Table of Contents
A slightly different route for this week’s column. Given that there are plenty of intriguing matches on the Premier League calendar this weekend, here’s a quick look at some of the intriguing talking points from three of them before we dive into our predictions for all 10 matches:
Newcastle vs. Arsenal: Guimaraes must perform
If this summer had taken a different turn, Bruno Guimaraes might have been lining up in the red of Arsenal on Saturday. Mikel Arteta was and is one of the Brazilian international’s biggest admirers, but Newcastle managed to close their PSR gap elsewhere (although neither Elliott Anderson nor Yankuba Minteh look like players whose departure should be savored). This was quite a victory for a side whose momentum had waned over the past twelve months. This was a player who looked every inch a top starter at Arsenal or Manchester City and who stayed on Tyneside.
However, after nine games this season, Guimaraes doesn’t quite look like the player he was last season. That was a player who could dominate games from the grassroots in midfield: dictating the rhythm of those around him, regaining possession and still making a remarkable contribution in the final third. Eddie Howe doesn’t quite see the same player this season. The expected possession value of Guimaraes’ passing has dropped from 0.13 per 90 to 0.11 (still high, but not that remarkable). He attempts 10 fewer passes per 90, delivering them with less accuracy and creating less for his teammates.
It is perhaps conceivable that the 26-year-old will have fewer possessions now that Sandro Tonali has returned from his suspension. If that is indeed the case, Guimaraes has not caught up elsewhere. His expected goals without penalties plus expected assists (npxG+xA) have fallen from last year’s 0.35 to 0.17, no wonder the number of chances he creates for teammates has also halved. None of this is to say that Guimaraes wouldn’t still be valuable to most teams in the league. He’s just not the possession force he was a year ago.
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Guimaraes does less with the ball, but his manager would be the first to say that he is not the same player if possession does not go through him. “I think Bruno Guimaraes is a little more complex in terms of where he plays,” Howe said this week, “because I think he has natural strengths where he is attracted to the ball and always wants to be on the ball. It’s different for him to play him away from the ball.”
Newcastle should not yet be at the stage where they are seriously considering whether Guimaraes belongs in their strongest squad. The best version of Newcastle has the best version of Guimaraes at its core. However, it should not go unnoticed by Howe that the midfield of Tonali, Sean Longstaff and Joelinton provided the aggression that serves as a catalyst on Wednesday. Chelsea were blown away long before Guimaraes took the field. If he learns the lessons of midweek and applies them on Saturday afternoon, it could be a tough afternoon for Arsenal.
Spurs vs Aston Villa: What’s going on with Emery’s defence?
If there was one statistic that would make you doubt whether Aston Villa could repeat last season’s heroics in 2024/25, it probably had something to do with their defence. Unai Emery’s side had given up 1.56 npxG per match on their way to a top-four finish despite conceding 61 goals. There is a reason why they are so in love with Emiliano Martinez at Villa Park and last season he had every chance to live up to his title of “World Number 1”. Only Jose Sa prevented more goals than the Argentine with 8.42. That statistic is something of a double-edged sword. Given his quality, we can be fairly confident that there were no major flukes in Martinez’s numbers. David Raya, Ederson and even Alisson also tend not to have such a high target. Their defense doesn’t ask them to make that many saves.
The same seems to be true for Villa this season. Martinez is being asked to make 16 percent fewer saves per 90 years than in 2023-2024 and the quality of those efforts is declining. Through their first nine games, only Liverpool have given up more npxG than Villa’s 0.83. It may be a small sample size, but that’s a better return than Manchester City has achieved this season or last. Their pure defensive returns haven’t looked great so far – 11 conceded in nine games – but the shots made by Everton’s Dwight McNeil and Wolves’ Matheus Cunha don’t often result in goals, what they did this season is more to a few miraculous efforts then Villa mistakes. The signs are there that this is the kind of team that can prevent Spurs from trouncing them last season.
Why? In part, Villa have reduced some of their more aggressive off-ball tendencies. No team caught their opponents offside as often as Emery did last season, and the traps of Pau Torres and others were generally extremely effective. However, if you exceeded that high limit, opponents were given excellent shooting opportunities. No wonder Villa gave up an xG per shot of 0.136, one of the highest in the Premier League in 2023/24. That has fallen significantly, along with the frequency with which Villa catch opponents offside, from 4.4 per match to 2.6, still high for Europe’s top five leagues but not remarkable.
Is this because Villa’s midfield personnel have changed? You could certainly understand why a team with Douglas Luiz and Boubacar Kamara might be tempted to push forward, confident that their engine room would overpower the opposition. If Youri Tielemans is beaten up high, he will not return in time. The intensity of the schedule will also explain this to some extent. Villa’s squad is not the deepest, they cannot afford to let themselves down in the Premier League, Champions League and EFL Cup. That became clear when they sat back for a moment during Manchester United’s visit to Villa Park. Go girl, don’t give us anything, they might as well have said.
The game status also plays a role. When Villa were in the hunt for an equalizer, the defensive line has crept up, allowing Wolves five goals as they came back from a goal down to win 3-1. However, you would suspect that the 4-0 thrashing they suffered at the hands of Tottenham did not fade from Emery’s thoughts in pre-season. His team cannot afford to be blown away in the same way Pape Matar Sarr did to them last season. With the adjustments they made this past summer, that may not be the case.
Manchester United vs Chelsea: Is Van Nistelrooy copying Amorim?
Will there be much to learn from Ruud van Nistelrooy’s four-match battle with the Manchester United dugout? Probably not. Ruben Amorim will no doubt be keeping a close eye on events at Old Trafford this weekend, but he will already have his own ideas about how he molds this team into a system and style he enjoys coaching. So the question is to what extent the man who will have to look after the store for the next three games tries to implement this approach.
After all, the football manager’s decision to retain Erik ten Hag this summer deprived Amorim of a preseason to implement his ideas. It also arguably lowered the ceiling of what Manchester United could have achieved this season. With a good wind and 38 matches of top coaching it might have been possible to end up in the top four. By the time the new head coach takes the job, nearly a third of the season will be underway. Nothing that has happened so far suggests United have the kind of big lead in them that would be needed to close a seven-point gap on fourth place.
So this season could be little more than a long preseason, where we have to sort through the roster, see who fits into the system and who needs to be left. Why not start so early? Could Van Nistelrooy roll out a back three in the manner Amorim is expected to implement? It could well suit some of his centre-backs: let Matthijs De Ligt ramp up possession, trust Lisandro Martinez to be the kind of hybrid defender on the left that he’s been profiling anyway. How does a system that puts a lot of pressure on a dynamic midfielder – often Manuel Ugarte before he left Sporting – hold up against high-quality attacks like Chelsea’s? It can’t hurt to find out.
Ultimately, you suspect this won’t be the case. United looked so impressive in Van Nistelrooy’s first game as interim manager, a 5-2 EFL thrashing of Leicester City, precisely because they kept things simple. Perhaps that’s what all parties want from someone who won’t be around much longer, who takes the pressure off, puts players in a place where they feel comfortable and trusts them to work things out. Could that have a spectacularly counterproductive effect on a team that is starting to settle into Enzo Maresca’s system? Yes. But that won’t be Van Nistelrooy’s problem for much longer, will it?
Scroll down for our predicted score in this and all of today’s other Premier League matches:
Saturday November 2
Newcastle1, Arsenal2
Bournemouth 0, Manchester City 1
Ipswich 2, Leicester 2
Liverpool 3, Brighton 0
Nottingham Forest 1, West Ham 0
Southampton 0, Everton 0
Wolves 0, Crystal Palace 1
Sunday November 3
Tottenham 0, Aston Villa 1
Manchester United 1, Chelsea 3
Monday November 4
Fulham 2, Brentford 2