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All the festive football action in the Premier League is done and dusted. We get you caught up on the action with the Weekend Review.
JUMP TO: Arteta needs to change Arsenal’s mentality | Lampard is still learning | Liverpool are going to win the title | A lesson for Jose Mourinho | Ancelotti’s short-term impact is being felt | West Ham waited for too long to make a change | Bournemouth are in relegation form | Luckiest moment of the weekend | Something needs to change at Villa | Deeney and Pearson combine to revitalise Watford | Tight offsides are changing the game
Arteta needs to change the whole Arsenal mentality
After their most Arsenal of Arsenal implosions against Chelsea, only two teams have now won fewer games than the Gunners this season. They are Norwich and Watford, the 19th and 20th placed sides in the Premier League.
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It’s almost becoming cruel to watch Arsenal fans get excited about 30 minutes of good football, as they were after their first-half display on Sunday, only for it to all disappear down the toilet. It’s a bit like observing a kid on one of those fairground machines with the grabbing claw, picking up the teddy bear and carrying it halfway to the hatch before — o, cruel fate — it slips from the claw’s grasp and the child’s spirits are crushed. We all know they’re not actually going to get the teddy bear, but for a short while there’s enough hope to make them think it’s possible.
Mikel Arteta has been Arsenal manager for two games now and at least he has a full appreciation of the job he has on his hands, if he didn’t before. He not only has to fix a football team but change a mentality that runs through a whole club, a sense that the four minute spell in which Bernd Leno waved at a cross to let Jorginho score then Tammy Abraham was politely allowed to spin and finish, was inevitable. Not so much a consequence of two individual mistakes but a manifestation of an entire club’s vibe.
The good news is that Jurgen Klopp has managed it, albeit in different circumstances, and some of the raw materials are there for the new manager. Arsenal have some terrific players, if they all stick around, and if Arteta is afforded the time he can still fix them. A lot of time, of course.
1:15
Frank Lampard explains how an aggressive half-time discussion helped Chelsea beat Arsenal.
Remember that Lampard is still learning
How much of Chelsea’s comeback against Arsenal can you put down to shrewd tactical changes by Frank Lampard? Maybe not much, but it is at least encouraging that Lampard is being proactive: When Plan A wasn’t working he quickly shifted to and tried something different, switching systems and personnel significantly. Obviously you could say that he is simply throwing stuff at a wall and seeing what sticks, but it’s easy to forget that this is still just his second year as a manager. There’s going to be a lot of that.
Thursday’s 2-0 defeat to Southampton was troubling, but there will inevitably be these bumps and bad results and even bad runs of form with a young coach and a flawed squad. For the moment, Chelsea should be relatively content with where they are.
1:15
Pep Guardiola says Manchester City are out of the title race with Liverpool 14 points ahead of them.
Get used to the fact Liverpool are going to win the title
Liverpool have now taken 82 points from the last 84 available, stretching back into the final nine games of last season. That, dear reader, is ludicrous. These past two games have seen them be sensationally good and be pretty lucky, both separately and at the same time, and when those two things combine it’s basically impossible for them to be stopped.
They’re going to win the title for the first time in 30 years, and at the very least if the thought of that upsets you, at least you’ve got a few months to get used to it.
1:21
Steve Nicol finds it surprising Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham has become uncharacteristically shaky in defense.
A lesson for Jose Mourinho
Two games, four points won against modest opposition but the most valuable thing Jose Mourinho might learn from Tottenham’s festive games might be that it’s time to build his team around Tanguy Ndombele.
When Mourinho made a passive-aggressive reference to wanting players who will physically sacrifice themselves after Ndombele said he wasn’t fit enough to face Brighton, you feared for the Frenchman. But his performance against Norwich showed that he is currently the only player Tottenham have capable of running their midfield, in the same way that Mousa Dembele did at his peak. He has invention, skill, imagination and drive and while their other midfielders individually have some of those qualities, nobody has them all like Ndombele does.
Hopefully Mourinho doesn’t take his macho schtick about men being men and playing through injuries too far, because Ndombele has the potential to be the beating heart of Tottenham’s next great team.
1:20
Carlo Ancelotti praised Everton’s “fighting spirit” in the second half of their 2-1 win over Newcastle United.
Ancelotti’s short-term impact is being felt
There are still significant doubts as to whether Carlo Ancelotti is who Everton need in the long-run, but his short-term impact has been superb. They look much more together, more organised, more assertive and generally like they know what they’re doing, as opposed to the apathetic rabble under Marco Silva and the unsustainable dogs of war in Duncan Ferguson’s brief tenure.
A relatively minor beneficiary of Ancelotti’s early days might be Mick McCarthy: One of the Ireland manager’s key selection issues has been how to get his captain Seamus Coleman and Matt Doherty into the same team, but Ancelotti deploying Coleman as a central defender in a back three might just solve that problem.
1:08
Former West Ham goalkeeper Shaka Hislop reacts to the Hammers’ decision to bring back David Moyes as manager.
West Ham waited for too long to make a change
Of course you can only glean so much from press conferences and public appearances, but listening to Manuel Pellegrini speak doesn’t exactly inspire…
Read more at this link (News Source).
