Matchday 4 – Quick Round Up

Match Day 4 Round Up

Saturday 12th September

Bournemouth 2-2 Brentford

The Cherries have reportedly never beaten The Bees in the Premier League and, if that is correct, the wait goes on for them. Both teams have started the season well, looking confident and ready to take on anyone. Two very good teams who are playing well, with systems they understand and are fully adapted to playing, which cancelled each other out. But not in the way it often happens, where they tend to nullify each other and the game is a borefest, this was a game where both teams tried to get the ball forward quickly every chance they got and pushed for a win.

Starmen:
Tavernier – scored one and his work and movement caused so many problems.
Schade – scored a double.

Flops:
Petrovic – a genuine weakness in the team, was particularly poor on the first goal, which should have been a simple save.
Smith – maybe suffering from a head knock, but he was very poor.
Lewis-Potter – gets forward well but is a very weak defender.
Thiago – is having a really poor start to the season.

Aston Villa 1-2 Nottingham Forest

Villa’s horrendous start to the season continues, but at least now they have scored, which is a small step forward. It very much seems that Glasner has the beating of Emery, though it required a fair bit of luck, especially to stop Lindelof scoring early on, with some fantastic work by Sels and Murillo somehow keeping the ball out. Villa started the game looking much better than they had been playing but failed to get a goal while in the ascendency. As so often happens, that cost them badly. Forest, after their slow start, grew into the game and showed a real physical edge to their play, battling hard to get the win.

Starmen:
Munoz – gives them the energy they were missing down the right.
Sels – a very good shot stopper.

Flops:
Barkley – completely anonymous in midfield, on the Delap goal he was just a spectator, making no real attempt to close the big striker down.
Buendia – seems to have forgotten how to play football over the summer. He is having a diabolically bad season so far.

Chelsea 2-2 Hull City

Chelsea are a team that are exciting going forward but hopeless at the back and it cost them once more. They are a team full of horrendous errors defensively, which Martinez has not fixed at all. In fact, his recent trend of making sloppy errors has continued to make him a part of the problem as well. Add that to a midfield that is wide open and a front four that do not work hard enough and it is recipe for leaking goals. Hull are hard working and full of desire to win every ball and have a bit of flair and quality in the shape of Belloumi. Are they this season’s surprise package or are they just getting a few early results before the rest of the Prem work them out?

Starmen:
Pedro – a goal and an assist and always a danger.
Belloumi – two goals for the wide man.

Flops:
Chelsea defence – the whole backline and keeper are making so many errors. They do lack protection from in front of them but that is still no excuse for the mistakes.
Lavia + James – a strange midfield pairing of two injury prone players that are having to work far too hard for comfort.
Stroud – I can only think they have no other option for the left as he has been very poor so far this season.
Tzolakis – made a couple of errors, one of which led to a Chelsea goal.

Crystal Palace 2-3 Ipswich Town

Palace will rue Disasi’s red card, which was warranted, as it cost them the game. They were fully in the game despite it, looking like they are getting to grips with what Sage wants from them. I am not even going to include any bad gags about other herbs etc, I will save them for a better thyme. Okay, okay, no more, I promise! The Tractor Boys will give anyone a game, but most of the time they are going to struggle, so picking up points in games like this will make all the difference to their chances of survival. They just managed to do enough, but they made really hard work of getting the three points.

Starmen:
Timber – looked a very good addition, working hard and impressing.
Kamada – two assists and his work ethic was vital to keep the Eagles in the match.
Emersonn – they were unfortunate to lose him to injury as he was having a very good game with a goal and an assist.
Davis – also got a goal and an assist and his delivery from the left is one of their best weapons.

Flops:
Disasi – needlessly lunged in high to get himself sent off and leave his teammates in trouble.
Wharton – offered very little and his lack of mobility and defensive nous was exposed.
Enciso – the kind of game you would expect him to shine but he was very poor.

Liverpool 0-0 Fulham

An awful game between two sides who really looked miles off a top side. This is something that used to happen a fair bit under Klopp as well, that Liverpool would look miles off it the weekend after a midweek UEFA Champions League game. The flat atmosphere did not help at all, but the team just looked like they were slow, sluggish even and the midfield set up of Gravenberch and Szoboszlai just does not work at all. Fulham are a very poor side, they failed to take advantage of Liverpool’s poor play and never looked like they had anything else to offer. In fact, they seemed just happy to finally get a point, rather than being disappointed at being so bad.

Starmen:
No one – absolutely no one did enough to deserve it for either side.

Flops:
Both teams – the worst game I have seen this season and both teams were at fault, no player stood up and took the game by the scruff of the neck.

Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Everton

This Spurs side, despite the huge sums spent this summer, is still a very poor team. They are struggling once again because they have too many poor quality players, a fair few brought in over the summer as well. The situation is not helped by a manager who always manages to isolate certain players and push them out, like he did with Trossard at BHA he is now doing with Richarlison. While I am not a fan of Richarlison as a player particularly, you do not bring a team together like this and it is little wonder they are still struggling. Despite Spurs being there for the taking, Moyes set out for a draw and got it. There was no ambition to take advantage of the disarray the Londoners are in.

Starmen:
Savio – havoc early on but no one was getting on the end of it.
Garner – he is a class act, it is a wonder he did not get more interest in the summer.

Flops:
Marmoush – very poor game.
Fernandes – they spent big money for him despite his only specialisation being failure. He had chances to do something but passed them up.
Solanke – offered nothing at all.

Sunderland 0-2 Arsenal

While the Mackems were no pushover and missed a chance to take the lead from the spot, this result never really felt in any doubt. Sunderland are a good hard-working team, full of physicality, but the Gunners are able to match them for physicality and out match them for quality. The only real chance of Arsenal not winning the Premier League, at this early stage, looks to be overconfidence. That seems very unlikely to happen so far, but that often happens when a team is defending the title, they start off flying and then overconfidence clicks in and they have a few results go against them and suddenly they look vulnerable. So far there has been little sign of that happening, but there is a long way to go this season. Sunderland’s biggest problem is managing European games as well, so soon after getting into the league. They have not had the time to build the squad to cope and they need to make sure results do not start to slip.

Starmen:
Raya – saved a penalty and is looking so reliable these days.
Arsenal defence – Sunderland struggled to get any attacks going due to being smothered.
Rice – the heart of the team.

Flops:
Mandava – had a mare, which ended with a silly second booking late in the game.
Angulo – barely got into the game.

Sunday 13th September

Coventry City 0-5 Brighton & Hove Albion

Not so much a beating as a humiliation. Coventry are somehow managing to get worse every week, when they started off looking completely out of their depth anyway. The Sky Blues look to be chasing Derby’s record of being the worst team ever to play in the Premier League and so far there is no case to be made for Derby! To be fair to them, the Seagulls are in top form right now and can dismantle any team when playing like this, but Coventry need to at least make a game of it soon before their morale and confidence dissolves altogether. You do have to wonder how much longer they can give Lampard before they look to make a change, as he has shown nothing to suggest he can turn this around. Brighton look like they are getting better and Hurzeler has them well drilled.

Starmen:
Gross – absolutely runs the games for Brighton and looks to be getting better, with two assists and he converted their penalty.
Hurzeler – he has this team so well drilled, they ran rings around Coventry for long periods of the game.

Flops:
Awoniyi – silly sending off, he allowed them to wind him up.
Coventry team – every single player on their team failed to perform.
Lampard – had no idea what to do with eleven players and even less idea with ten. His job has to be in jeopardy with performances deteriorating.

Manchester United 0-1 Manchester City

Not really a surprise result or performance on the face of it, but when you consider Citeh dominated their near neighbours despite being down to ten men from the middle of the first half, that changes things. That is the big takeaway from this game, United were second best and deserved to lose, showing absolutely no urgency even while losing against ten men. It is hard to judge how well City played as United never got going and were abysmal. Questions have to be asked of what is going wrong, as it is one thing to play poorly but quite another to show no sign of urgency when losing with time running out. There are clearly issues with the set up of the team, particularly central midfield where Tielemans and Mainoo are such similar players and should be an either/or choice. They also leave the team lacking any kind of bite or defensive awareness. This is beginning to feel like Ole all over again.

Starmen:
Haaland – almost inevitable that he would score the winner.
Nunes – no longer looks like a midfielder playing at full-back.

Flops:
Carrick – if you can’t get your team up for the derby match, then you have to expect to be questioned.
United – the whole team let the fans down. Losing is one thing, but to lose the derby with barely a whimper is humiliating. Even worse when you spend 70+ minutes against ten men.
Foden – it was a soft red card, and it is a wonder Bruno Fernandes never got a card as well, but it was stupidity by Foden to kick out after getting a kick.

Monday 14th September

Leeds United 4-1 Newcastle United

Leeds fully deserved their win and the margin of the victory did not flatter them at all, quite the opposite if anything. Leeds were ruthless in attack and sliced the Toon apart time and time again. Newcastle looked a disorganised mess at the back and no better on the ball. Wissa had been playing well up front, but Jaissle changed it to bring in Fernandez-Pardo and it was a miserable failure. Leeds were so quick and direct that they were able to exploit Newcastle’s poor organisation in defence, not giving them time to sort themselves out at all.

Starmen:
Muharemovic – has had such a good start to the season.
Justin – got an assist and got forward very well, combining really well with Bogle down the right.
Calvert-Lewin – two goals and a very good all-round game.

Flops:
Jaissle – his team were a mess, not helped by his decision to revert to playing Wissa in a deeper role, where he has already shown he is not good. He has had been lauded so far, but that will quickly stop if he does not sort the mess out.
Fernandez-Pardo – he wants to play as a centre-forward, but the evidence of this game suggests that is not his strongest position.
Wissa – is very poor in a deeper role, but Jaissle keeps trying him there.
Miley – was overrun in midfield.
Dedic – has little defensive nous and was a liability in this game.

Written by Tris Burke September 17 2026 15:05:09

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