Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during the season, The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s football.
This was the round when Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze made history with a hat-trick in the north London derby, Newcastle United earned an invigorating victory against stuttering Manchester City and Aston Villa became the latest, ‘Wow, they’re doing well’ team as they jumped up to fourth by beating struggling Leeds United.
Here we will ask whether it’s too early to question Arne Slot’s position at Liverpool, are Mikel Arteta’s side the complete package, and if Daniel Farke’s sacking at Leeds is inevitable.
Could Slot’s position actually come into question?
Just when you think it can’t and won’t get any worse for Liverpool, they produce their worst performance of the season.
At least when they were losing to Crystal Palace and Chelsea, it was due to winning goals in stoppage time after so-so performances, but in their past two league outings they have been comprehensively beaten 3-0 by Manchester City and now Nottingham Forest, who had started Saturday in the relegation zone.
The form guide has the champions 18th in the six-game Premier League table, with only last-placed Wolverhampton Wanderers earning fewer points.
This disastrous run now resembles what City went through this time last year. Liverpool have lost six of seven in the league; City, who were also title holders, lost six of eight in November and December.
City also endured European woes (remember a 4-1 shellacking at Ruben Amorim’s Sporting CP, plus the head-scratching 3-3 draw against Feyenoord having been three up) but there were crucial differences — namely that Pep Guardiola had spent many years proving that he was one of the greatest managers of all time, and that he was trying to work out how to cope with the absence of his most important player (the injured Rodri).
Last season’s City were a nervous side who lost their mojo and blew leads. Liverpool don’t necessarily look nervous right now: their issue is seemingly one of being unable to cope with adversity. They haven’t earned a single point from a losing position in the 2025-26 Premier League, after falling behind on six occasions (albeit two of those goals were in stoppage time). And unlike Guardiola, Arne Slot doesn’t exude the same confidence that he is about to transform Liverpool’s fortunes.
At this point, it’s important to note that there are no credible suggestions that Slot is losing the faith of owners FSG, who are far from trigger-happy even at the worst of times. It was only six months ago that the Dutchman was being lauded as a genius after his remarkable debut-season title win. He has plenty of credit in the bank.
And yet.
Given the extent of Liverpool’s decline, it is also reasonable to ask the question; at what point does Slot’s position become the subject of serious scrutiny? Eight defeats from nine? Ten from 11? Going out of the Champions League?
Liverpool’s slump has raised difficult questions (Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)
In the Premier League, they next travel to resurgent West Ham United, who have won their last two home games under Nuno Espirito Santo, then it’s Sunderland at home, a team who have already won away at Chelsea and held visitors Arsenal to a draw. They are already in the bottom half of the table and it’s conceivable they will still be there as they head into December.
It’s also possible, of course, that they will be in the Champions League positions, given they’re only two points from fifth place, and this is a volatile season.
Maybe this is only a weird blip.
It just doesn’t feel that way.
There are so many issues to fix in terms of personnel, tactics, and those new signings who are taking a while to integrate after an outlay of around £450million in the summer (a record for one window, let’s not forget).
But the most concerning aspect is Liverpool’s lack of competitiveness. It looks like they’ve stopped fighting, like some players have downed tools. It looks like they’re either not fighting for the manager or aren’t listening to his instructions; ergo, temporarily or otherwise, Slot is unable to command the dressing room. Again, that’s purely just what it looks like, in terms of body language and in terms of gifted individual players being miles off what we know they are capable of.
Only those in the dressing room really know what’s going on — and also how deeply last season’s players and staff have been impacted by the tragic passing of their friend, colleague and team-mate Diogo Jota in July.
“We were just not good in terms of the battles, the challenges, the second ball fight,” their captain Virgil van Dijk told reporters on Saturday. “It’s a very, very difficult situation at the moment.”
Slot will surely be Liverpool head coach for some time yet, but as Jose Mourinho and Claudio Ranieri can testify from their times at Chelsea and Leicester City respectively, that goodwill is never infinite.
Do Arsenal have a weakness?
It’s amazing how far common sense can go in football.
A majority view of Arsenal’s 2024-25 season would have been along the lines of, yep, really good team, exceptional defence, but they haven’t quite got the squad to either go all the way in the Premier League or to compete on four fronts.
They finished second for a third year running and also got to the semi-finals of both the Champions League and Carabao Cup, but when stars such as Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Gabriel and Kai Havertz were injured, they didn’t have enough strength in depth to keep results ticking along. They needed a goalscorer, too.
So what did Arsenal do? They addressed those flaws, signing seven players (including Sunday’s north London derby hat-trick hero Eberechi Eze), only two of whom (Viktor Gyokeres and Martin Zubimendi) were guaranteed starters.
The difference has been huge. Not only are they the joint-top scorers in the league, but they also probably have the strongest squad, the best team and the best defence.
Against Tottenham yesterday, Gyokeres, Odegaard and Gabriel were out, three big players through the heart of the side, plus long-term absentees Havertz and Gabriel Jesus, and yet they walloped the team with the Premier League’s best away record.
Eberechi Eze masterminded a 4-1 thrashing of Tottenham (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
It was a comprehensive performance which belied the pressure of both a big derby and of taking advantage of stuttering rivals to pull clear at the top of the table. Arsenal have failed on both these fronts in the past, which led to an obvious assumption that they weren’t mentally strong enough to cross the finish line.
You can never rule out an unexpected twist. But right now, without an obvious challenger, they look to be enjoying leading from the front.
They also won this one without needing goals from set pieces (despite Spurs head coach Thomas Frank’s pre-match assertion that whoever won the dead-ball battle would win the match). Tottenham attempted to smother Arsenal but were just overwhelmed.
Right now, the only way Arsenal won’t win this Premier League title is if they bottle it. Right now, they are more likely to streak too far ahead for that to be a possibility.
Is Farke’s departure inevitable?
Arsenal are threatening to make winning the Premier League a one-horse race, and the relegation places also have a look of inevitability about them.
Nottingham Forest were never likely to stay in the bottom three for long, given their squad, and while West Ham looked a bit ropier, the suspicion was that Nuno would sort them out in time. Fulham remain a bit fragile, perhaps due to Marco Silva’s unclear future, but similarly have a decent squad in terms of ability.
So a current bottom three of Leeds United, Burnley and Wolves feels about right, given the quality or lack of in their respective teams and squads.
Forest and West Ham acted quickly this season to reverse their slides by sacking their managers, but are Leeds about to do the same?
Daniel Farke’s position at Leeds is in grave doubt (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
In a bizarre way, getting Leeds promoted was probably the worst thing that could have happened to Daniel Farke. Some fans have never been convinced about his top-flight credentials and it always felt inevitable that the first sign of trouble would lead to him being fired.
Five defeats in six games will do that, but it’s also the manner in which Farke has them lined up. Leeds are physical, and try to be hard to beat, but actually they end up being pretty dull. That approach made him vulnerable when results inevitably turned.
You do have sympathy for him given the tools at his disposal, though, and you wonder whether Leeds have enough in their ranks to stay up this season, whoever is in charge. A summer of recruitment that focused on tall men and injury-prone forwards always suggested a season of struggle lay ahead.
“I want them to feel like the world is falling apart when we lose a game; otherwise, you can’t be a Leeds United supporter,” Farke said on Sunday.
They’re certainly getting enough practice.
Coming up
- David Moyes has never won at Old Trafford as an opposition manager (he didn’t win many there when he managed Manchester United in 2013-14 either). Everton have only won once there in 32 attempts… which came during Moyes’ time as Alex Ferguson’s successor. History suggests a home win on Monday night, then, as United look to extend their unbeaten league run to six matches.
- The Champions League resumes on Tuesday, with the pick of the games undoubtedly being Chelsea playing Barcelona for the first time since 2018. Elsewhere tomorrow, Manchester City host Bayer Leverkusen, and there’s an intriguing match-up in France with Roberto De Zerbi’s Marseille, currently second in Ligue 1, facing Newcastle United.
- Then on Wednesday, it’s a bit of a stellar line-up; a repeat of August’s UEFA Super Cup with Champions League title holders Paris Saint-Germain hosting Europa League winners Tottenham, Arsenal taking on Bayern Munich at the Emirates, Atletico Madrid versus Inter and Liverpool at home to PSV. Shame that none of these games have much jeopardy involved, but still.
- Get ready for giddy-eyed nostalgia on Thursday, when Nottingham Forest play Malmo in the Europa League — a repeat of the 1978-79 European Cup final. Less giddy are Aston Villa’s meeting with Young Boys and, in the Conference League, BlueCo-owned Strasbourg facing Crystal Palace.