Arsenal close to perfect weekend, Nuno Tavares advances and more

November 25, 2024

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Nuno Tavares, Mikel Arteta and Tijjani Reijnders (Photos by Marco Rosi, Justin Setterfield, Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

With 25 minutes to go at Southampton on Sunday, it looked set to be a near-perfect weekend for Arsenal in the Premier League.

Mikel Arteta’s side produced their best performance of the season so far on Saturday as they brushed aside Nottingham Forest 3-0 before sitting back and watching Manchester City get destroyed by clinical Spurs in the ‘Etihad.

Southampton’s struggle against Liverpool at St Mary’s, which saw them go 2-1 up after falling behind early on, looked to put the gloss on what had been an excellent 24 hours, but then that man Mo Salah performed his act of rescue for Liverpool, although with a lot of help from the goalkeeper and the defense of the Saints.

So things didn’t go as well as they could have for Arsenal, with Liverpool holding on to their nine-point lead over them, but honestly that was to be expected at the start of the weekend. Any points Liverpool dropped on the south coast would have been a plus.

For Arsenal, the most important thing now is to build on the result and the performance against Forest, because it was very good. For the first time in a long time there was a real sense of balance in the team. They looked a lot more like the Arsenal side we’ve grown used to over the last couple of years and they need to build on that now.

You can see the difference Martin Odegaard has made, it’s been massive. But getting Riccardo Calafiori back on the left was crucial, as was Jurrien Timber back playing his more natural right. Both sides of the pitch looked balanced and that is something that has been lost.

If Mikel Arteta can continue to have his big players at his disposal in the coming weeks, there’s no reason why they can’t string together a good winning streak. There are six winnable games in the league between now and New Year’s Day, if Arsenal win all six I am convinced they will be within striking distance of Liverpool come 2025 and then it will be all to play for.

Liverpool are on a hell of a run, but they don’t look unbeatable. Things are going their way a bit and Sunday’s game at Southampton was a clear example of that.

On the one hand you look at it and say that they won by playing quite badly, which is a sign of a good team, but on the other hand you could say that right now they are enjoying good luck which has to be run out at some point. .

This weekend is obviously going to be a big one. Arsenal need to make sure they get the job done at West Ham and then see what happens at Anfield when Liverpool host Manchester City.

The city seems a bit messy at the moment. They are very easy to play and it is to be expected that Liverpool took advantage of this. But Pep Guardiola’s side will know that they really cannot afford to lose and that could be dangerous for Liverpool.

So I don’t think the title race is over. It’s too early for that. Liverpool are in an incredible position. But I don’t think any of his rivals are waving the white flag yet.

Nuno Tavares in a press conference — Nuno Tavares at a press conference (Photo by Marco Rosi – SS Lazio/Getty Images)

It’s great to see Nuno Tavares doing well for Lazio and hopefully the injury he picked up during the international game won’t keep him out for too long.

But there is no way to see how he is performing in Italy and the question of whether things could have gone differently for him at Arsenal.

It’s not like I don’t have opportunities. He had a lot. He was very raw and didn’t really make the most of those opportunities.

You could see he was talented and had the attributes to be a decent player, but he was, and still is, a bit too chaotic a player for a Mikel Arteta side.

It always tends to start bright in new clubs as well and then go down a bit. He did that at Arsenal and Marseille, so it will be interesting to see if he can maintain that form with Lazio.

Provided a few clauses are met, his loan will become permanent in the summer and he will stay in Italy. Arsenal will pay him back and have a huge sell-on clause included in the Lazio deal.

I think it’s a pretty good deal to be fair. I certainly don’t look at what he’s doing and regret that they were allowed to leave and I can’t imagine there are many people at Arsenal who feel differently.

Tijjani Reijnders is a player who seems to be constantly in the headlines at the moment, with clubs all over Europe linked with him.

Manchester City, Spurs, Barcelona, Real Madrid are all said to be looking at the AC Milan star, and now I’ve seen Arsenal linked as well.

It’s not something I’ve heard of myself and the speculation doesn’t seem to come from outlets of much substance when it comes to Arsenal matters, so I’m a bit skeptical about it.

But he’s clearly doing some really good things for Milan and is a quality player, so hopefully some of Europe’s top clubs will be keeping an eye on him ahead of the January window.

I still don’t expect much from Arsenal when it comes to January, but the message we get is that the focus remains on the summer when it comes to any major business.

Obviously, that could change if an opportunity presents itself in January that is deemed too good to turn down, but we’ll have to wait and see if that happens.

yes Ruben Amorim didn’t yet know the scale of the task facing Manchester United ahead of Sunday’s game at Ipswich, then now he does.

There is clearly a lot of work to be done to turn things around at Old Trafford and you would think Amorim is under no illusions about the work he will need to do to get back into contention.

I don’t know him too well as a manager, but he’s clearly a very talented operator and he built a good team at Sporting, one that knocked Arsenal out of the Europa League, of course, just a couple of years ago years with that penalty shootout. success in the Emirates.

I think it’s an exciting appointment for United. He is a young manager who has a clear philosophy and the evidence suggests that the players enjoy playing with him and can get a lot out of him.