Category: English Premier League

The possession that once defined the Spanish manager’s sides has evaporated, and it’s hard to see exactly why

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We really are now through the looking glass with Pep Guardiola. Eyebrows had been raised by the way Manchester City approached the second half of their commanding derby win last week, sitting off, allowing United the ball and picking them off on the break. But their performance in drawing at Arsenal on Sunday was on a different level entirely: just 34% possession, the lowest any Guardiola side has ever registered in a game. By the end they had four central defenders, two holding midfielders and a full-back on the pitch.

But even that doesn’t get to the heart of how strange this was. In the previous five seasons there have only been 10 occasions when City did not have more possession than their opponents in a Premier League game. Only once before in the Premier League has City’s possession under Guardiola dipped below 40% – when they registered 37% in beating Arsenal 3-1 in February 2023, a decisive game in that season’s title race as it pulled City level on points with Arsenal at the top, although they had played a game more. That fixture, though, was an extreme version of the United game: City sitting deep, looking to strike on the break and, as it turned out, scoring twice in the final 20 minutes to seal their win.

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• City played in Champions League on Thursday night

• Captain says schedule lacks ‘respect’ and ‘common sense’

Bernardo Silva has accused the fixture schedulers of lacking respect and common sense, saying they put Manchester City at such a physical disadvantage for Sunday’s 1-1 draw at Arsenal that it was “not fair” and “just not right”.

The City captain said he and his teammates could not be at their best level for one of the biggest games of the season after being asked to play in the Champions League on Thursday night; they beat Napoli 2-0 at home.

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Aston Villa’s struggles continue, more West Ham problems while Brighton wrap up Carlos Baleba in cotton wool

• Premier League top scorers 2025-26: who is leading race?

Pep Guardiola becomes ever more the traditional English football man. As his Manchester City stay extends to 10 seasons, he relies ever more on the principle that big players can win big matches. Hence his late-career conversion to employing a wrecking ball striker in the peerless Erling Haaland. As for his former assistant Mikel Arteta, Arsenal looked stuck in the weeds of over-thinking. Benching Eberechi Eze, who tortured City in last season’s FA Cup final, till half-time was just too clever by half. Arteta’s recent talk of using rugby strategy, of thinking of substitutes as finishers, in the style of South Africa’s “bomb squad” is all very well. Even if the substitute Gabriel Martinelli scored the equaliser from an Eze long ball, a talented, capable squad playing one-dimensional fare is far less explicable. This is not the City who previously dominated the Premier League. They showed their own limitations, particularly once Haaland, brilliant as attacker and defender, was removed. John Brewin

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Gabriel Martinelli’s injury-time goal cancelled out a beauty from Erling Haaland and denied City an old-fashioned away win

4 min Arsenal have started pretty well. Trossard makes a surging run down the left before being eased to the ground with a hint of disdain by Khusanov. No foul given.

1 min And they’re off. City have started with Phil Foden on the right and Bernardo Silva as the right-sided No8, a swap from the last two games. This is their revised line-up.

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Newcastle continued their 100% entirely goalless 2025-26 away game record with a high-pace, no-chance stalemate at Bournemouth

6 mins: It’s Newcastle’s fans making all the noise, and Bournemouth’s team making all the play.

4 mins: Nearly a chance! The ball is given to Scott, who has a fairly simple pass to release either of two runners about to burst untracked beyond the Newcastle defence but can’t find it.

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A precious win for Ruben Amorim on a rainy, rowdy and ramshackle night at Old Trafford

Let’s have a rummage around the pre-match postbag ... and by the looks of the contents, Ruben Amorim has lost the crowd.

“Any sign of a Papal Bull at Old Trafford? After all, there’s been plenty of another kind of bull there over the last 12 months” – Gary Naylor

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Manchester United kicked off in a deluge and 17th place, and ended soaked-through and jubilant at a benchmark victory that lifts them to ninth. The win is notable as it can be used as the calling-card performance for the Ruben Amorim project. In the first half 10-man Chelsea were pummelled mercilessly by his United unit that was quicker, stronger, more menacing, and just plain better than the club world champions.

After this, the conditions and Casemiro’s late opening period sending off matched Robert Sánchez’s own early shower, and the teams levelled the other out.

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Everton mounted a highly spirited comeback from two goals down but the champions grimly held on to prevail in the 247th Merseyside derby

• Read Will Unwin’s match report from Anfield

Arne Slot: During his pre-match presser, Liverpool’s head coach was asked about the possibility of playing his summer signings Alexander Isak or Hugo Ekitike up front in the same team, either today or at some point in the future. “I consider many things and it depends always on how well they are doing,” he said. “If both of them are in the best form of their life then you consider more to play them together, but it is quite clear that we have a certain structure of 4-3-3.”

On today’s derby: “It’s going to be a difficult game. I don’t know exactly what they are going to do as they played long balls last season but are playing more out from the back this year. Our focus should be on what we need to do to win the game and that is being intense and winning duels.”

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Charges tribunal is still to report on rule breaches, but does the league want to discredit its eight-time champions anyway?

Happy one-year anniversary! How has it been? How do you feel? More, or less, in love? Have you counted down the days? Are you happier, wiser, more centred, like a man in a porridge advert going for a soulful morning run in a sunlit cul-de-sac?

Perhaps, to offer another perspective, you feel so viscerally nauseated at the prospect of leafing through the pre-planned partisan responses to a highly complex piece of legal wrangling there’s a danger your own intestines will liquefy and snort out of your nostrils straight into the toaster. Who knows? Maybe that was the point all along.

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Liverpool and Everton face off in Saturday’s Merseyside derby while Arsenal host Manchester City on Sunday

Saturday 12.30pm TNT Sports 1 Venue Anfield

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Robertson looks a better bet for Merseyside derby, a fresh test for Bournemouth, protests at West Ham and more

It would be a surprise to see Arne Slot start Milos Kerkez against Everton, given the left-back’s struggles against Burnley last weekend. Kerkez was booked for diving and was lucky to avoid a second yellow after fouling Jaidon Anthony before being substituted for Andy Robertson after 38 minutes at Turf Moor. Surely Slot will not risk a similar performance in the cauldron of the Merseyside derby, especially with such a dependable option in Robertson and the tricky Iliman Ndiaye on the right wing for Everton? “It’s a massive jump [playing for Liverpool],” said the Scot as he came to the defence of Kerkez this week. “I came from Hull City, he’s come from Bournemouth, and it’s probably quite similar. He will be the starting left-back for Liverpool in the future and it’s up to me to push him this season and help him improve.” Kerkez is lucky to have such an experienced mentor, but may face a wait to get back into Slot’s starting XI after Robertson started against Atlético Madrid in midweek. Michael Butler

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The attacking midfielder sparkled against United, giving City a boost for the season and England hope for the 2026 World Cup

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One of the many mysteries of last season for Manchester City was Phil Foden. When he was a teenager, everybody knew how good he was. He had been probably the key player shortly after turning 17 as England won the Under-17 World Cup in 2017, and there had been a clamour for him to play for Manchester City long before Pep Guardiola began to start him regularly in 2020-21. For four seasons he was one of the best players in the league and then, suddenly, there was nothing – at least by the exceptionally high standards he had set.

Foden had not had a good Euros in 2024. He has never really produced his best for England, a function perhaps of him playing for a club with such a specific style of play. Take him out of that regimented environment where he knew exactly what runs to make, exactly where his teammates would be moving, and he found it hard to adapt. And England generally did not play well at that Euros, despite reaching the final; the front end of the team was a mess, lacking the balance of previous Gareth Southgate sides.

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See which hot shots are leading the way in the English top flight’s goalscoring charts this season

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Ruben Amorim has insisted that he will not change his system after Manchester United’s 3-0 derby defeat at Manchester City, saying 'you have to change the man' if his 3-4-3 formation is to be discarded. The head coach also suggested recent events behind closed doors have hampered the team

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Newcastle’s new striker makes his mark, Emiliano Martínez is in Villa’s good books again and Noni Madueke’s dream week

Is Gianluigi Donnarumma a Pep Guardiola goalkeeper? He may or may not be, but he is an exceptional goalkeeper. Manchester United didn’t offer enough of a test even to begin to assess whether Donnarumma is good enough with the ball at his feet to allow City to play as Guardiola would like them to. Nor did they test whether his starting position is advanced enough to sweep up behind a high defensive line and prevent the sort of chances City yielded up to Tottenham and Brighton. But his save to keep out a Bryan Mbeumo volley, hurling himself to his right to push the ball wide, was spectacular, and drew congratulations from pretty much all his teammates. Even if he is not the perfect stylistic fit, Donnarumma’s presence, his commanding stature, the aura he projects, makes him the right goalkeeper for now as City begin the process of rebuilding with a notably young squad. Jonathan Wilson

Match report: Manchester City 3-0 Manchester United

Match report: Burnley 0-1 Liverpool

Match report: West Ham 0-3 Tottenham

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