Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday The Athletic discusses three of the biggest questions posed by the weekend’s Premier League action.
This was the weekend when, dare we say, Arsenal took the handbrake off to motor past a post-Nuno Nottingham Forest, German giant Nick Woltemade headed Newcastle United to victory, Aston Villa went a fourth game without a goal and West Ham’s woes continued with a miserable home defeat by Tottenham Hotspur.
Here we will discuss Manchester United’s utterly meh display against Manchester City, Liverpool’s latest late show and the beauty of hurling the ball as far as you can.
Will Amorim make it to Anfield?
If a Manchester United fan missed this game (good call, by the way) and just looked at the post-match stats, they could be forgiven for thinking their boys put up a decent display. More possession, more corners, more touches in the opponent’s box, way more crosses and pretty even on shots… the numbers suggest this was a close game.
Sadly, these numbers are bare-faced liars.
Manchester City did not need to monopolise the ball, camp in United’s half, pepper the visitors’ box with crosses or rain shots down on their goal. They played pretty well — no more, no less — but that was plenty good enough.
Phil Foden had his best game for a long time, Erling Haaland dominated the box at both ends of the pitch, Jeremy Doku delivered, Rodri directed traffic and Gianluigi Donnarumma reminded Manchester United what a proper No 1 goalkeeper looks like.
Who or what can we pick out for praise from Manchester United? Bryan Mbeumo, perhaps, for sticking at it, and Kobbie Mainoo for a late cameo of competence in possession. The rest of them were… is mediocre unfair?
United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe reacts in the stands during the defeat by City (Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
It does not feel unfair. In fact, it feels like quite a generous description of Luke Shaw’s tackling, Patrick Dorgu’s final ball or Benjamin Sesko’s ability to find space.
City’s third goal provided a far more honest snapshot of this game than any of the stats (apart from the final score, that is — it told no lies).
United were in possession again, slowly going from side to side, when the workmanlike Manuel Ugarte played a short, slightly aimless pass to Shaw, a good left-back but an average centre-back. The England defender’s touch was heavy and he had to poke the ball backwards to Harry Maguire, who had been summoned from the bench five minutes earlier to… erm, provide the creative spark his team were crying out for?
If that was the plan, it did not pan out. His rushed pass was picked off by Bernardo Silva, who then had the simplest of tasks of putting Haaland through on goal… from his own half. The Norwegian’s finish was perfect, hitting the inside of the post, but it did not need to be, as the goalkeeper United were auditioning this week, Altay Bayindir, got nowhere near it and Maguire and Co got nowhere near Haaland.
So, here are some more accurate numbers. Ruben Amorim’s Premier League win rate is 26 per cent, eight wins from 31 games. His overall win rate is just 36 per cent, 17 wins from 47.
Since his arrival last November, United have earned 31 points from 31 games, with only 14 points picked up on the road. Actually, when you realise he has only won 17 points at home, that is not so dreadful. However, with just four points from four games, this is United’s worst start to a season since 1992.
United’s next four games are Chelsea at home, Brentford away, Sunderland at home (insert your own six-pointer gag here) and then, gulp, Liverpool away. Will Amorim make it to Anfield? Or is the better question, should he?
What does leaving it late say about Liverpool?
But let us imagine that Amorim does make it that far and his team are holding Liverpool to a goalless draw as we enter what used to be known as “Fergie time” — are they earning a point, or three, or are they becoming the latest team to be mugged by Arne Slot’s time bandits?
Bournemouth were minutes away from a richly deserved point on the opening weekend at Anfield before Federico Chiesa scored an 88th-minute winner, before Mohamed Salah put a bow on it in added time.
A week later, Rio Ngumoha left it until the 100th minute to announce himself as English football’s next teenage prodigy and earn Liverpool three points they did not really deserve at Newcastle United.
Dominik Szoboszlai was almost premature a week later when he smashed home from long range in the 83rd minute to beat Arsenal. But Salah was back on time on Sunday with a 95th-minute penalty to see off Burnley.
Liverpool’s winning goals this season
Bournemouth (4-2)
August 15
88*
Newcastle (3-2)
August 25
90+10
Arsenal (1-0)
August 31
83
Burnley (1-0)
September 14
90+5
*Data collector Opta classifies Chiesa’s go-ahead goal as Liverpool’s winner against Bournemouth
Some will view these performances as exhibits A, B, C and D in the case for Liverpool’s successful defence of their league title. Winning when you are not at your best is what separates the great from the very good and was something Manchester United did for two decades under Sir Alex Ferguson.
But others — maybe Liverpool fans of a nervous disposition or wishful thinkers elsewhere — will look at those same results and think slightly fortunate wins over Bournemouth and Newcastle are signs of weakness, nobody deserved to win the Arsenal game and needing a late penalty to beat 10-man Burnley is a red flag.
The Athletic’s view, for what it is worth, is somewhere in the middle.
Liverpool are not playing brilliantly at the moment but they did not deserve to lose any of their first four games. They are the joint top-scorers in the league with nine goals and they created more than enough chances to bury Burnley before they were rightly given a penalty for Hannibal’s handball.
New signings Florian Wirtz and Milos Kerkez have not quite settled yet, but Hugo Ekitike has scored a couple of goals already and they have not unleashed British record signing Alexander Isak yet. Salah, by his lofty standards, has started a little slowly, but Virgil van Dijk and Alisson still look like their best in the business at their particular roles.
Liverpool are yet to put together a 90 minutes as good as Arsenal’s against Forest this weekend or Tottenham’s take down of City last month, for that matter. But they are top of the table, with a deeper squad than last season, and great players who are getting to know each other.
It will be Amorim’s rotten luck if he makes it to Anfield only to witness the day when Slot’s new side gets fully acquainted with each other.
How far can long throw-ins take teams?
Of course, nothing we have just written about Liverpool really matters until we have seen how they stand up to this season’s most irresistible force: Brentford’s long throw-ins.
That test does not come around until October 25, by which point the league will have remembered how to defend long throw-ins or Brentford will be in Champions League contention.
For those who missed it, Brentford’s 93rd-minute equaliser against Chelsea on Saturday came from human howitzer Kevin Schade hurling the ball into the box, leggy Norwegian Kristoffer Ajer flicking it on and Fabio Carvalho poking it in at the back post. As the BBC’s commentator put it, “long throw-ins are a thing again”.
When asked about it after the game, Brentford manager (and former set-piece coach) Keith Andrews was completely unapologetic about his use of a tactic not seen on this stage since Chelsea striker Liam Delap’s dad Rory was chucking them in for Stoke City a decade and a half ago.
And why not, a goal’s goal, after all, and it is not like Brentford are the only team to remember that beauty can come from chaos. Most of the Premier League clubs have set-pieces gurus now and if they don’t (looking at you, West Ham), it is time they did, while England manager Thomas Tuchel told reporters last week that he intends to spend a good chunk of the short time he gets with his England all-stars on corners, throw-ins and other unsophisticated ways to get the ball goalwards.
Good, we say, because we like goals and we are starting to miss them.
OK, we are exaggerating slightly and almost certainly overreacting, as we are only 40 games into the new season and there have been 97 goals scored, a healthy 2.4 per game. But that is half a goal down on last season’s rate… half a goal! Get it in the mixer!!
Until, that is, the Premier League’s world-class coaches and defenders remember that Delap could never throw it far enough to get Stoke City higher than ninth, tall blokes who are good at flicking the ball on tend not to be brilliant with the ball at their feet (trust me on this one) and if long throw-ins are so unstoppable, Dave Challinor, who broke the world record for the longest throw-in in 1998, would have played for Barcelona, not Bury.
Coming up this week
- With apologies to the 46 teams that failed to make it through this summer’s qualifying rounds, the 2025-26 UEFA Champions League starts for real this week with 18 games — half a dozen an evening — spread across Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And with England proving a record six entrants, Premier League fans have plenty of options.
- Arsenal travel to Bilbao to play Athletic in one of Tuesday’s early kick-offs, while Tottenham Hotspur, back at the big boys’ table thanks to their Europa League triumph over Manchester United, host Villarreal in another Premier League v La Liga clash.
- Harry Kane’s Bayern Munich versus world champions Chelsea is probably the pick of Wednesday’s fare, although Liverpool against Atletico Madrid continues the England/Spain theme.
- Manchester City host Napoli in Thursday’s Kevin De Bruyne derby, with Newcastle United-Barcelona completing the England/Spain boxset. If that is a bit too parochial for you, how about Kazakh champions Kairat, whose road to the final started in the first qualifying round 10 weeks ago, at Sporting in Lisbon?
- Or if that is not parochial enough, there are some decent Carabao Cup ties on Tuesday, with Manchester United’s conquerors Grimsby Town going to Sheffield Wednesday and Crystal Palace hosting Millwall, a replay of last season’s bruising FA Cup clash.
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(Top photo: Getty Images)