It feels like only days since I was posting about October’s football, but now I’m back on track and it’s time to look at November in the Premier League!
The month started with Nuno Espírito Santo being removed from his role at Tottenham, and that started off a crazy month of 4 managerial casualties, with Dean Smith (Aston Villa), Daniel Farke (Norwich City) and Ole Gunnar Solskjær (Manchester United) all being relieved of duty, with Antonio Conte, Steven Gerrard, Dean Smith and Ralf Rangnick filling these roles and Eddie Howe also finally being named as Newcastle’s new manager.
On the pitch, Chelsea finished the month top of the table, but draws at home to Burnley and Michael Carrick’s Manchester United allowed their rivals to close the gap, with Manchester City going a perfect 3/3 and Liverpool recovering from a 3-2 loss at West Ham with a pair of 4-0 victories. Newcastle still may not have been able to get a win in November, but 3 draws and a 2-0 loss to Arsenal kept them in touch with their rivals as they remained bottom of the table, with Burnley and Norwich joining then in the danger zone.
The race is on!
The race for the Golden Boot: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) – 11 goals; Jamie Vardy (Leicester City) – 9 goals; Sadio Mané (Liverpool) & Diogo Jota (Liverpool) – 7 goals
The race for the Golden Glove: Édouard Mendy (Chelsea), Alisson (Liverpool) & Ederson (Manchester City) – 7 clean sheets; Aaron Ramsdale (Arsenal) – 6 clean sheets; Alex McCarthy (Southampton) & Robert Sánchez (Brighton & Hove Albion) – 5 clean sheets
Managerial moves
As detailed above, this was a big month for manager changes, with an international break giving a number of teams a chance to get a new manager in and have some time with the team before playing a match, while it also leaves a manager a handful of matches to evaluate their team ahead of the January transfer window. Throughout the month, the following managerial changes were made:
- Newcastle, who had already sacked Steve Bruce last month, brought in Eddie Howe, moving on from interim manager Graeme Jones
- Tottenham replaced Nuno Espírito Santo with Antonio Conte
- Aston Villa replaced Dean Smith with Steven Gerrard
- Norwich City replaced Daniel Farke with Dean Smith
- Manchester United replace Ole Gunnar Solskjær with Ralf Rangnick, with Michael Carrick taking temporary charge until his arrival
So how are these working out?
Things are going in the right direction at Newcastle. A 2-0 loss at Arsenal would never have been a match where they realistically targeted points, and while I’m sure they would have preferred a win against Norwich, draws against the Canaries and Brentford could have very easily been losses earlier this season, and at time of writing they have now earned their first league win of the season at Burnley. This team needs to get better at the back, but they are clearly going in the right direction.
While he wasn’t given much time, Nuno sadly always felt like someone who got the job because everyone Spurs really wanted wasn’t available or willing to join. And he was immediately dealt a questionable hand with Harry Kane missing early games as his future was decided, and then forgetting how to score once he was back on the pitch. However with Conte now in, it feels like this is what Spurs really wanted in the summer, and while things may not have been perfect, 4 points from 2 games in November (their match at Burnley was postponed due to snow) suggests that things may be going in the right direction.
This was always likely to be a tough season for Villa after losing Jack Grealish, but this was a team who, with only 10 points, were running dangerously close to a relegation battle if the teams below them began to improve. Steven Gerrard may have been a risk due a lack of experience but he has done well at Rangers and a move to a Premiership team seemed the next logical step towards eventually becoming Liverpool manager. And sometimes what a great player who has not long left the game lacks in managerial experience, they can make up for in the empathy they can have for the team. Whatever the case, 2 wins from 2 in November has been the perfect start to life in the Premier League.
At Norwich things desperately needed to change. It was getting to the point that strikers Teemu Pukki and Josh Sargent would more likely miss than score if given an open goal and put just an inch out from the line in the middle of the goal. But much more damning was how Billy Gilmour was brought in on loan from Chelsea after an impressive summer at the Euros and then rarely played, as Farke preferred to grow the players on permanent contracts with the club. It would seem that there was a difference of thinking, and with the poor results, change was clear. In picking up Smith just days after his sacking by Villa, they have a manager with Premiership experience who you will hope will be driven to do well after having just been sacked. The return of Gilmour and Todd Cantwell brought immediate success with a win over Southampton, and while their strike force may still look questionable, 5 points from 3 games under Smith in November is a step in the right direction.
And finally we come to Old Trafford. I’m a big fan of Solskjær but something had to change. It’s just a shame that the manager is the one who pays the price while Ed Woodward still gets a long drawn out farewell after ruining the club for seasons, while yet another manager falls due to having to balance Paul Pogba’s incredible cost with an attitude that will see him put in effort for about 3 games a season. Rangnick seems a good move on paper, but as he is only being given a contract until the end of the season, how much support will he get in the January transfer window if he feels that he needs a new player or 2?
Time will tell, but right now it seems that all the month’s managerial moves were the right call.
Proving the doubters wrong
“Elsewhere, signing Aaron Ramsdale for more money than the vastly superior Emiliano Martínez was sold for is just bad business.”
While I still think that the business side of this whole story is a little questionable, I must admit that I have been proved wrong by Aaron Ramsdale. Despite the club’s relegation, Ramsdale looked promising for Bournemouth, but appeared to regress last season for Sheffield United despite being named their player of the Year. Being signed by Arsenal for a fee of up to £30m, I felt that he was going to be playing the role of an expensive back-up to Bernd Leno.
However that has not been the case and I must apologise to Ramsdale, as his form as the Arsenal starter has been incredible. He finds himself just 1 clean sheet off the pace in the race for the Golden Glove, and while part of that is also down to an improved defence, he is pulling off top class saves with regularity and this is likely helping to improve the defence as he is giving them more confidence.
And this leaves Gareth Southgate with an interesting decision to make for the World Cup. Jordan Pickford is his man but still rarely shows the same level of reliability for Everton as Ramsdale has been. Meanwhile Dean Henderson finds himself stuck behind a resurgent David de Gea—don’t be shocked to see him go out on loan to another club in January—and Nick Pope is in a struggling Burnley team.
To me, Ramsdale should be at least the back-up to Pickford by this point, but I would give Ramsdale the starting spot for any more matches this season in order to get him and the defence working on the same page and give him every chance of beating out Pickford. Even if he doesn’t quite manage that, he would at least be in a position to seamlessly take over should Pickford get injured or suspended during or right before the tournament.
Team of the Month
Manchester City
While Chelsea may have finished the month top of the table, it’s City who get the Team of the Month ward. The Sky Blues went 3 wins from 3 in November to finish just 1 point behind the league leaders, scoring 7 goals to just 1 conceded.
Granted Manchester United’s form was poor, but a trip to Old Trafford could have been a banana skin and yet they dominated the derby, while also beating Everton and a West Ham team that defeated Liverpool. And all that without a recognised striker (Gabriel Jesus the only one who could be considered such, if he wasn’t starting on the wing), and with Kevin De Bruyne only playing in the Manchester Derby.
City are just going from strength to strength and at this rate, I won’t be surprised to see them top at Christmas.
Eyes on the Ball 