1) Will Mourinho let Spurs take Old Trafford initiative? Manchester United finished 14 points behind Spurs in Louis van Gaal’s last campaign. Under José Mourinho last season, they finished 17 points behind Spurs. Now, after nine games of this season, the clubs have the same points tally. But Mourinho’s approach to Saturday’s match will tell whether he still believes there is a big gap between them. If he opts to play like an underdog at Old Trafford, even with concerns about the fitness of his defenders, then it will show his deference to Mauricio Pochettino’s strong and enterprising team and raise further questions about whether he is the right manager to get the best out the attacking talent at his disposal.
2) Friends reunited but who will be in Liverpool’s defence? For most of the last two years Huddersfield supporters have been gleefully singing that David Wagner is better than Jürgen Klopp. He has certainly transformed the Yorkshire club faster than his friend has been able to change Liverpool but, then again, the clubs are very different and Wagner has enjoyed better backing from his chairman than Klopp has got from Liverpool’s owners. Nonetheless, Wagner has shown a degree of versatility this season that Klopp has not. Last week’s victory over Manchester United was partly down to the way he tweaked his midfield by partnering Danny Williams and Jonathan Hogg just behind Aaron Mooy (that tweak may, in turn, have been partly inspired by José Mourinho, who the previous week had become probably the first manager in the world to hail the awesome impenetrability of Liverpool’s Henderson-Can-Wijnaldum axis of plod). Huddersfield’s defence and goalkeeper, meanwhile, have been solid for most of the season. Scoring has been their problem. The intrigue on Saturday lies in how Huddersfield will try to exploit Liverpool’s defensive flaws and, more interestingly, how Klopp will try to rectify them, the farcical defeat at Tottenham seemingly having convinced him of the folly of persisting with a faulty formula.
3) Chelsea’s attempts at tightening up without Kanté As Leicester City discovered last season, replacing N’Golo Kanté is one of the toughest tasks in football. Chelsea are now finding that out for themselves. With Kanté out with a hamstring injury and not expected to return until next Sunday’s visit of Manchester United, the champions have leaked eight goals in their past four matches. Antonio Conte’s forwards have had to work overtime to cover up the team’s defensive holes. With the Italian desperate for a clean sheet at Bournemouth on Saturday, it is down to Tiémoué Bakayoko and Cesc Fà bregas to develop discipline as a central midfield pairing and offer better protection to Chelsea’s back three in Kanté’s absence.
4) City slickers facing big Baggies test West Brom have not won since beating Accrington Stanley in the Carabao Cup in August. But they did perform well in the next round of that competition before losing 2-1 at home to Manchester City, who return to the Hawthorns on Saturday. Pep Guardiola said after September’s match that even he did not know how to stop Tony Pulis’s side from scoring if they won set pieces. “It is almost impossible – if you concede eight or nine corners, free-kicks and throw-ins, they are going to score,” he said. The key, then, is to keep the ball so that West Brom do not get many opportunities to launch it into the box. City will fancy their chances of doing that, especially as they will probably deploy a side even more formidable than the one that played in September or in Tuesday’s scoreless draw with Wolves.
5) A makeshift left-back for ‘unbalanced’ Swansea Paul Clement has already said his struggling side is “imbalanced” and after making eight chances for their midweek Carabao Cup defeat at the hands of Manchester United he must have wished he had opted for a ninth. His only left-back, Martin Olsson, pulled up with a hamstring injury in the 39th minute and has since been ruled out of this weekend’s game against Arsenal. The upshot? Clement will now be forced to field Sam Clucas or Kyle Naughton out of position. Quite how Swansea found themselves in a position where they had only one left-back emerging from the transfer window beggars belief. Considering how insipid their performance was against a Manchester United second string, Clement must regret not resting the only one available to him on Tuesday for the more important league challenges ahead.
6) Wembley heroics to earn Ayew a start? It can be difficult to know what André Ayew does at times. There are games when one has to make a special effort to remember that the Ghanaian is still on the pitch, or even in this earthly dimension, so minimal is his contribution to general play. Yet Ayew is undeniably effective when it comes to stealing a scruffy goal out of nothing, a strength that proved crucial in West Ham’s unlikely Carabao Cup comeback against Tottenham at Wembley. After doing nothing in the first half, Ayew joined Jonathan Spector, Modibo Maïga and Manny Omoyinmi on the list of West Ham League Cup legends with two scrappy strikes after the break. Though he still does not look like a £20m player, the 27-year-old is a useful option for Slaven Bilic and might have done enough to earn a start over Javier Hernández, West Ham’s other poacher, at Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon.
7) Watford look too strong for drifting Stoke Stoke are in trouble. They have a mishmash squad with a few obvious holes that do not seem been filled by recent signings. Jesé Rodriguez has gone off the boil since his spectacular debut against Arsenal, Kevin Wimmer was left on the bench during last week’s home defeat by Bournemouth, and the striker whom Mark Hughes chased for ages, Saido Berahino, has still not scored since joining in January. The upshot is that Stoke are inconsistent, often even flaky. Which is an intolerable state of affairs. Many tipsters suggested that Watford would be in a similar pickle this season but instead Marco Silva has forged a slick, powerful and spirited unit that look likely to continue their rise by beating Hughes’ side on Saturday.
8) A rare starting chance for Boufal? While Soufiane Boufal’s solo goal against West Brom last weekend was a slalom of rare beauty, his subsequent rage of defiance in the face of manager was rather less edifying. Restricted to just five Premier League appearances (one start and no full games) this season his frustration was perhaps understandable, but giving it the impassioned Big ’Un in front of a manager on the back of just one admittedly wonderful goal was probably ill-advised. Mauricio Pellegrino has since said the one-time club record signing must “wait for his opportunity” but can scarcely leave him out after last weekend’s heroics. As impressive as his goal was, should he get picked to play against Brighton, Boufal ought to remember they are unlikely to be as charitable as their West Brom counterparts who made him look like Pelé.
9) Brighton’s wing play could be crucial Brighton & Hove Albion’s wingers have had a productive couple of weeks. After Anthony Knockaert opened his account for the season in the 1-1 draw with Everton a fortnight ago, last Friday’s 3-0 win at West Ham featured José Izquierdo scoring his first goal for the club since his £16m move from Club Brugge in August. Joe Hart probably should have kept Izquierdo’s bending shot out, but it was a lovely effort from the Colombian, who cut inside from the left before letting fly from 20 yards, and a sign of why Chris Hughton spent so much money on him. The challenge now is for Knockaert and Izquierdo to spark Brighton on a consistent basis. They could be crucial in Sunday’s home game against Southampton, whose full-backs, Ryan Bertrand and Cédric Soares, are no mugs.
10) The first poppies of the season?It’s that time of year again. The British legion launched their annual poppy appeal this week, which means we could see the first embroidered opiates of the season on the shirts of Premier League players this weekend. Calling to mind not only of the fallen who died for people’s rights to choose whether or not to wear things like commemorative flowers, early glimpses of these symbols also signal the beginning of several weeks of tedious James McClean-related outrage to come. The West Brom winger and native of Derry’s Bogside is probably already working on his unnecessary annual statement explaining why he prefers not to wear one, but will no doubt be subjected to the usual abuse by mouth-foaming imbeciles who seem incapable of realising that wearing a poppy is pointless unless it is voluntary. While some say the poppy should not be worn before the end of October, chances are that this weekend there will be a couple of clubs who try to get a jump on the rest in their bid to demonstrate they care that little bit more than everyone else.
Tags:
Premier legue