The Preview - Liverpool vs Man Utd
51:39 Share

This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax. Taxes was getting frustrated by your forms. Now Taxes is uploading your forms with a snap and a TurboTax expert will do your taxes for you. One who's backed by the latest tech, which cross-checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy. All of which makes it easy for you to get the most money back, guaranteed. Get an expert now on TurboTax.com. Only available with TurboTax Live Full Service. See guaranteed details at TurboTax.com slash guarantees.

As you've probably heard by now, we've teamed up with BetMGM this season. We'll be using BetMGM lines to make all of our picks, and we'll have special offers for our listeners each week. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code THEATHLETIC, and you'll get a one-year subscription to The Athletic, plus up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with BetMGM. Here's how it works.

Download the BetMGM app and sign up using bonus code THEATHLETIC. Make your first deposit of at least $10, place your first bet on any game, and claim your voucher for a one-year subscription to The Athletic. See BetMGM.com for terms. U.S. promotional offers not available in D.C., Mississippi, New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Available in the U.S. Call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY 467-7000.

Don't forget, if you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code THEATHLETIC and you'll get a one-year subscription to The Athletic, plus up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager.

This episode is brought to you by Allstate. Some people just know they could save hundreds on car insurance by checking Allstate first. Like you know to check the date of the big game first,

before you accidentally buy tickets on your 20th wedding anniversary and have to spend the next 20 years of your marriage making up for it. Yeah, checking first is smart. So check Allstate first for a quote that could save you hundreds. You're in good hands with Allstate. Savings vary. Terms apply. Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Northbrook, Illinois. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

Hello, I'm Michael Bailey and this is the preview from the Athletic FC podcast. Matches don't get much bigger than this as league leaders Liverpool welcome arch rivals Manchester United to Anfield. One side has won 14 of their 18 league games and sits pretty at the top of the table. The other has lost four in a row in all competitions. There's even talk of a relegation battle. We'll preview that match and the picks of the Premier League.

Here for this one, we have TIFO's John McKenzie and The Athletic's Nick Miller.

John, let's start with you. We've reached the halfway point of the season. Liverpool are not a secret. They are six points clear. They have a game in hand after the Merseyside derby was postponed as well. How impressed have you been with their domination in the Premier League so far this season? It's hard not to be impressed, I think, when you consider the context. Losing a dynastic coach in Jurgen Klopp and then bringing in a new guy who, yeah, was coaching in the Eredivisie. So there's always going to be worries that maybe they'll step up.

isn't going to work but it's worked really really nicely and I think what's most impressive for me I think about the about slot's tenure so far is yes he has taken on board some of the ideas that were already instituted by Jurgen Klopp and he's been very quick to point out that he doesn't see his tactical approach being a huge divergence from what Klopp was doing so there's still that sort of intense pressing they still have the ability to hit teams in direct attack at

attacking sequences which look really nice. But they've added, I would say, an element of tempo to their game. So not only are they looking to be direct and mendacious as a team, there's also times when they're looking to put their foot on the brake a little bit, possess the ball maybe slightly deeper in the field, take the sting out of games and manage the games quite nicely as well. And I think it's not necessarily recognised how difficult it is to introduce those kind of ideas to a team like Liverpool who were so

to use the cliche heavy metal under Jurgen Klopp, especially in the last season. It was quite an exciting sort of version of Liverpool that we saw in the final season. So yeah, I've been really impressed with the way that he's been able to sort of take the good bits from Klopp, add some other bits and make Liverpool look like a real title contenders. Liverpool were in a title challenge last season, I would say, fell away right at the end because I think the way that they played was

you know, in general, not sustainable enough. And I think what Slott's done is he's taken the good parts and he's added a little bit more of a sustainable edge to that team. And yet it's hard not to be impressed with what the result is. I mean, John, to me, they look like a team, they'll have wobbles. They might be a little bit wobbly at the start of a game or whichever, but whatever the situation is, you kind of have full trust that they'll probably turn it around in their favour by the end of the game. Are the numbers across what they're doing and the data, is that backing up just how strong they actually are to the eye?

Yeah, absolutely. The best attacking team in the league according to the expected goals numbers. So well and truly, you know, creating enough goals to be where they are in the league. And then, yeah, very impressive defensive numbers as well. I think according to the Opta numbers, Arsenal have actually just slightly crept past them in terms of expected goals against, crept past them in the right direction. So they've got a lower number rather than higher number because you want to have the lower expected goals against number because that means you're conceding

fewer and smaller chances in general. But yeah, it looks like the numbers are pointing to them being the standout good team in the league. Arsenal, I think, have caught them up, yeah, defensively, but questions about their attacking. But it does look like Arsenal are the team who are going to be the closest, the best placed to maybe cause a problem for them right now. Yeah, which tees it up nicely into you, Nick, because Arsenal are second. They're six points back now. It's a certain Nottingham Forest and Chelsea making up the rest of the top four teams.

at the moment it does feel like i want to say well who's going to catch liverpool from here but is it a bit early to say stuff like that no i don't think so i mean liverpool what six points clear with a game in hand as the cliche goes there's to lose from this point arsenal they do look like the kind of best challenger but then again if you'd ask if you were having this conversation a couple of weeks ago then would have been chelsea and a week ago it might have been nottingham forest uh

But yeah, it feels like it is. It's definitely Liverpool to lose. Arsenal, their injury problems, because like the obvious one, but they have had other issues. Liverpool haven't really. They've had some absences, and particularly with whoever was playing next to Virgil van Dijk in defence, but they haven't really had that many of those this season. So maybe if...

obviously Salah or someone like Trent Alexander-Arnold was out for an extended spell then it might impact them. Alisson was out for a little bit people barely noticed that because Callaghan was so good. So maybe if there was a kind of there was a significant injury in there then Liverpool might drop back but as John said they're playing in such a sort of

I don't know, controlled way that you don't necessarily expect them to have this kind of colossal drop-off at any stage that probably they would need to have in order for anyone to catch them. It's crazy to think they've only dropped nine points so far this season. They've won 23 of 27 games in all competitions under Arnaz Slot. One element that is of uncertainty that's been hanging over Liverpool this season, though, has been the futures of transfer.

Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk with all three into the final six months of their contracts. The uncertainty over Alexander-Arnold's future in particular has been a hot topic in recent days after Real Madrid submitted an offer for the England international which was swiftly knocked back.

Over on our dedicated Liverpool podcast, Walk On, James Pearce and Simon Hughes have given their take on the latest developments. I would be surprised at this point if he stays at Liverpool. Real Madrid don't move for a player unless they think they're going to get him. And I think Trent would be insane, to be honest, to want to leave Liverpool this January, given you've got a very good chance of winning the league this season. This isn't based on me knowing...

or the athletic knowing what's going on, you know, in terms of the conversations that have been happening, um,

This is just my view in terms of where we're at now. And the reality that Real Madrid have actually made a bid for the player, which has been rejected by Liverpool. Usually when that thing starts to happen, you know where it's going to end up. I think what we do know, picking up on what Simon said, is that Liverpool were far too late to the party on this. You know, just purely from a business viewpoint in terms of how valuable he is as an asset, right?

This should never, ever have been allowed to get down to his final year. And in terms of what's happened of late, I think all it has done really is...

The approach from Real Madrid that was instantly rebuffed in terms of the inquiry of, could we talk about a potential deal for January? It just makes official what we've known for a long, long time about the strength of Madrid's interest. Either they've had some assurances that Trent Alexander-Arnold wants to go there, or they've massively misjudged the situation.

Liverpool, for their part, are adamant that Alexander-Arnold has not given them any indication in terms of he's looking to move either now or in the summer. They still retain hope that a compromise can still be achieved. But I think we all know that the longer this ticks on, it's all heading in one particular direction. Nick, what do you make of this situation? I mean, you could argue it kind of makes their current performance levels worse.

More impressive and including Trent Alexander-Arnold, of course. But then there's also an element in the back of my mind where it's like it's probably quite a good motivating factor that you're kind of playing for your future wherever it lies. Yeah, I mean, possibly less so with Alexander-Arnold because it has seemed relatively clear for a little while that this is probably the direction it was going to go in.

Salah and Van Dijk certainly though I mean they James kind of mentioned there that Liverpool shouldn't have let things get to this situation where you've got all three expiring at the same time and that is true it is not ideal but if we kind of assume that Alexander-Arnold has you know sort of made his decision that he wants to leave and it does you know all indications are that he has

I'm not sure exactly what they could have done to kind of persuade him otherwise. If, you know, he's set his heart on Real Madrid's

I mean, I suppose they could have thrown money at him. I suppose this is a consequence of changing regimes as well, the old regime. If there would have been the same people in charge for the last three years, for example, then maybe this would have been different. Salah and Van Dijk, both over 30. Salah was good the last couple of seasons, but not as kind of otherworldly as he has been this season. So they would have looked pretty silly if they'd given him another

new contract on top of the one he signed a couple of years ago and then he kind of declined this season. So yeah, it isn't kind of ideal that they are in this situation, but I don't think they're quite the kind of the chumps that some people, not James, I should point out, he was very measured, but that some people have kind of made them out to be to sort of let themselves be.

get into this situation. Certainly in the cases of Van Dijk and Salah, it does seem to be kind of motivating them to play to their current levels if such things do actually connect and whether it's just a sort of

you know retrospective thing that people are putting two and two together and saying that but yeah I mean Salah's form is absolutely extraordinary and while everyone knew he was a brilliant player I'm not really sure many people could have saw this coming of how good he was so it's almost like the Liverpool hierarchy would be made to look a bit silly by how good he has been this season

It's interesting when this comes up because you'll ask people generally or out of the three, who's the most important that Liverpool keep? And it's a question that's come up a lot in the last six months. And most people tend to settle on Virgil van Dijk. That seems to be the most common answer about the three because it'd be trickier to replace. But John, Mohamed Salah's season, I mean, can you sort of pin down what this is and a kind of context for it? Because he's in phenomenal form and he also seems to be

Liverpool are quite reliant on him almost and yet they're kind of not because as a team they're so dominant too. Yeah, it's interesting that you think most people think that Virgil van Dijk is harder to replace than Mohamed Salah because the numbers he's putting up this season, Mohamed Salah, are just incredible. So 30 goal contributions in 18 Premier League matches, 17 goals, 13 assists. To put that in context...

I've worked out the percentages of the players who have the most goal contributions for the top six clubs and how that breaks down as a percentage of that club's goals. So Mohamed Salah, 30 goal contributions. Liverpool have 45 goals this season. That means 66% of those goals have been either created or scored by Mohamed Salah.

To put that in context, the next lowest down on that list is actually Erling Haaland, who has obviously scored a lot of City's goals this season. I think 15 goals actually, no assists, but City have only scored 32, so that's 47% of City's goals have been scored by Haaland.

Saka, 44%. Cole Palmer, 46%. James Madison, 31%. Bruno Fernandes, 45%. So you can see that 66% of Mohamed Salah is just hands and away above where you might expect the most reliable goal producer on a team to be. So there's a couple of things going on there. One is obviously Mohamed Salah is in the form of his life and deserves to be having all of the praise that's heaped on him. But on the other hand, there's an extent to which

what is happening at Liverpool is a lot down to the fact that Mohamed Salah when you consider the fact that he's scoring the amount or producing the amount of goals that you would expect the rest of the team to produce for most other teams it's just insane so

So I think you sort of take it with a pinch of salt. And, you know, we talked before about the Liverpool title challenge looking on, bar some kind of incredible happenstance going against them. One of those incredible happenstances going against them could be an injury to Mohamed Salah. That would raise questions about how sustainable their approach is.

But at the same time, the sign of any good coaching is to bring out the best in the players that you have at your disposal. And that's certainly what Slott is doing with Salah right now. So I think just one of the really great, I think, productive spells that we've ever seen in the Premier League from Mohamed Salah this first half of the season. And yeah, I've really enjoyed seeing it. And like you said, it has made Liverpool look a little bit silly because it's not just that...

we didn't expect Salah to be this good I think we did but I don't think we expected him to be this good this old and that's where the confounding factor comes in The point about Salah being the most difficult one to replace is I think basically if he goes Liverpool will pretty much have to sign two players to replace him there isn't a right sided you know left footed forward in the world that will produce anything like the kind of numbers that he has and I think

There are good, very good, potentially excellent players in that position. So you'd have to sign one of those to fill his position. But then you have to kind of find the goals from somewhere else as well. So you'd probably have to sign another centre forward. You know, Luis Diaz has obviously been pretty good in this kind of newish role as in the middle, false nine, whatever you want to call it. But it's pretty clear that Cody Gatpo is much more confident, more comfortable on the left side.

Diego Jota is very good but he's injured a lot Darwin Nunes you know maybe the less said the better so you kind of have to you have to

buy someone else to play on the right and then probably another centre forward as well. So that's... While Van Dijk is amazing and there isn't really another player like Alexander-Arnold, Salah to me is the most difficult one to replace. And, you know, again, maybe we wouldn't be saying this if he had sort of declined a little bit or even not been quite as amazing as he has been this season. But when you have to replace one player with two players, that's... You know, you've got...

a pretty significant job on your hands. Great stuff. Right. Next, we'll look at Manchester United ahead of the trip to Anfield. You're listening to the Athletic FC podcast. At Sierra, you'll always find apparel, footwear and gear for 20 to 60% less than department and specialty store prices. But right now it's clearance time. So you can save even more on everything you need to get active and outside. Visit your local Sierra store today.

I don't like to arrive here and make excuses. I think people are tired of excuses in this club. And I think sometimes I talk about relegation because of that. I think our club needs a shock, you know? Needs a shock. And we have to understand that. It's a very difficult moment and we have to fight. Ruben Amorim there speaking after Manchester United's 2-0 home defeat to Newcastle United about the possibility of being dragged.

into a Premier League relegation battle. Before we hear from Nick and John, here's The Athletic's Manchester United writer, Karl Anka, on a festive period that was short of cheer at Old Trafford.

Manchester United over the Christmas period. That was bad, wasn't it? United have often annoyed and frustrated against Wijnaldum Wanderers in recent seasons, but that performance on Boxing Day was nothing to cheer home about. United once again conceding another Olympic goal. And also had Mateus Kunio admit that now teams are just attempting to score directly from corners against United. Things were slightly better in the second half against Newcastle, but

The build-up to that game on the 30th, I heard more than one Man United fan think that it would be a rather straightforward defeat, if only because of the fact that Newcastle now are one of the more physical and athletic teams in the Premier League. Manchester United are a team that are desperately lacking in physicality. The honeymoon for Amarillo, unfortunately, seems to be over, as everyone is saying.

getting to grips with the reality of the fact that this is one of the most poorly constructed squads

in the Premier League. You know, he was asked about the relegation and then he acknowledged it, which felt a bit painful. I don't think Manchester United are going to get relegated, if only because money insulates for the most part. But I do think we are approaching a phase where Manchester United will probably not be playing European football in the 25-26 season. This is a team that is low in physicality, so a number of teams can just run through. And also, one thing that's very important, more so than the fact that Amundsen moved to a 3-4-3,

but a lot of United's build up now is happening in wide areas and United's weakest area of personnel it appears to be their wing backs so yeah if I don't sound that happy it's not just because it's my first day back at work but it's also because Manchester United are just a bit bleh right now

Manchester United have lost four in a row in all competitions, Nick. Carl mentioned the honeymoon period is certainly over. I mean, did it actually begin at any point? Sort of. I mean, remember the first game at Ipswich, they only drew, but there was lots of kind of, well, you know, Diallo was good and you can see what he's trying to do here. And then they had a couple of wins after that. I think Hoyland scored a couple of goals. So there was a kind of brief honeymoon period, I suppose. But yeah.

completely dashed now. I was trying to think when the last time Liverpool and Manchester United played each other and there was such a disparity between the two. I think probably when Roy Hodgson was Liverpool manager. But even then, they were only 12th when Hodgson was eventually sacked and that was quite early on in that season when Liverpool and United played each other. So yeah, we've obviously had games in

in the past where Liverpool have given United a good spanking but in the lead up to the game I can't think of a time since Hodgson certainly probably in the Premier League era other than that season where the gap in class is just so clear and obvious and I mean I find it interesting Nick that Amarim has actually addressed a possible

relegation battle. I mean, if this was, I'm going to try not to offend a lot of teams now and clubs, but you know, say Fulham, West Ham or all variety of other Premier League clubs, Norwich City when they were there perhaps in this position, you'd look at where they were and what they were doing. Would you be a bit more worried? Is it just a different situation because it's Manchester United? Yeah, I mean, they do have some good players and, you know, they have, they have showed a

that they do have the ability to produce...

occasional good performances. I don't think they will be relegated just because there are, the old kind of obvious cliche, there are at least three worse teams in the Premier League than them. I saw Everton live and in person for the first time in a while the other day and that was painful. So, you know, if they are, I don't think they're worse than Everton or, you know, Everton might change manager soon so that might change. But yeah, I think

Whether this is just the kind of the human mind unable to comprehend the idea of Manchester United being relegated rather than just being this kind of nothing-y dreck that they've been used to for so many years, I don't think they'll go down though. It's interesting, John, I've just recorded the Tactics podcast and it came up that with the festive fixtures so closely packed together,

Teams can kind of lean on the principles that their head coaches may have put in place over the summer, or they might still be in a managerial bounce and then they can sort of enjoy the benefits of that. And it kind of struck me that that makes it awkward for a manager who'd maybe come in sort of before that and got a bit stuck, basically thinking of Ruben Amorim. I mean, did you expect more from him coming in?

to this job having done so well at sporting? My initial instinct in answering this question is to sort of deflect away from managerial solutions because I feel as though the last 13, 14 years at Manchester United, the general consensus has been all they need to do is get a good coach in and everything will be fixed.

Inevitably, what's happened is they've brought in ostensibly good coaches and they've come out being viewed as not good coaches anymore. That goes for a number of different coaches along the way. Louis van Gaal's career basically ends after Manchester United. Mourinho does go to Spurs obviously after that, but he's on the downward trajectory.

Eric Ten Haag came in very well thought of as a coach, is less thought of now. And yeah, same with Amarim, right? Coming in with a real high in terms of what expectations were. So part of me wants to answer the question by saying, well, did we ever think that the problem was purely one of coaching? And as you've pointed out, you know, it's tough to come in midway through a season and implement principles, look, and then, you know, take a team from where they are and move them higher up the pecking order.

But equally, yeah, I think to answer the question on face value and talk about what I expected to happen from him, I suppose I talked about this managerial appointment in a number of places in terms of expecting him to be a floor raiser and then having a question mark about what the ceiling would be.

I still believe that that's the case. I do think that eventually you will get to a point where Amarim, if he's given time, and I think more importantly, given the players to fit his system, then he will raise that floor for Manchester United. And the question then becomes, how high does that

ceiling go could he take them to being consistent top four challengers could he take them to being you know title challengers in the Premier League could he take them to being Champions League challengers in Europe and

And that's, I think, a little bit more open for debate. But what I do think is that there's a huge amount of risk involved with bringing in a coach like Ruben Amorim for a number of reasons, one of which is something Carl mentioned, which is he uses quite a different system to a lot of elite coaches use. Now, it's a different system to the one that Manchester United use, which is already a problem because you then have to build your squad to fit that system before you can fairly judge the manager, I think.

The issue is that if you then decide the manager isn't good enough, you've built a squad to suit a manager who isn't playing a style of football, at least a structure of football, which it's not the be all and end all by any stretch of the imagination. But if you decide that he's not the right manager for you, you're then faced with the problem of what do we do? Do we move to a manager who's playing a back three system? I can count on the fingers of one hand how many elite coaches are using back threes at the moment.

Now, it could be the case in a couple of years' time that that's a very different picture. But right now, you're talking Xabi Alonso and Simone Inzaghi, pretty much, at least at the top level of European football. But I suppose you're now in the situation where if you think that Ruben Amorim isn't going to work, you're then faced with this situation where...

But actually, the risk is heightened because you don't have buffers that you might have had if you'd have gone for a back four coach where you could be like, oh, well, it didn't work out, but we've still got decent elements of our squad, I'll say. I don't want to say it's a decent squad, but you can find ways of coming out of that. So, yeah, it is a tricky situation for everyone involved and it's really, really hard.

to judge Amarim on the basis of the context that he's found himself in. Off the back of the fact, as we said, the solution doesn't seem to have been a coaching problem. The issue seems to have been a holistic approach that the club has taken. And I guess we expected that to maybe change with Ineos.

because it seemed like that was the only other area that could be fixed, right? The ownership area. That has now been, quote unquote, fixed to a degree. And we're not seeing those solutions coming through. So I think this is just one of those...

scenarios where we all know that it's going to take a long time it's going to take a lot of upheaval and it's it's very hard in that context to to then say what you expect from a coach and how it will go in the long term just to sort of pick up on things that john has said there the reason for this season going down the toilet at manchester united is not i mean you could play some of the blame on ruben amarin but it is the people who decided to stick with eric ten hag in the summer are

and then six months later, with millions of pounds spent and nothing changed later, they then decide that they shouldn't have. If they'd have said in May, thank you very much for the FA Cup, Eric, but we've been terrible all season and it's not going to, we don't really think it's going to improve, then they could have brought Amarim in at that point, even if Amarim wasn't the guy, because, you know, in the summer, Ruben Amarim was talking to West Ham. So, you know, who knows whether United would have thought him their level at that point. But let's say they did change

replaced ten hog with amarim in june or whenever they could have had a summer to kind of find a wing back or two or and not by a load of other players that you know eric ten hog has worked with before perhaps so yeah while amarim you could blame amarim for a few things and that you know the the most basic thing that they seem to have got worse since eric ten hog

He is not the person to blame for the situation by any stretch. Well, let me throw in a quick one to you both. The journey transfer window is open now. If either of you could pick out one area, possibly one player, you're more than welcome to suggest a name if you've got one on the top of your head, that Manchester United should be targeting to bring in. What would you suggest? John, do you want to have a quick go first? It's just wing-backs, isn't it? It's like Nick says. When you change the system into that back three wing-back system...

the profile of players that you need in those wider areas completely changes, right? Because they're offering something very different from what back four systems offer, which is a fullback doing the defensive work and a wide forward usually doing the attacking work. What you're doing with a 3-4-3 system, as rigid as Amarim's is, is that you're expecting the wide players to offer both of those things in the same profile of player, which is why when Antonio Conte was at Chelsea, Victor Moses suddenly became...

a great player, right? Because the context of what you're expecting that kind of player to offer is just completely different. So yeah, they don't have players who are really outstanding in those wingback positions and that's going to hold them back. So yeah, they've just got to try and find someone who can offer something more in those areas. And I think if you do that, then that floor will be raised.

The question is who you go for, how much money you spend, whether or not you want to go big in the January transfer market because it's a famously unvalued market. You're going to probably lose out on player fees just because it's January. So yeah, there's lots of questions for them to ask. But yeah, that's what I would do, wingbacks all the way. Yeah, no need to overthink it, I don't think. I think Amirin probably thought that he would... Because at Sporting, he didn't necessarily have...

kind of specialist wingbacks all the time, but he repurposed a few players.

And I think he probably thought, and this is a guesswork without delving inside his head, but I think he probably thought that he would be able to do that a little bit easier. Again, Diallo has played pretty well at wing-back, but he's arguably played better in one of the 10 roles. So in some respects, he's done Amorim over by being better in a position where Amorim might not have wanted to play him.

So yeah, there's nothing kind of complicated. I mean, in terms of names, I think Nuno Mendes has been mentioned from PSG, so he might be one. But again, it's such a sort of specialist position that...

arguably you need more time than any other position to kind of find someone to actually do it effectively, which they could have done if they had a summer to do it rather than scrabbling around in January, which when, as John says, is a notoriously unhelpful buyer's market. It's also worth saying that because so few elite teams play wingback systems,

wingbacks tend to not be one there's fewer of them right but the other thing is that you're much less likely to find these sort of hybrid players who can play those systems well so again that sort of adds another level of intrigue to the January market for them.

Manchester United haven't won in eight visits to Anfield. They've only scored once in that time and it was a 3-1 defeat in December 2018 that marked the end of Jose Mourinho's time in charge of Man United. Nick, do you give them any hope? No.

I think we've talked a lot in the last half an hour or so here. So certainly I'm going to keep this short. No. Well, in that case, let's have some predictions then. John, what do you think is going to happen at Anfield? I think it could be similar to the Arsenal game that Manchester United played where they were fairly defensively solid, didn't offer much going forward. So I'm going to go 2-0 to Liverpool. Not a runaway result for Liverpool, but I think it will be comfortable, relatively speaking. But people will say, oh, Man Utd did better than I expected.

I can see it already. Nick? 4-1 to Liverpool. That's the other side of the coin there. Right. Next, we'll look at some of the other standout fixtures to come this weekend. You're listening to The Athletic FC Podcast. This is The Athletic FC Podcast with Michael Bay. ...on the ball in from Wernary, which causes problems. Big problems. Brilliantly dispatched by Gabriel Martinelli.

It's a smart finish and it means it's going to be a great start to 2025 for the Gunners. Nick, I'll come to you first. Arsenal are sitting second. They're starting to apply the most pressure to Liverpool after their 3-1 win at Brentford on Wednesday. What did we learn from that win? Maybe that they can challenge despite losing Bukayo Saka to injury. Yeah, I mean, it's a tricky one. It's a slightly odd game really. Arsenal were obviously the better team but

they just you know they're going in at halftime one all and then scored two quick goals and then the game was pretty much killed off from then but yeah they they were kind of threatening without saka scored another goal from a set piece obviously so that while you might think they're over rely on their set pieces that they do it's not quite kind of

player independent it's not quite that though they'll just have that option whoever's in the team but they are so kind of so well drilled there that even if the rest of the team they're not creating a huge amount from open play they'll always have that i'd be kind of wary about relying on norary for the the whole of the rest of the season just because you know he's a he's a kid who's barely played senior football so while he you know filled in perfectly well as for for saka i

be kind of hesitant about pinning too much on him for the next couple of months but yeah obviously Gabriel Jesus scoring goals again is kind of solves one problem it might then allow Havertz to be kind of deployed elsewhere and kind of maybe solve another problem elsewhere in the team so yeah I mean Martinelli scoring a goal that's that's he hasn't been kind of great for this season and kind of

couple of seasons really so that's always a positive so yeah I mean they do look like the most likely challenges but then again as we said before if you were having this conversation a week ago that might have been a different answer and if we have this same conversation again in a couple of weeks there might be a different answer so yeah

Enough to be optimistic for Arsenal, certainly, but I certainly wouldn't be putting a huge amount of money on them catching Liverpool. Yeah, it's interesting to see how much they've learned from last season, especially. So, Arsenal head to Brighton. That is in Saturday's 5.30pm kick-off, at least in UK time. John Brighton were the first team to take points off Arsenal this season, but they are now winless in seven. They've drawn their last three. So, why have they tailed off a bit under Fabian Hörsler?

Yeah, and I mean, saying they've not won their last seven is maybe even papering over how bad it is a little bit. Because if you look through some of the teams in that run of games, I think a lot of them at the beginning of the season, you would say, yeah, Brighton should be winning these games. Southampton, Fulham, Leicester, Crystal Palace, West Ham, maybe not. Brentford, I think probably, and then Villa, maybe not. But like the majority of those teams, I think people would expect something.

Brighton to be coming out maybe slightly edging some of those games. So yeah, a little bit worrying, I would say. It's sort of, again, hard to judge where Brighton are at right now because of the fact that they've gone through, they've brought in a lot of new players this season, they've had a lot of injuries this season, they brought in a new manager this season. So I think a lot of, well, one of the interesting things that happens, I think, when you bring in a new coach is the new manager bounce, as we call it,

is often sort of angled as a psychological thing where it's like, oh, you know, it's a change. The players get benefits of having, you know, things done in a slightly different way. But I do think there's like tactical realities as well that work under the surface. One of which is that you keep all of the good stuff that the previous coach has and then the new coach adds other good stuff on top. So you almost get like an augmentation of the good tactical ideas.

and I think there was definitely that at the beginning for Brighton maybe some of that tailing off a little bit now the question is you know the good stuff that was implemented by Roberto De Zerbi if that drops out whether or not that has a big impact but I think this is probably mainly just a little bit of bad variance for them there's a few results where they would probably have been expected to win the Leicester game in particular they were 2-0 up and gave away those two goals right at the end which I think that kind of

Well, from one team without a win in a while to another who can't stop winning right now, that's Newcastle. They've won four in a row in the Premier League.

ahead of getting the weekend's games underway when they travelled to Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the early kick-off. They've scored 13 goals in that time, John, but they haven't actually conceded any.

Yeah, it's interesting to see how quickly we've turned around on our opinion of Newcastle because I think at one point they were looking like they were just going to fade into sort of mid-table relative insignificance for a club we were talking about as a Champions League club within the last few seasons. But Eddie Howe's turned things around. He's tweaked things a little bit. He's now playing Sandro Tenali deeper and Bruno Goumerich deeper.

a little bit further forward. There's a really good piece on the athletic actually by Ahmed Walid that you should read if you want to find out more about that. And that seems to have made a big difference. But I think...

For a lot of us, we were expecting a lot more from Newcastle this season simply because they didn't have European competition. And it seems as though it's taken Eddie Howe around this amount of games to turn things around. But it certainly makes the race for the top four a little bit more interesting. And as you've already mentioned, that race is already quite fun. So I'd be interested to see how sustainable this new approach that Newcastle are using under Howe is.

It'd be great to see a battle for top four, although maybe Nick wouldn't want me to say that quite so gleefully. Well, we might get to speak about Forrest in a moment, but just on Newcastle, I mean, we've spoken about Mohamed Salah, but Alexander Isak, he's now up to 12 Premier League goals this season. And I mean, like,

do Newcastle just keep him fit and then they should be alright from here on in and they can work their way back into that top four in Champions League spots? Yeah, possibly easier said than done. I like the idea that they can just kind of keep him in a pot or something just so he doesn't

just maintain his fitness just keep him there everyone watch him he can't move just keep him there cotton wool isn't it it's cotton wool that does it I mean kind of yes probably but there are sort of a few other elements of the team that aren't

that if they got another injury there, then they might be in trouble. Dan Byrne has been sort of brilliant this season. I know that Sven Botman's coming back, but weirdly, Jacob Murphy, he seems to have kind of solved a bit of a problem on the right-hand side. So, you know, if he gets injured, oddly enough, they might. It's not so much that...

necessarily that he is irreplaceable. It's just they seem to do weird things to the rest of the team to just kind of try and shove someone else over there on the right-hand side and it takes Andy Gordon away from where he's good and I think Joelinton played there for a little bit earlier in the season which isn't kind of ideal. But yeah, it is. Izak is their most important player and if they keep him fit then they obviously have a great chance of kind of making the top four or five. But there are...

It's kind of such a weird Premier League season. Everyone's so inconsistent.

And so I think it is a little bit easier to slightly overreact when someone does kind of show some semblance of consistency like Newcastle currently are. You know, again, if we're speaking about this in a few weeks, then they might have lost a couple of games and they're back to mid-table doldrums. But in a rambling answer to your question, yes, ideally they do need to keep Alexander Izak fit. And if they do, then they've got a really good chance of making the Champions League.

Exactly. Well said. Lastly, to round off this week's games, Nuno Espirito Santo returns to Molyneux with his Nottingham Forest side on Monday night. Nottingham Forest side that looks a little bit like his Wolves side from back in the day. I mean, Nick, it is five wins in a row in the Premier League now and...

I mean, it says here, is Champions League qualification on? Which, I mean, is a very bold way of putting it. And it feels quite surreal, really, to put that alongside Nottingham Forest. No offence. Oh, none taken. Of any season, then this is kind of the most likely, partly because so many other big teams seem to be having kind of collective existential crisis. And also that there might be five Champions League places.

But yeah, I think one of the more impressive things about Forrest winning these five games in a row is that a couple of them certainly have been not easy, but they haven't looked like losing them at all. Particularly the last three, Brentford away, Tottenham at home and Everton away. I was at all three of those games and at no point did it really look like Forrest were going to lose any of them. It was kind of a 10-minute spell against Brentford,

But Tottenham were pretty weak and Everton were awful. And they kind of won them in different ways as well. Brentford, there was some very good counter-attacks. They kind of controlled the game against Everton in that kind of weird way that Nuno sides can do, where they control the game despite not really having the ball very much.

So it does feel very strange to say, yes, Forrest could indeed qualify for the Champions League. I think it's more realistic that they'll probably kind of drop off and maybe finish, I don't know, eighth, seventh, something like that. But it's certainly not out of the question to finish in the top five. What do you feel, John, is the most impressive thing about what Nuno's done at Forrest?

I feel as though I don't really deserve an opinion on Forrest because I very much had them sort of hovering above relegation zone this season. In part, that's just because, you know, I'm expected to cover all 20 clubs in the Premier League and the big clubs around Europe. But yeah, I guess off the back of the last few seasons, what we've seen from Forrest is seeming indirection from the ownership and, you know, sort of

attitude of throwing mud at the wall and seeing what sticks to maybe make that expression a little bit more palatable for a general audience. But this season, from what I've seen of Forrest, what's impressed me is that they're just a well-coached side. They're not tearing up the sort of tactical textbooks and saying this is the new way to play. Although I do think that Nuno is a tactically savvy coach and he's changed

a lot of things up as the season has gone on. Forrest have played back three systems at times this season when they've needed to. They've used different, you know, they've used Elliot Anderson, for example, as a central midfielder or they've used him out wide as well to solve different tactical problems. So there's definitely like a tactical flexibility there. And I think it's easy for us,

tactical analysts to underrate just the quality of good coaching that you can get in the Premier League from coaches like Nuno where they will make the players

better than they were when they arrived. And I think that's definitely what's been happening at Forest this season. There's players there who I think, you know, someone like Ryan Yates, for example, is not a player that you would expect to be performing well consistently as a starter in the Premier League for Forest. And yet he has done. And I think a lot of that comes down to Nuno's ability to actually get the parts done.

together performing better than what you would think the sum of those parts should be. So yeah, that's impressed me. Also just the fact that you can play a fairly passive mid-block with really nice counter-attacking ideas. Some of the players that they have

for a club of Forrest's level in the last decade or so, some of those players are just insanely talented and you would expect to have seen them, you know, top five sides in the past. Players like Gibbs White, Alanga, Callum Hudson-Odoi, players like that really, really make that kind of tactical approach way more efficient than it has been in the past. And so it's quite nice to see that, you know, the history of football tactics goes around in cycles and you change the context all the time.

And those cycles can return because actually approach that you thought maybe wasn't sustainable in the past has proven to be way more sustainable in the present with a different, you know, floor of talent that that system is being used in. So it's really nice to see good coaching, really talented players in that system, knowing what they're doing and performing on the pitch. So I like to see that as a tactical analyst. Just to...

very briefly back up what John was saying there the perfect example of that I think is the Everton game when the team as it was announced was that they were going to play three at the back Murillo then got injured in the warm-up and so rather than replace him with the defender just sticking with the original plan they replaced him with Ruben Sosa who's a winger and the

there was no disruption at all. You know, they were obviously used to playing the original system, the back system, but I think it's probably a sign of a very well coached team that, you know, you can change the, basically change the game plan with about 45 minutes to go before kickoff and, you know, no one really blinks. That's brilliant stuff. Thank you so much to John and to Nick for joining us today and I hope you've all enjoyed listening. Ian Irving, we'll be back with you on Monday.

Until then, from all of us, enjoy the football. You've been listening to The Athletic FC Podcast. The producers were Guy Clark, Mike Stavrou and Jay Beal. The executive producer was Aidy Moorhead. To listen to other great athletic podcasts for free, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. The Athletic FC Podcast is an Athletic Media Company production. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

Hey, sports podcast fans. Did you know Discover is accepted in 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide? That's right, 99%. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. That could mean earnings rewards when you buy those last-minute tickets, those overpriced concessions, and that takeout you ate at home after you bailed on meeting your buddies at the bar.

Well, wherever you spend game day, remember, it pays to Discover. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report, learn more at discover.com slash credit card.