Welcome to The Briefing every Monday. athletic We discuss the three biggest questions raised by the weekend’s Premier League action.
In this series of games, Darwin Nunez rebooted his navigation software to get Liverpool past Brentford, Arsenal lost ground against Aston Villa after conceding a two-goal lead in the second half, and Nottingham Forest continued their thrilling performance. Manchester City are back in the top four, having lost all of the bottom three (again).
But here we find out whether Tottenham’s biggest problem after another defeat to Everton is their manager or who hired him, what Manchester United could learn from recent mid-table sides to beat them, and why Andoni Iraola could be a bigger deal than Bournemouth. stage.
Obviously someone has to go to Tottenham. But who?
We all know the answer to this. A football club cannot fire a player and sacking an assistant kit manager is unlikely to elicit the desired reaction.
So, despite winning the Manager of the Month award for the third consecutive year last season, returning Tottenham to European competition and providing plenty of entertainment for the neutral side over the past 18 months, there have been countless days when Ange Postecoglou has emerged as Tottenham manager.
Sunday’s 3-2 loss to Everton wasn’t close, as the scoresheet suggests, but they have picked up just one point from their last six league games and mean they still sit in 15th place. Although recent conquerors, they are on track to record the club’s worst league performance in 31 years.
Given the fact that better returns have failed to retain Mauricio Pochettino, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte, Postecoglou cannot claim that speculation about his future is unfounded. And his pleas for patience are not helped by the fact that Everton have just shown what a fresh face and a change of voice can do to a team low on confidence.
But is it really all Ange’s fault? Was that also the fault of their predecessors?
Tottenham have remained in the top six for revenue and wages for 25 years, but have won only one trophy in that period – the 2008 League Cup.
But where they lead is executive pay. Every year, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy ranks first in this ranking. The 62-year-old, who joined the board in December 2000, gave himself a pay package worth £6.5m ($7.9m) last season, including a £3m bonus.
Daniel Levy looks blunt at Goodison Park (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
During his reign, Tottenham built a new training ground and one of the best stadiums in the country, and the club now boasts soaring profits (largely thanks to that stadium). But he has also sacked 11 senior managers, run up record levels of debt, posted financial losses over the past four years and sparked arguments with his most loyal customers over ticket prices and discounts.
Maybe the problem isn’t the people in the dugout, but the people we keep hiring and firing?
Of course, presidents don’t get themselves fired, especially when they own a large stake in the business. But Levy had a front row seat to the manager’s box at Goodison Park, so he couldn’t miss the “Levy Out” chants from the away side.
Levy runs Tottenham because he owns a third of ENIC, the investment company that owns Tottenham. But ENIC partner Joe Lewis, now 87, has passed his stake in the business to a family trust. And last year the Lewis family, always open to offers, was actively seeking a buyer for its stake.
Perhaps it’s time for Levy to realize that it’s time to cash in his chips and give others a chance, too.
deeper
Daniel Levy’s Tottenham are seeking advocacy on the field and change off it.
Manchester United need to accept their position and learn.
Manchester United’s form has been poor this season, so relegation is highly unlikely.
So, no, Ruben Amorim, the team you chose to manage is not the worst in the club’s history. United have been relegated five times in their history, so they’ve been better than this team at least five times.
But don’t we all know what Amorim is getting at?
They have three wins in their last 10 league games, have lost four of their last five at home, and are 13th in the table, seven points behind 10th-placed Fulham.
But what do we expect? That’s where you’d expect to find a team with Brighton winning home and away, losing to West Ham and Wolves and losing at home to Bournemouth. They even lost to Tottenham.
Ruben Amorim didn’t pull a punch in his latest loss to Manchester United (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
Manchester United are average. In fact, Fulham are average and not that good.
Now we have that sorted out. Let’s focus on how they can wake up from this sleep.
Well, for starters, they can take a closer look at Brighton, a team that has spent most of its history in the third tier of English football but has recently become part of the Premier League thanks to clear leadership, goal-oriented investments and smarts. recruitment.
Obviously, Manchester United must have bigger ambitions than living comfortably in the top tier of English football, but a degree of humility would not go amiss right now. It means admitting that teams like Brighton are better than them both on and off the pitch.
Amorim is not responsible for these situations, but is partly responsible for correcting them. Of course, he needs help from above and it is at that level that he needs improvement the most. Sir Jim Ratcliffe has only been at overall control for a year, but the gap between the mission statement and tangible results so far is stark.
On the other hand, Brighton owner Tony Bloom has not said a word publicly. He doesn’t have to. We can all see the results.
Does anyone know where the underperforming giant can find its next coach?
I know this!
In fact, so has everyone else who has been paying attention to what’s happening 90 miles west of Brighton for the past season and a half.
When Bournemouth’s new owner Bill Foley replaced the popular Gary O’Neill with Andoni Iraola in the summer of 2023, the consensus was: “What are you doing?”
O’Neill led Bournemouth to Premier League survival with five wins in seven games, including a crucial victory over the club’s relegation rivals.
But Foley, who made his fortune in financial services, is a numbers guy. He knew the better choice was the unknown who had made fashionable Rayo Vallecano a formidable opponent for every team in La Liga.
With a nine-game winless run in the league so far last season, that bet looked like a lost cause. But then Bournemouth beat Burnley and it all started to make sense. At the end of the season, Bournemouth moved up to 12th place in the league, with 12 more wins and a record number of points.
But that streak looks unlikely to last long as Bournemouth secured their 10th win in 22 league games with a 4-1 win over Newcastle United on Saturday and moved up to seventh. But this was no ordinary away victory.
Newcastle went into the game as favorites to win. First, they have won nine games in a row. Second, Alexander Isaac was the hottest striker in the country. And thirdly, Bournemouth lost 10 players to injury.
Faced with this possibility, Iraola smiled and said, “We strike at dawn.” (It’s almost literally like coaches taking Bournemouth fans on a 350-mile trip north at 2am).
Andoni Iraola is a coveted coaching talent (George Wood/Getty Images)
With nine young players on the bench and central midfielder Lewis Cook at right-back, Iraola told his players to play hard, press hard, play at a fast pace and attack Newcastle from the start. They should have already had two goals when Justin Kluivert scored the first of his three goals in six minutes.
Kluivert, whose famous father Patrick once played for Newcastle, received most of the praise after the game, but Ryan Christie and David Brooks had tremendous performances in midfield, while Dean Huysen and Ilya Zavirny were impeccable in the heart of defence. He also played as a left back. This is Milos Kerkes.
Earlier this season, I heard praise for Foley from a rival club’s director of football. The latter said he was worried because Bournemouth “looked like they knew what they were doing”.
“I don’t want them to think we don’t know what we’re doing.” Foley answered.
Sorry, Bill. The secret is out. Iraola and many of your players are great.
Coming out this week
- We round out this weekend’s menu with a match between two sides desperately needing a point, but for very different reasons. Host Chelsea failed to advance to next season’s Champions League after failing to win the league for a month, while Wolves are struggling for league survival.
- After a month of only domestic competition, European competition returns on Tuesday, with Champions League and Europa League football a big help. Top-tier Liverpool face Lille on Tuesday, while Aston Villa visit Monaco.
- Wednesday’s game is Paris Saint-Germain v Manchester City, but not for the reasons most would have expected a few months ago, as they are a good team between 25th and 22nd in the Champions League so far this season. If either side loses, the team will have great fears of missing out. Arsenal, third in the standings, have no such worries ahead of Dinamo Zagreb’s visit.
- As everyone knows, Thursday is Europa League day, but think no more because the best game of the week is the “Battle of England” between Manchester United and Rangers. Tottenham are scheduled to travel to Hoffenheim. And if you like cross-border clashes with a North American flavor, League One has a cracker: Wrexham v Birmingham City.
(Top photo: Getty Images)
