Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions coming out of football this weekend.
This was the round when Newcastle snatched victory from the clamped-shut jaws of defeat against West Ham, Liverpool went top of the league after an early threat against Brighton, Manchester United went 1-0 up in the 96th minute and still haven’t won. and dumped by Sheffield United one more two goals are leading.
Behind all that and more, we ask if Erling Haaland is not playing well at the worst moment for him and his club, if Cole Palmer is the Premier League’s most valuable player and if Xabi Alonso is rejecting Liverpool and Bayern Munich staying at Bayer Leverkusen is the real power move…
Is Haaland’s worst run of form for City?
There were 84 minutes on the clock in Manchester City 0-0 Arsenal when the ball fell to Erling Haaland at the far post. For a second, the hope of the neutral was raised: we sat through an hour and a half of chaotic rot before, but at least we could be rewarded with a goal – any goal – for our heroism.
But Haaland broke it. In fact, he barely even scuffed it: he almost missed the thing. And what’s really odd, if you watch it closely: he looks like he’s trying to square the ball to Ruben Dias, a centre-half, instead of trying to ram the thing himself.
This ruthless goalscoring machine, given a chance four yards out, tried to pass it to a defender…
🎙️ “Haaland looks like he hasn’t played football for a few seconds!”
One more chance ❌ pic.twitter.com/5wVeAfzK73
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) March 31, 2024
In some respects, this sums up the game quite well. Not just an all-timer of a snoozefest made more intense by Liverpool’s more entertaining 2-1 win over Brighton earlier in the day and the 29 goals scored in eight matches on Saturday, but a match without anything the quality was almost over, just three shots on target combined from two attacks.
You could also say that Haaland’s blank was a victory for Arsenal’s central defenders William Saliba and (especially) Gabriel Magalhaes, who kept the big Norwegian quiet for the second time this season; in those two Premier League games, Haaland failed to manage a single shot on target.
But perhaps there is something broader at play. Haaland has not seemed right since returning at the end of January from two months out with a foot injury.
In that time, he has scored four goals in eight games in the Premier League — for a normal striker, a healthy return, but for Haaland, it was too fast. He has six goals in other competitions, but they were the five he got in a rare FA Cup win over Luton Town and one in the latter stages of a Champions League walk-off against FC Copenhagen. Again, conceding any goal at this level is extremely difficult, but it is also valid and speaks to a concern about his form in a crucial part of the season.
What worries the rest of the Premier League about City’s presence in Haaland is that, at times when they aren’t on their game, he can be there to take away chances and hoover up points they might have missed. Last season, he scored home and away against Arsenal, mercilessly blowing the balloon of their nascent title challenge. Not this season, though.
(Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Haaland was also ineffective against Liverpool before the March international break. He had scored against Manchester United a week earlier but only after missing a crucial chance and his celebration was met with more relief than joy.
To clarify, this is not to say that Haaland is bad now. There is nothing like it. Clearly, he is still if not the best centre-forward in the world, then one of them. There is every chance he can tear through the rest of the season, scoring twice in one game and leading City to a fourth straight title and back-to-back trebles.
But right now, he’s not looking out for himself — and it’s coming at the worst possible time for City.
Is Palmer the Premier League MVP?
Now is the time when people start to think seriously about which individual player has been the best in the Premier League this season.
There are many candidates. Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard at Arsenal. Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk for Liverpool. Rodri and Phil Foden for Manchester City. Ollie Watkins, James Maddison, Lucas Paqueta, Ross Barkley, Bruno Guimaraes… it’s all subjective, everyone will have their choices, none more valid than others.
Who is Most important player in the division, though? That’s a slightly different thing: “best” is self-explanatory, but “most important” is more about a player’s importance to their team. Which player would leave the biggest hole if they were removed from their side?
The answer to that has to be Cole Palmer.
There are several ways to measure his importance to Chelsea. Goals and assists are the most important: he has 13 of the former and eight of the latter, which you don’t need us to tell you is the highest number at the club.
The caveat is that six of his 13 goals have been penalties, but they still need to be scored, and Palmer has been flawless from the spot so far.
(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
Another very crude way of looking at it is if you take his goals out of Chelsea’s results. It’s flawed, because it assumes that whoever replaced him in this thought experiment actually contributed nothing, but take away his goals and they’d have 10 fewer points. That would have them 30 from 30 games: as close to relegation form as any other season.
But beyond these simple statistics, Palmer’s value is that he has given Chelsea something to cheer about in a chronically dismal season. Even with a penalty against Burnley on Saturday: an outrageous, floating Panenka when a more standard penalty would have been fine. This may seem like unnecessary showboating, but when nothing else stirs the passions, such a thing becomes important.
DEEP
Panenkas, shootout and action bias: the best place to seek punishment
“We got too comfortable,” Palmer said after the 2-2 home draw with second-bottom Burnley, who had 10 men for 50 in 90 minutes. “Same story, we kill ourselves every week. It should improve from us as players. We need consistency.”
Palmer used “we” and “we” there, but was well within his rights to separate himself from the rest of the Chelsea team.
He does his work, and then some. How many Chelsea players can say that?
Is staying at Leverkusen the real power transfer for Alonso?
We already know what a breakthrough it is to win the Bundesliga this season for Bayer Leverkusen, but here’s something else to emphasize: even after their 2-0 home defeat against Borussia Dortmund on Saturday , champions Bayern could reach 81 points, 10 more than they achieved last season in securing their 11th straight title, but are still likely to finish second by a double-digit margin.
After the announcement that Xabi Alonso will stay at Leverkusen after this season, his supposed suitors tried their best to style it — he’s just an option, they’re going through a thorough process, no strategy and so on yet – but even if they knew what was coming, the news will send shockwaves through Liverpool, Bayern and whoever else wants a change this summer.
(Hesham Elsherif/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Alonso’s decision was derided by some as ‘wimping out’; taking the easy option of staying where he is instead of showing ambition. Does the effective rejection of Liverpool and Bayern show that he has no ‘cojones’, that he is not confident in his abilities, as has been suggested?
Well, in short: no. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Alonso’s stock will, in all likelihood, never be higher than it is now, amid the sinking of this minor miracle that Leverkusen is working on. She probably won’t be able to choose between the two giants again, both of whom have an emotional history with her.
But what he does is the real power: a coach self-aware enough to say he needs at least one more season of experience after less than two of them in the senior game but confident enough to think his reputation will remain high . enough in the future to attract a big job the next time one comes around.
Alonso does things on his terms, in his own time. He ignored the attention of Liverpool and Bayern because he was afraid of a top job. He did this because he was not afraid that this would be his only chance at one.
Next…
- Easter. An era in which English football has been coming together for years and completely rinsed its players for our viewing pleasure as if they had unlimited energy: somehow, today (Monday), there is a whole round of EFL fixtures in all three divisions (apart from one game each in Leagues One and Two tomorrow), as on Friday. Things to watch out for: the rare battle for automatic promotion to the Championship, with three clubs separated by two points, but we’re also getting to the point where things could be decided. Rotherham United could be relegated from the second tier, as well as Carlisle United from the third.
- Then there’s a full round of midweek Premier League games. Tuesday’s table of five is not very interesting: although it will be interesting to see how West Ham United recover from the weekend collapse at St James’ Park when they take on Tottenham Hotspur, while Nottingham Forest need a home win against Fulham, Newcastle United host Everton, it’s Bournemouth vs Crystal Palace and Wolves go to Burnley.
- Wednesday’s group of three has some pep in its step: the highlight is City vs Aston Villa, but there’s also Arsenal vs Luton and Brentford vs Brighton & Hove Albion.
- Then on Thursday, the round is completed with leaders Liverpool hosting last place Sheffield United and a theoretical big one, but not really because they are both rubbish this season: Chelsea vs Manchester United.
- Finally, to the delight of the outside, Everton should know the verdict for their second PSR infringement of the season, which we can agree is exactly the sort of thing we’ve got in football.
(Top images: Getty Images)
