Matchday 8 - Quick Round Up

Match Day 8 Round Up

Friday 23rd October

Ipswich Town 1-1 Nottingham Forest

A surprisingly good game, considering neither manager are particularly known for playing good enjoyable football. Ipswich are clearly in a false position right now, results like this are achieved purely through their hard work. Even so, the only way they were ever going to score was through a bit of luck, which they got when Milenkovic played a short pass back to the keeper. Luck can only last so long. Forest need some goalscorers, they create chances but they usually fall to Delap, who is good at pushing and grabbing but not good at putting the ball in the back of the net. They are better than their position in the table suggests and should rise up the table, so long as Marinakis does not get an itchy trigger finger from not sacking someone for more than a month.

Starmen:
Enciso - plenty of effort and caused Forest problems but just lacks that final ball most of the time. But then, if he had that there is no way he would be at Ipswich to begin with.
Schlager - had to do the work of two defensively as McAtee is non-existent as defensive force.
Williams - good finish for his goal and was having a good game up until his injury.

Flops:
Referee - utterly woeful performance. He seemed completely out of his depth, stopping the game twice for a flat ball to be replaced in play. Surely you wait until the play goes dead, rather than stopping it, so you can check for yourself if the ball has actually gone flat? It was bizarre. He missed the foul on McAtee completely, though he did get the right decision after watching the VAR screen.
McAtee - despite the commentators oral orgasms over him, as they seemed to think he was a reincarnation of prime Pele for some reason, he was terrible. Gave the ball away a lot and is completely powder puff.
Milenkovic - poor error for the Ipswich goal, which was probably the only way they would ever score.
Delap - spends the game trying to be physical and bully the defenders, usually forgetting to actually play football as well. I like physicality, but it has to be accompanied by ability.

Saturday 24th October

Aston Villa 2-1 Manchester City

An excellent performance by Villa, who showed how you can control a game even without possessing the football. Citeh were miles off their best, but that was because Villa forced them out of their comfort zone continually. Taking an early lead did help Villa, they were able to just keep catching Citeh pushing forward, but their second goal, following City's equaliser, showed the first goal was no fluke and not just down to City mistakes. Villa look like they are back to form and like a team that will be challenging for a Champions League place again. City have looked to be slipping lately, they might have needed a defeat to refocus them, but to me the issue is their coach, who got his set up all wrong for this game.

Starmen:
Suzuki - looks a really good signing, precise with his kicks and solid at his main job.
McGinn - keeping him fit is going to be important to Villa's hopes this season.
Jackson - he was excellent, showed pace, power and good movement as well as good finishing to come away with a brace.
Doku - a real handful for the Villa defence, who regularly needed to double up on him.
Ndiaye - looked really good and provided the assist for the almost inevitable Haaland goal.

Flops:
Cherki - anonymous.
Fernandez - had a poor game.
Guehi - for some reason Maresca decided to swap Guehi and Dias over. Guehi looked uncomfortable on the right side of defence and made a bad error for the opening goal.
Donnarumma - a dodgy keeper having another dodgy game.

Arsenal 2-0 Everton

To be honest, this was a result that was probably about as sure to happen as any result. Moyes' lack of ambition meant that this was always going to be a straightforward win for Arsenal, especially once they picked up the early goal. Moyes' tactics mostly consist of getting the ball into the box quickly, which Arsenal are ideally built to counter. This season for Everton feels very reminiscent of the end of Moyes' first spell there, where you just feel like the players he has are capable of more and he is holding them back a bit. He is a very safe pair of hands, you can pretty much guarantee a decent enough place in the table, but the football will not be particularly enjoyable, so do you stick or twist and hope for better? Arsenal are what they are, a very good team that were not really troubled, though Gyokeres did himself no favours in his battle to be first choice with a lacklustre performance.

Starmen:
Gabriel - got a goal and played well.
Konsa - the other Arsenal centre-back scored as well and also had another good game.

Flops:
Pickford - flapped at the ball in ahead of the first goal. I was surprised that was not classed as an error leading to a goal in the match stats for the game, as it clearly was.
Mykolenko - had a poor game.
Johnson - he is looking a very poor signing and completely unsuited to the tactics.

Coventry City 0-1 Fulham

A second win in a row for Fulham was desperately needed and moves them out of the drop zone, but they do not look like a team that is out of the woods yet. It was a real struggle for them against a very poor Coventry side, there was not a big difference between the sides at all, which does make it look like Fulham will be in a relegation battle this season. Their likely saviour is that the promoted sides are so weak this season, they are all reliant on team spirit and effort, which is why the three are now sliding down the table.

Starmen:
Pinnock - he is one of very few Coventry players that looks like a Premier League player, rather than a Championship player playing out of his skin.
King - provides the quality in forward areas for Fulham.
Castagne - decent defensively and offensively.
Bobb - the fact he was able to cause Coventry so many problems shows how poor Coventry are, in my opinion. Bobb has been struggling to make an impression this season but Coventry made him look like prime-George Best at times.

Flops:
Grimes - works hard but just lacks the quality on the ball for this level.
Cherif - needed better service.
Garcia - too lightweight.

Chelsea 0-2 Tottenham Hotspur

This game raised a lot of questions about Chelsea, while answering none about Spurs. Spurs still look entirely average, but were much the better side. Chelsea looked lost tactically, particularly up front, as the players did not seem to understand the plan. There was no focal point up top to get hold of the ball, no one to trouble the Spurs defence, which is very weak, that made for an easy time for them. Added to that, Chelsea showed a lot of petulance, rather than fight. They responded to adversity with silliness, rather than nastiness. By that, I mean they were not crunching in to win the ball or showing any signs of battling for the ball, smashing into hard tackles or fouls to intimidate Spurs, they just wanted to bicker with their opponents. The Chelsea team seems to have a soft underbelly about it, which sees them just lose their head and questions need to be raised about the choice of Caicedo as captain, who does not appear to have any leadership. I would have expected a captain to take Palmer aside and calm him down after he was lucky to escape with just a yellow card the first time. The second one did seem to be coming, as he seemed to have lost his head, which is very surprising for him. A captain should be noticing that and be telling the bench to protect him by subbing him off. It just all seemed very messy and the Chelsea squad need to sit down together and talk this out properly.

Starmen:
No one - none of the players did enough to deserve a place here.

Flops:
Penders - he had a day to forget, it was a bit of a disaster for him. He was very hesitant, which led to him punching the ball into the back of his own net.
Palmer - lost his head and could have got sent off, instead picking up a yellow card. He failed to heed the warning and picked up a second yellow, which was debatable, but as he was already on a yellow, he should have been more careful.
Rogers - had no idea what he was supposed to do. Absolutely abysmal.
Alonso - got it all wrong and was too slow to change things. Then he compounded it by making changes that did not help at all. He has a lot to think about after this.

Sunday 25th October

Liverpool 2-0 Brighton & Hove Albion

Would this count as a surprise result? I think it probably does, Brighton went into the weekend in excellent form while Liverpool had yet to win at Anfield under Iraola. In the end, the Seagulls were comprehensively beaten by an LFC team that is really starting to look like an Iraola side. Liverpool looked more fired up, led by the irrepressible Araujo who got the crowd hyped up with his performance, which fed back into the performance. There are still a few problems in the Liverpool team, it is not at the level of the prime-Klopp team that went head to head all those times with Pep's financially doped up City, but it is moving in the right direction. Brighton just looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights at times, and lacked the battling quality to hold out for a result of any kind.

Starmen:
Gakpo - there were moments of selfishness, but he was the best attacking player on the pitch.
Araujo - head and shoulders above every one else on the pitch as the man of the match, almost as good in the attacking third as Gakpo and superb defensively. He was immense and pretty much got Anfield rocking singlehandedly with some real proper old school thundering challenges. Oh and that tackle with his head while on the floor is the kind of thing that wins you cult hero status on its own.

Flops:
Alisson - normally so reliable with his feet but he had a mare with his distribution.
Cuyper - was non-existent as an attacking threat.
Boscagli - had to be taken off as he was getting ripped to shreds.
Gross - he has been exceptional this season but this was a very poor performance, including unluckily turning Wirtz's shot into the back of the net for the opening goal.
Yalcouye - while it is understandable, the way he got out of the way of Araujo steaming in was shameful.

Hull City 1-1 Brentford

The Tigers versus the Bees was a bit of an anti-climax, with Brentford not being anywhere near their best and leading to a tight game that seemed to be mostly characterised by Brentford players going down easily looking for penalties and free-kicks. For a team so happy to kick others and be physical, it was very disappointing to see them flopping around like Jack Grealish or Harry Kane. It is about time it is treated as what it is - cheating. It is quite ironic that they conceded to a penalty. Also, it was probably the only way McBurnie was ever going to score a goal this season, he truly is woeful in front of goal.

Starmen:
Tzolakis - had a few dodgy moments recently, but his distribution was very good.
Belloumi - the one player with genuine Premier League quality in the Hull side.
Sangare - has looked very good this season so far.

Flops:
Giles - his error led to the Brentford equaliser.
Schade - has been training with Tom Daley by the looks of it.
Hickey - did not look comfortable in midfield.
Kelleher - his poor pass led to Hull getting a penalty.

Manchester United 0-3 Bournemouth

This season Bournemouth have struggled to see out games, but they had no problems against a Man Utd side that still do not look fully fit. In fact their lack of fitness, and being given the day off after every game, is eerily reminiscent of Liverpool under Slot - initially the change of manager saw an improvement in results, but now the lack of work in training is catching up on them. You can clearly see Tielemans is overweight and is sluggish due to the fitness deficit. It was always going to lead to a dip in results as opponents catch on that they can overrun them and outwork them with ease. Bournemouth are the hardest working side in the Premier League, it was no accident they won, they just worked harder and fully deserved a very comfortable win. It is hard to understand though how Carrick is escaping abuse while the players are getting it. He is as big a part of the problem as they are, though it is also obvious the real problem is the rats that own the club.

Starmen:
Rayan - his pace and work rate caused issues all game and he got the first goal.
Evanilson - sealed it with the third and his hold up play is very good.

Flops:
Carrick - his team are being outrun and outworked every week, he is doing nothing about fixing that. His tactics and organisation are poor as well.
Lammens - his confidence looks shattered and he made an error which cost a goal.
Yoro - struggled at right-back and his error cost United a goal.
Tielemans - the extra weight he is carrying is clearly affecting him as he is so sluggish. He is no replacement for Bruno Fernandes in this shape.

Crystal Palace 0-2 Newcastle United

Palace are really struggling to switch from Glasner's ultra-safe, ultra-defensive (and ultra-boring) system, to play in Sage's more progressive style. They have tried this jump from counter-attack football to front foot attacking football so many times and always ended up going back after facing a relegation battle. Unless they are willing to go through this short-term pain and stand by the manager, they will continue to flip-flop back to Roy Hodgson or whatever equivalent they can find, such as Glasner. They have a squad built to play counter-attacking football, with very little in the way of quality ball players within the squad to play a more expansive style, they need a rebuild for Sage's style to work. Newcastle were able to use their physicality and movement to bulldoze their way through Palace's shaky defence, but they still do not look right themselves, particularly defensively.

Starmen:
Khalaili - the one bright spot for Palace.
Joelinton - they have missed his power in the centre of midfield.
Osula - beginning to look a real talent, it is no coincidence that the Toon struggled while he was injured.

Flops:
Benitez - not helped by the blustery conditions but he was poor.
Wharton - struggling badly to play in a two in midfield in a team that leaves space in behind. His lack of mobility is being badly exposed.

Sunderland 0-0 Leeds United

Sunderland are currently in a false position at the bottom of the table, but the longer they keep going without moving up, the harder it will get. The addition of European football has really hampered them, they do not have a big enough squad to cope with both competitions, especially with their style being so physically demanding. They did show real desire and fight to hold Leeds to a draw. Leeds have been steady this season, with this being their 5th draw already. They are in need of more goal threat to take advantage of their excellent defending. As for the game itself, it was not a good watch, but the result was probably about right.

Starmen:
Sadiki - as usual he popped up all over the pitch.
Angulo - the Mackems biggest threat going forward.
Muharemovic - it is little wonder he is attracting attention from the richer clubs in Europe.

Flops:
Brobbey - did not look fully fit.
Calvert-Lewin - Leeds are heavily reliant on him, when he plays poorly like this, there does not look to be any other hope of a goal.

Written by Tris Burke October 28 2026 10:32:06