Premier League Form Guide 29th November 2024
Your Friday lunchtime (usually) Premier League preview
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Brighton & Hove Albion v Southampton
Having somehow avoided being the first Premier League manager to be sacked after the November international break, Russell Martin and Southampton face the considerable challenge of a Friday night fixture away at Brighton & Hove Albion.
The Saints are now four points adrift at the bottom, a difference that matches exactly the tally they’ve managed in twelve games so far. It’s looking very, very grim. Sharing the league’s lowest goal count and its lowest shots on target per game isn’t helping. Southampton have also faced the highest expected goals against (xGA) value in the top flight this season.
By contrast, Brighton are in terrific nick. Wins over Manchester City and AFC Bournemouth either side of the break have brightened up the autumn on their part of the south coast and lifted them to fifth place – goal difference notwithstanding, they’re as close to third as Tottenham Hotspur, in sixth, are to them.
Brentford v Leicester City
The manager who won that particular race was Leicester’s Steve Cooper, who was sacked this week after five minutes in charge at the King Power. His replacement, Rutgerus Johannes Martinus van Nistelrooij, is expected to be announced any minute now.
Van Nistelrooy will no doubt be watched on as the Foxes visit Brentford on Saturday afternoon in search of their third win of the season. Their only league wins under Cooper came against Bournemouth and Southampton in October but the fixtures since then weren’t really what was needed for a manager under fire.
Thomas Frank has no such concerns. Brentford are rattling along just fine in mid-table, winning as many as they’ve lost and scoring as many as they’ve conceded. They’re out-scoring their expected goals value (xG) and have by far the best percentage of shots on target in the Premier League.
Crystal Palace v Newcastle United
Newcastle United won’t be quite as satisfied with their spot in mid-table and travel to Crystal Palace on Saturday looking to take a big step towards putting it right. The Magpies have the worst percentage of shots on target in the division and are under-performing their xG by more than every team except Palace and Manchester United.
Oliver Glasner’s side are scoring fewer goals per shot and fewer goals per shot on target than anyone in the Premier League, statistics befitting the team sitting second from bottom. They’ve scored six goals fewer than expected, leading to just one win in the first twelve games of the season.
A double from Jean-Philippe Mateta won this fixture for the Eagles last season. Newcastle won the reverse game 4-0 having been 3-0 up at half time last October.
Nottingham Forest v Ipswich Town
Three wins on the spin for Nottingham Forest were followed by a dose of Premier League reality in the form of back-to-back defeats against Newcastle and Arsenal. They conceded three times in both games but they remain in a very respectable seventh place and are still a mere three points off third.
Broken record time: Ipswich Town continue to wrestle with the Premier League’s lowest xG and worst expected goal difference. But there’s good news on the xG front as well – Southampton’s xGA is now lower than that of the Tractor Boys.
More importantly, Kieran McKenna’s team are unbeaten in three. Draws with Leicester City and Manchester United either side of a win at Tottenham Hotspur showed a little of what Ipswich are made of and there’s every chance they can get themselves out of the bottom three before Christmas.
Wolverhampton Wanderers v AFC Bournemouth
The powers that be at Wolverhampton Wanderers have pulled some pretty stupid shit in the last few years but they should be commended for holding their nerve through seven losses and a draw in the first twelve Premier League games and keeping faith with manager Gary O’Neil.
Wolves’ fixture list to start the season was brutal, and while it might have been reasonable to expect something in the way of surprises, they have at least picked up the results when the degree of difficulty slackened off. They’re unbeaten in four and welcome Bournemouth with a third consecutive win in view.
The Cherries are in the curious paradox of being widely regarded as impressive but floating around at the lower end of mid-table. Defeats by Brentford and Brighton in the last two won’t have been the results expected by Andoni Iraola after seven points against Arsenal, Aston Villa and Manchester City.
West Ham United v Arsenal
After starting the season with seven matches unbeaten, consistency has become an issue for Mikel Arteta and Arsenal. Two losses and two draws knocked them out of their stride but last Saturday’s 3-0 win over a very competent Nottingham Forest side offered a glimpse of better times. Spanking Sporting CP in the Champions League on Tuesday won’t have done them any harm either.
They take on West Ham United in Saturday’s tea-time kick-off. The Hammers have given themselves cause for optimism, winning handsomely at Newcastle on Monday to stay close to the tail of mid-table.
When this fixture was played last November, Arsenal scored six goals in 34 minutes to win 6-0. That’s better than a goal every six minutes, maths fans!
Chelsea v Aston Villa
Aston Villa are winless in seven matches in all competitions, a dip of Gerrardian proportions for Unai Emery. Last weekend’s draw with Crystal Palace ended a run of four consecutive losses but all is not well on the field at Villa Park. They play Chelsea, Brentford and Southampton before their next Champions League game.
They’ll be underdogs on Sunday but Villa have won on their last two league visits to Stamford Bridge without conceding a goal. Before that, it was seven losses and a draw in the previous eight.
Chelsea are flying. Beaten only twice in the Premier League this season, the Blues are poised nicely in third place just a point behind out-of-form Manchester City. Only City and Liverpool – the two teams above them in the table – have won league games against Chelsea under Enzo Maresca.
Manchester United v Everton
There’s something wonderfully historic about this fixture but both Manchester United and Everton are desperately scouring the horizon for better days ahead. United have made their move. Ruben Amorim’s first home Premier League game marks, they hope, the beginning of a more agreeable new era.
Everton’s more modest target of staying in the top flight and preferably keeping all their points means that a winless run now spanning four games can be taken as a wobble not a crisis, but they face a horrific run of fixtures in December. Suffice to say, we’ll know exactly where they stand by New Year’s Day.
The Toffees haven’t scored for three games – Southampton (loss), West Ham (draw) and Brentford (draw) were easier games on paper than the ones that lie ahead. Sean Dyche is going to need to find a way to get his team scoring and he could do with finding it on Sunday for starters.
Tottenham Hotspur v Fulham
Thank the football gods for Tottenham Hotspur. They boast the highest non-penalty xG (npxG) in the Premier League and have scored three goals more than Liverpool. They’re scoring 2.25 goals per game on average, yet they’re in sixth place and their last seven results have yielded an alarming but brilliant WLWLWLW record.
On Sunday they welcome a Fulham team sitting right in the middle of the league table with a goal difference of zero and that’ll do just fine for Marco Silva right now, thank you very much. The Cottagers returned from the international break with a most unwelcome home hooning by Wolves, however, and that will be a concern.
Before that, only Manchester United, Manchester City and Aston Villa had beaten Fulham. Get back to that sort of security this month and the European places should be back within reach.
Liverpool v Manchester City
Despite the participation of Manchester City, the last game of the weekend in the Premier League is the outstanding fixture as first host second with a mere eight points between them after twelve games.
City started the season with precisely zero defeats in any competition until the very end of October, a run of 14 games if you count the Community Shield, which you shouldn’t, because it’s not real. Since then, it’s five defeats consecutively followed by a spectacular collapse at home against Feyenoord to throw away two Champions League points in midweek.
As for Liverpool, well, they’re pissing the league, aren’t they?
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