wright, with only Olivier Giroud (27) ahead of him.
And here's the funny bit. Arsenal, who set a Premier League record for corner goals last season, hadn't scored from a non-penalty set piece since May.
So the set-piece team finally scored from a set piece, and the set-piece specialist scored from open play. Football.
Who Needs the Ball?
Going into Sunday 25 October, Liverpool hadn't won a league game at Anfield all season. Their last home league win came back in April.
Brighton turned up as the top flight's leading scorers, 4 wins on the spin, 15 goals scored and none conceded in that run. The game was even flagged as being at risk of postponement, with Storm Boelo forecast to hit Merseyside with 55 to 65mph gusts. It went ahead.
17 minutes in, Ronald Araujo crossed and Florian Wirtz's effort deflected in off Pascal Groß. 4 minutes later, Bradley Barcola crossed for Alexander Isak, scoring in his third league game in a row. Those were the first goals Brighton had conceded in any competition for over 9 hours of footy.
Then Liverpool just gave Brighton the ball and let them get on with it. 35.6% possession, Liverpool's second-lowest share in a Premier League home win since 2003/04. Brighton had it for the rest of the afternoon and managed 1 shot on target.
Who needs the ball anyway? (Hold that thought.)
The Day Nobody Could Pass
If Matchweek 8's Sunday football looked a bit rubbish to you, it wasn't just you.
The Met Office had a yellow wind warning in place from midday Saturday until 9pm Sunday as Storm Boelo blew through. Every game went ahead. Whether they should have is another question.
Across Sunday's 5 games, the 10 teams completed 75.8% of their passes. That's the lowest for a single day with at least 5 Premier League games since 14 December 2019.
Nowhere got it worse than Wearside. About 2 miles from the Stadium of Light, a trampoline had been blown out of someone's garden and onto the road. Inside the ground, long balls either stopped dead in mid-air or kept going forever, crisp packets were doing laps of the technical areas, and at one point a long throw was blown straight out for a goal kick.
James Trafford's verdict afterwards: extremely windy. Cheers, James.
Super Sunday, They Said
Other than that Trafford interview, I personally think it might be the worst Super Sunday I've ever sat through, and I was in Picadilly train station.
In the first half, the two sides managed 10 touches in the opposition box between them. Combined. That's the fewest in any first half of a Premier League game this season. Leeds finished the game with an xG of 0.07. Football365 reckoned there's a false advertising case to be made, and it's hard to argue.
To be fair, it wasn't completely empty. Brian Brobbey, back from a hamstring problem, had both his first-half shots saved by Trafford, and couldn't beat him even after Jaka Bijol's backpass handed him a chance. In stoppage time, Sean Longstaff (booed on by the Sunderland fans, naturally, given his Newcastle past) drilled one from distance that Robin Roefs palmed wide, then had the follow-up blocked by Lukas Nmecha.
0-0. Sunderland stayed bottom, and hadn't scored in the league since their 5-3 defeat to Manchester City. That drought finally ended at Coventry the following week, in a 3-1 defeat, so don't get too excited. Leeds went home with a point and probably a cold.
1 Shot on Target, 2 Goals
Brentford hadn't won in 4 league games, or in any competition since beating Chelsea in September. Nottingham Forest turned up on Saturday 31 October and had 15 shots. Brentford barely bothered.
Brentford finished with 1 shot on target, 0.46 xG and a 2-0 win.
On 30 minutes Dango Ouattara skipped past Murillo and drove a low ball across goal, and Nikola Milenković turned it past his own keeper. Just after the hour, Igor Thiago's shot hit Milenković, then the underside of the bar, and went in. So Milenković had a hand in both of Brentford's goals, which is a tough afternoon for a centre-back.
17 Shots, None on Target
Remember Liverpool beating Brighton without the ball? On Sunday 1st November against Arsenal, they had plenty of it, and still couldn't find the target.
17 shots, 0 on target. Florian Wirtz hit the bar, Alexis Mac Allister headed one wide and then another over, and Isak dragged one wide after the break. They had 28 touches in Arsenal's box in the first half, the most by any side in a first half against Arsenal since 2008/09, and somehow none of it was on target.
Opta's records go back to 2003/04. In 442 home league games since then, Liverpool had never failed to land a single shot on target at Anfield. Until Sunday.
At the other end, 16 minutes in, Declan Rice crossed and Kai Havertz tapped in. His 46th Premier League goal, taking him past Ilkay Gündoğan (45) as the competition's most prolific German. It was Arsenal's first Premier League win at Anfield since September 2012, with a clean sheet to match.
And remember, this was 5 days after Arsenal had been knocked out of the Carabao Cup on penalties by a League Two side at Highbury (more on that in our EFL round-up). They're now top, 3 points clear of City. Football, eh.
That's Matchweeks 8 and 9. If the wind blew anything past us, let me know.
