New Delhi: England’s top flight, the Premier League, is widely considered to be the most competitive league in world football. This is the league where the biggest stars of world football come to prove and establish themselves as world beaters, making it the most competitive in the world. The premier club competition of the country has been seen many clubs break through the glass ceiling but has generally been dominated by a handful of the best clubs of the country.
These clubs consist of Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, and Tottenham Hotspur, and together they form the ‘Big Six’ of the top flight of English football. Between them, they share a combined 30 Premier League titles out of a possible 32 since the league’s inception, truly showcasing their dominance. However, there seems to have been a shift in power this season with two of the big six struggling for form this season.
Both Manchester United and Tottenham are in deep trouble this season as they currently sit outside of the top half of the Premier League table. Spurs sit 15th in the table with just 24 points in 22 league games while Manchester United occupy the 13th spot in the table following their 3-1 defeat to Brighton, leaving them on 26 points. While the rest of the big six currently occupy spots in the top six, this certainly signifies the gulf in class between them and the others, which begs the question, what is happening with both these sides?
What’s going wrong for Tottenham Hotspur?
Starting with the team that’s sat lower than the other, only eight points separate Spurs from the relegation places. Pressure is mounting on manager Ange Postecoglou following an atrocious first half of the season. In their latest Premier League outing, they lost 3-2 to Everton, who hadn’t won a game since the beginning of December, and that should’ve been the end for the manager but a potential spot in the EFL Cup final is ensuring his job for the time being. There are two major issues that has caused the club its misfortunes this season, never ending injuries and lack of transfer activity in the summer.
With the Lilywhites playing in the new format of UEFA Europa League this season, the fixture congestion has been hard to deal with for the club. Fixtures are coming in thick and fast for the North London club and their squad hasn’t been able to keep up with them. As a result, Spurs have suffered majorly due to injury, missing the most number of players across the big six. They’ve missed 14 players this season due to injury and combined, they’ve missed 97 games this season which is the most of any big six club.
As of this writing the club has seven first team players out injured, including key players like Guglielmo Vicario, first choice center backs Cristian Romero and Micky Van de Ven, Destiny Udogie, and Rodrigo Bentancur. Back up players like Timo Werner and Wilson Odobert are out as well. Their first choice back four of Pedro Porro, Romero, Van de Ven and Udogie has only spent 15 minutes on the pitch together since starting eight of the first nine games of the season. Players like Richarlison, Son Heung-Min, Dejan Kulsevki and Dominic Solanke have all spent considerable time injured, which has made Ange unable to field his best XI.
Spurs has a complete 11 out injured 🤦🏾♂️ pic.twitter.com/IjwMK3gw2W
— Speedie (@Umarpfaruq) January 18, 2025
Postecoglou’s tactics are also causing problems to Spurs with the manager not adapting his tactics to the squad that he has available. He has remained rigid in his playstyle which has often brought the club’s downfall in games. Adding to that, Spurs’ summer business was questionable as well with the club spending a huge amount of money on Dominic Solanke, who hasn’t been as great as the fee he commanded.
While Solanke hasn’t been bad by any means, his signing wasn’t one that was as needed at the club as much as they needed defensive reinforcements. Both Romero and Van de Ven are injury prone defenders and outside of them, they only have Radu Dragusin to call upon as a replacement and the same goes for Udgoie. When fit they are great but their injury history calls for more quality back ups which the club didn’t go for, especially after freezing Sergio Reguillon out of the team.
Instead, Spurs chose to sign Leeds United prospect Archie Gray, who had been great in the championship but is still extremely young and due to the injuries in the squad, hasn’t had a fixed position in the team yet. They even signed unknown youngsters like Lucas Bergvall, Wilson Odobert, and Min-hyeok Yang, none of whom have particularly impressed and apart from Bergvall, who’s only notable contribution been the winning goal against Liverpool, either of them have barely played.
What’s has gone wrong for Manchester United?
Moving from one underperforming big six club to the other, Manchester United have seemingly taken the title of being the Robinhood of the Premier League from Spurs. The club have performed well in parts since the arrival of Ruben Amorim, notching impressive wins over Manchester City and Arsenal (in the FA Cup), and a draw away to Liverpool but have been particularly bad at home, which was once seen as a fortress for the club. Home defeats to Bournemouth, Nottingham Forest, and most recently to Brighton, have deflated the environment around the club.
Ruben Amorim came with a great reputation to the club following Erik Ten Hag’s dismissal but hasn’t been able to spark life into Manchester United for a long period of time. The club have often been rescued by Amad Diallo and their dependency on the Ivorian was visible in the club’s 3-1 win over Southampton. Amorim’s back three system works around having quality wing backs and a solid defense but even if one of them is missing, the team struggles.
The club were on the brink of a humiliating home defeat to Southampton when Leny Yoro and Amad Diallo were playing on the right. Amad was pushing up from wing back to create chances for United which meant Yoro had to do his job well but the youngster had a torrid time against Kamaldeen Sulemana and it wasn’t until Harry Maguire was brought on to shift Matthijs de Ligt to the right that Amad was able to produce his magic.
Man City suffer their first major setback in years and they’re spending £200m in January, but Man Utd sitting 13th in the league and just 10 points above relegation are sending 3 players out on loan with no signs of any major recruitment to back their new manager.
Our players… pic.twitter.com/hCnZ32DGAE
— UF (@UtdFaithfuls) January 19, 2025
His style doesn’t suit the players that he has and with United not really having any money to spend in this window, he needs to adapt according to the situation. While the club’s defense is fine but outside of Maguire, De Ligt and Lisandro Martinez, their other defenders aren’t suited for a back three, while the club’s midfield options aren’t the ball carriers needed for bridging the gap between attack and defense.
Even though its easy to blame the players, labelling that they aren’t suitable for the system the manager wants to play, it’s the manager’s job to get the best out of his squad. Amorim either needs to show some flexibility and change the system he is using or he needs to coach his players into his system. It’s time the head coach takes some responsibility for not having his squad firing because the club has some quality players amongst their ranks.
Apart from that, it’s also the ownership that is failing the club currently. They have a new manager who doesn’t have the players he needs but the club aren’t backing him in the transfer window and instead finding ways to make the club reduce it’s losses. While that is important, nothing should matter more than the results on the pitch and the club should’ve made funds available to help Amorim improve his squad. If the issues behind the scenes aren’t resolved, no manager can get Manchester United out of this recent rut.
Two of the Premier League’s big six, Spurs and Manchester United, are both having seasons to forget as they languish in the bottom half of the Premier League table. Dive in to find out what’s going wrong for both these sides! Football Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
