Premier League storylines to watch out for: Gameweek 12

With neither Manchester City nor Arsenal playing this gameweek, it’s up to the other 18 teams in the Premier League to entertain us with fixtures as enticing as ‘Bournemouth vs Southampton: The battle to become the second-best team on the south coast’ and ‘Brentford vs Chelsea: Very polite handshake on the cards for Thomas Frank and Graham Potter’.

Instead, let’s take a look at some of the slightly juicier storylines coursing through the B at the moment, starting with – who else – Nottingham Forest’s graphic design team.

On Saturday, before their game against Wolves, Nottingham Forest’s social admin made the rather unfortunate decision to tweet out a graphic of striker Emmanuel Dennis sat on the pitch with some wolf cubs and the caption: ‘playtime’. Fast forward to Forest losing 1-0. Obviously, obviously that was going to happen. It’s perhaps the most nailed-on scoreline there has ever been.

Now, it’s clear that Forest aren’t in a position to be dishing anything out pre-match, even against a Wolves team that were in the relegation zone at the time. Let alone then having the cowardice to delete it once they realised just how bad an idea it was in the first place given they have themselves won only one (1) game this season.

But that being said, let’s pray they get creative again ahead of their game against Brighton on Tuesday night.

Dean Henderson preparing to goal-kick a seagull quietly eating chips into oblivion. ‘Playtime’. Cheikhou Kouyate looking straight down the lens as he puts a plastic bottle in the paper recycling. ‘Playtime’. Steve Cooper looking grumpy at the beach, having smashed a little kid’s sandcastle to pieces with a tiny red plastic spade. ‘Playtime (but specifically for us and not for you)’.

Immediate 4-0 defeat to follow.

Darwin Nunez’s 18-minute cameo against Manchester City was magnificent entertainment. He looked pretty dangerous every time the ball was hoisted in his general direction but he also attempted the worst chip over an onrushing goalkeeper we have maybe ever seen and decided to shoot straight at a defender when he had two (2) unmarked players square for what looked like a certain goal.

Just like the grown man on TikTok singing completely out of time to the James Bond theme tune, Darwin seems to operate at his own tempo. It isn’t necessarily a good one. Watching the winner of joint 25th in the Ballon d’Or play football is a lot like seeing a grown man in a party hat attempt a backflip on a bouncy castle, kind of pull it off, dizzily stumble onto the grass, vomit in the rose bush and then fall into the pond.

Let’s hope he gets the full 90 minutes against West Ham on Wednesday.

Gone are the days of Jamaal Lascelles, the era of Jean-Alain Boumsoung., the eternity of Titus Bramble. Whisper it quietly but Newcastle, yes, Newcastle, have a very solid back four now.

Sven Botman is a genius. Fabian Schar is arguably playing the best football of his career. Kieran Trippier has reverted into the 2018 World Cup’s K-Trippz. And now this: Dan Burn, back sauntering up the left flank with all the urgency of a glacier melting. Frank Lampard and Everton may think they’re ready for this on Wednesday but I can assure them they’re not.

I can’t be the only one who lives for stuff like this in football, can I? I want more gigantic full-backs. In fact, I want all full-backs to be gigantic. Victor Wembanyama is making the wrong decision by declaring for the NBA Draft. I want him playing right-back for Crystal Palace.

This will be box office viewing, trust me. Along with occasionally forgetting in which direction he should head away a clearance – which can be confusing given that the team’s swap ends at half-time – and defending, the main thing Tyrone Mings struggles with as a defender is big, physical strikers. Enter Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic, maybe one the biggest, and most physical of strikers. Here, in precise detail, is exactly what’s going to happen.

Mings is going to try and wrestle (repeat: wrestle) Big Mitro as much as he can get away with, which isn’t going to be very much at all because Mings does this to opposing forwards with all the subtlety of Darwin Nunez trapping a football. If he’s lucky, Mitrovic might see red, drop a quick headbutt and then see red again. If he’s unlucky, which, let’s be honest, Tyrone Mings often is, he’ll cost Aston Villa the game and Steven Gerrard his job (hopefully, fingers crossed, #IloveyouPoch #welcometoAston).

Tune into Fulham against Villa on Thursday to find out!

Leeds United were unlucky not to come away with at least a point against league-leaders Arsenal on Sunday, as funny as it was for everyone else to watch Patrick Bamford nonchalantly slot a penalty wide and then re-enact a scene from his private school’s drama production of ‘Waiting for Godot’ alongside Gabriel.

Somehow, and I really don’t know how he has done it, Jesse Marsch has taken over the most chaotic club in the world, Leeds United, from the most chaotic manager in the world, Marcelo Bielsa, and said “Do you know what? Let’s up it. Let’s just up the chaos. Rodrigo, I want you suddenly scoring all our goals. Bamford, I want you to never score a goal again. Ayling – yeah, just keep doing whatever it is you do. You’re fine, pal. Run around a lot and kick people. You’re golden.”

They face 19th-placed Leicester City on Thursday having failed to win in six (6) games. Leicester’s best player, in fact, their only good player at the moment James Maddison, is suspended. Brendan Rodgers is literally trying to get sacked so he can fly to Bermuda. Probably directly into the triangle so he can somehow end up back at Celtic. And yet, because it’s Leeds, you feel they might just have a chance.

The eternal WhatsApp debate rages on: wig or transplant? Erik Ten Hag is bald, yes. But Antonio Conte is bald, too. He only has hair in the theoretical sense. Both practically and spiritually, the man is bald. The man has been bald all his life. Even when he had hair he was bald. He just didn’t know it yet.

All this to ask, who is going to come out on top between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday? Tactically, it promises to be a fascinating/extremely tedious encounter as both teams attempt to let the other have the ball and play on the break. That is, of course, unless Ten Hag listens to that little Johan Cruyff-shaped devil on his shoulder and tries to be brave. See also Manchester United’s 6-3 defeat at the Etihad.

Conte will do what he always does and trust in his wing-backs and Harry Kane’s ability to hypnotise referees. A win here, though, and Spurs will continue to set the pace for the title alongside Arsenal and Manchester City. They couldn’t, could they? Spoiler: they almost certainly won’t.