What a couple of weeks! Lets get into it…

Welcome back to Premier League Highlights! I’ve had to include two weeks worth of highlights here, between December bringing us non-stop football and me being slightly more busy than usual, I had no time to go through all the events of the last two game weeks. This fortnight has featured Sunderland continuing to prove why they deserve to be in the top half of the table, a wobbly Manchester City defence, Slot dropped Salah and saw the first win in a while, Fulham emerge into a team ready to take on the big six, and so much more…

GAMEWEEK 13

What Happened There Then?! – Burnley vs Brentford

If you only tuned in to the first 75 minutes of the match at Brentford, you may be confused why I’d want to discuss what was truly a rather boring game of football. However, those last 15 minutes were absolutely crucial and so full of action. That’s not to say absolutely nothing happened in the first portion of the game; both Brentford and Burnley showed intention and drive from corners, crosses, and shots outside the box, none of which bore any fruit for either side. That is, until the 81′ minute in which Brentford won themselves a penalty which Thiago coolly rolled past Dubravka into the bottom left of the net, a lovely, calm, penalty.

the second penalty of the game to Burnley which was slotted neatly to the right of Kelleher to level the scores. It started to look like a draw would be on the cards. Not quite! just over sixty seconds after this goal, England’s Jordan Henderson puts a fantastic cross into the box received by Thiago who, once again, effortlessly slots it into the goal. 2 – 1, surely this is over now. Nope! Injury time gave opportunity for Henderson to thread another clinical pass through to Daniel Ouattara who does well to knock past defence and tucks the ball in past the keeper, and finally, the drama is over.

This game really highlighted some key things, firstly; Thiago is an underrated powerhouse, and secondly; Burnley have neither the forward momentum nor the defensive stamina or endurance to rise to these tough occasions.

Player Profile – Reece James

Obviously, there’s no need to go too much into James’ football career – but I’m gonna! Basically, Reece James is a Chelsea boy through and through. He started in the academy at the age of six, having Drogba as his idol, he later captained the U18s to win the FA Youth Cup and won Academy Player of the Season. He then became Chelsea’s youngest ever goal scorer in the Champions League back in 2018 (a record that was broken just this season by Guiu and then Estevao in the same match against Ajax in August) and was nominated for PFA Young Player of the Year Award in 2022, he was then named club captain in August 2023. During this time, James played as a striker, a winger, a midfielder, and then made his way to left back – so its no wonder it sometimes feels like he’s everywhere on the pitch.

James has had periods of fantastic consistency and success contrasted with moments of terrible injury and issues with discipline, something Maresca has addressed in the past. However, this season, James’ minutes have been carefully (and successfully!) managed, the result being a gradual increase in minutes and influence on Chelsea’s play which has been so significant for them. Against Arsenal, James was given a rating of 9.2/10, clearly a huge factor in Chelsea’s ability to withstand and prevent the Arsenal attack from gaining momentum. It was a huge shame to see him benched against Leeds, and he was severely missed, but hopefully going forward Chelsea will make the most of James.

Win of the Week – Tottenham v Fulham

Currently, the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium seems to be the most welcoming place for teams to travel to, they have won just a single game of the seven played there, and it was no different for Fulham! Fulham walked onto the pitch with a level of strength and intensity that Tottenham either weren’t expecting or weren’t equipped to deal with, or both, and in just 7 minutes in seemed as though the game was over already.

Just 4 minutes in, Chukwueze confronted the Tottenham defence and effortlessly broke past both Pedro Porro and Archie Gray. He then made a simple square pass to Kenny Tete, rolling past three more spurs player (Bergval looked dead asleep) and suddenly a clear path opened up for Tete who smashed it past Vicario. 1 – 0, the spurs boys are dumbfounded. But it doesn’t end there. In the 6th minute, a reckless mistake from Vicario and a successful Fulham press saw the keeper out at the sideline where he made a desperate pass directly to the feet of Fulham’s Joshua King. The ball was quickly offloaded to Harry Wilson who curled an incredible ball into a keeper-less goal. 2 – 0. Fulham’s fire was not ready to be snuffed just yet and they continued to press into Tottenhams seemingly weak defence, Chukwueze had two more shots on target but the Spurs boys had woken up a little and from then they completely dominated possession, passes, shots, and corners. Fulham held in there, defending their unliekly lead but in the 66th minute, Kudus managed to halve the goal difference with a fantastic finish but Spurs simply couldn’t do enough to get back from the horrific defensive errors in the opening minutes of the game. Fulham made a wonderful display of seizing opportunities as well as patient, tactical play and they absolutely deserved that win.

GAMEWEEK 14

What Happened There Then?! – Bournemouth

There wasn’t a moment that was particularly controversial for me this week, however, something I think hasn’t been talked about enough is wha the hell is going on with The Cherries. They are really struggling to find their feet in the league rapidly losing rank and confidence. Their last five results are as follows:

• Loss – 0-1 Everton
• Loss – 3-2 Sunderland
• Draw – 2-2 West Ham
• Loss – 4-0 Aston Villa
• Loss – 3-1 Manchester City

Pretty shocking results, and 13 goals conceded from just those 5 games. For a while Semenyo held the second position of Premier League top goal scorers for this season, only second to Haaland who is pretty much in a league of his own anyway. Their discipline is also nothing out of the ordinary, they’ve been awarder no red cards and only three players have gotten to five yellows. So what is going on there??

There has been some speculation as what is causing this fracture in Bournemouth. Firstly, a lack of consistency in their captaincy (say that ten times). So far this season, six different players have started as captain for Bournemouth and although there is a clear system – the longest serving available player is always chosen – there is surely some effect on the team not having a consistent guiding voice and approach out on the pitch. Secondly, there have also been whispers of Antione Semenyo leaving the club in the January transfer window after his £65m release clause was announced. Some blame this tension within the team for the underwhelming Bournemouth performance. Lastly, going on through all of that is key injuries. This week against Everton, both Senesi and Brooks in particular left significant gaps in the team due to injury and Kluivert had also just returned from injury. With all of these factors, the next few weeks will be a real test for Bournemouth’s endurance.

Win of the Week – Leeds vs Chelsea

Before I get into the bizarre result at Elland Road, I just want to throw in my absolute favourite game of the week, Fulham vs City. I don’t want to talk about Fulham too much but coming off the back of a win at Spurs and taking on prem giants is such a tough run for the definition of a mid-table team. I know this was not a win for Fulham, and actually City continued their winning streak at Craven Cottage to 19 wins in 19 matches. But, and I may be getting over excited, I have never seen a Fulham team play like that. From the very beginning they had that same fire behind them that they brought to Tottenham, Smith-Rowe played fantastically and had more confidence than I have seen in him in a long time (nice to see as an Arsenal fan). The City defence was really put to the test and broken down so many times! I am very excited to see if Fulham can keep up this play.

Now to get onto the real Win of the Week…

Leeds 3, Chelsea 1. After Chelsea’s well fought draw against table leaders Arsenal that featured some serious tactical play and strong defence from the 10-man Chelsea side. Whereas Leeds entered gameweek 14 on a four-game losing streak. I think we were all expecting Chelsea to continue their title race with a bit more gusto than a 3-1 defeat at Leeds. However, Leeds completely undid the Chelsea structure, their goals came from long shots and corners, ergo avoiding the task of breaking down defence and simply going around it. Even Maresca agreed that Leeds were just the better team all round. In the first half, Chelsea held 75 percent possession, but only managed one shot and conceded two goals. Clearly, Caicedo’s absence due to a red in their last match was definitely felt but it also seems that Maresca may have approached this game with a slight cockiness by leaving their biggest talents on the bench for the sake of rest. Neto, who has had a significant impact for Chelsea so far this season, was shockingly left out of the starting XI undoubtedly knocking momentum and firepower in the squad. James also sat rested on the bench, far more capable and more crucial than the amount of minutes he was given.

The December period of football is only going to get more stressful, where games are coming up thick and fast and it will call out teams who lack depth of quality through the squad. Chelsea cannot afford to be leaving their best players out for a rest when they don’t have strength to back it up. The title charge has slipped a little further from Chelsea’s grasp.

I’ll quickly finish up here because I feel like I’ve thrown a lot of information and opinion at you all – but thank you for reading it. In summary, there is so much to pay attention to going forward and go Fulham!

See ya next time xx