The Rebound: Man Utd’s ‘half-baked tactical mess’ as Liverpool and Newcastle pose philosophical question

These days, we are often encouraged to share our vulnerabilities. To open up to those around us about the things which scare us, which cause us anxiety, to show the world our weaknesses. This is fine advice for many people, who through such openness can be strengthened and uplifted by those around us in our toughest moments. It is, however, awful advice for Premier League football teams, who would do well to keep their problems private given that all of their peers will pounce mercilessly upon them at the first opportunity. Which makes it all the more baffling that practically every team in the division decided to show us their soft sides all at once.

Let’s start at St. James’ Park, where Newcastle United spent half an hour terrorising the Liverpool defence, especially Trent Alexander-Arnold, who will spend the rest of his life waking up in the dead of night in a cold sweat after nightmares involving scrawny Scousers with blond hair. Eddie Howe’s men went a goal up, then a man up, seized complete control of the affair and then… completely mucked it up.

And they showed us that they maybe do lack a little strength in depth, or at least the knack of using their depth wisely. Taking off Anthony Gordon and Alexander Isak amounted to taking their foot off the throat of Liverpool’s ten men, while the addition of Sean Longstaff to the midfield provided them with a slightly softer underbelly that hadn’t existed beforehand. And Liverpool, who had spent most of the first half chasing shadows, were able to first solidify and then strike twice thanks to one of Darwin Nuñez’s occasional very good days.

Not that Liverpool didn’t show us a few soft spots of their own. Alexander-Arnold has always been suspect defensively, but his roasting at the hands of Anthony Gordon was, if not a new low, then an especially deep one. Virgil van Dijk, a shadow of his former self, is no longer able to cover those deficiencies while new signing Wataru Endo provided precious little protection in front of the back four. For all their attacking flair, Liverpool are frighteningly easy to get at these days. On the other hand, Dominik Szoboszlai looks excellent, which is good news for the Reds and bad news for sub-editors looking for spelling mistakes.

And before we move on, a very brief word on Van Dijk’s sending off… of course it was a red card. You can’t chop down the attacker as the last man and feel that you have the right to scream obscenities at the referee.

The notion that it’s impossible to be sure whether Isak would have had a clear goalscoring opportunity is not one that would cause much head-scratching among the world’s great philosophers. Plato would swiftly point out that Isak was clearly getting through one-on-one with Alisson. Immanuel Kant would observe that he was driving a direct beeline for goal. Socrates would state that technically you can never truly “know” whether a goalscoring opportunity would be presented because the striker could always fall over his bootlaces or something, but would still say it’s an obvious red card and that Jamie Carragher was talking rot. Socrates as in the ancient Greek bloke, by the way, not the Brazilian who played for Garforth Town.

Anyway, Newcastle and Liverpool weren’t alone in showing us their frailties this weekend. Manchester United once again looked like a half-baked tactical mess consisting of eleven men who aren’t quite sure where they’re meant to stand at any given time. Arsenal blew a lead against ten-man Fulham because they don’t know how to defend a simple corner into the box. Manchester City reminded us that they’re abysmal at penalties, for some obscure reason, and that confident ball control at the back is a fine thing until someone slips up, especially when it’s Sheffield United Special Agent Kyle Waker. You can come in from the cold now, Kyle. Your cover is blown.

Aston Villa have had a fabulous week, admittedly, but had already shown the world their bare backside in the 5-1 thrashing they received at St. James’ Park on the opening weekend, and while West Ham United can feel rightly proud of both their early-season league position and the result they got away to Brighton, it’s reasonable to observe that you can only win so many games with 22% of the ball and the opposition getting twice as many shots away as you.

And while we expect to see some serious deficiencies at the wrong end of the table, this may be the first season in Premier League history where we need to consider relegating an extra team or two just for the sake of quality control. Only three teams can go down, of course, but the race to the bottom is rapidly resembling a drunken three-legged race with blindfolded contestants and an egg balanced on a spoon at the same time.

Everton can’t score for toffee (hah), Wolves can’t score but do have a good goalkeeper, Luton Town huff and puff like hell but ultimately get blown down with relative ease because they can’t score, while Sheffield United will also put in a massive defensive shift but… well, can’t score either, if only because getting the ball anywhere near the opposition goal seems to be something of a challenge for them. And then there’s Fulham, who don’t look like they can score unless they get a corner against Arsenal, and Bournemouth, who don’t look able to score despite hiring one of the most attacking coaches in Europe. Even Burnley, whose domination of the Championship last year hinted at a promoted team who would give the Premier League a pretty good crack, are pointless from two games having shipped six and scored just the one.

The amount of attacking flair on display is astonishingly limited among the teams likely to make up the bottom half of the table, which doesn’t make for especially great viewing for the neutral and also doesn’t lead us to suspect that too many points will be needed to survive this season. Never mind the 40-point barrier, 30 will be just fine at this rate. Hell, 20 might do it. It’s early days, of course, but even the 2007/08 Derby County side must reckon they could take one or two of these teams. One suspects Nottingham Forest will stay up on the strength of Taiwo Awoniyi alone. That and playing quite well so far, to be fair. Their three points do them something of a disservice so far, and as frustrating as blowing their two-goal lead at Old Trafford must be, their fans can hold their heads high knowing that they’re making a better fist of it than most of the league’s runners and riders.

All of which leads us to the realisation that the only team who have so far looked strong, solid, tactically disciplined and impressive in attack with no apparent underlying problems or anxieties are… wait, Tottenham? Surely that can’t be right…