Pressing Issues

• Enzo Maresca has heralded Chelsea’s quality and claims that “you cannot see a big difference” between the Blues and other top teams, ahead of Sunday afternoon’s London derby with Arsenal.
• Pep Guardiola has revealed there is “no good news” regarding Manchester City’s current injury situation, ahead of a visit to the Amex Stadium this weekend.
• West Ham and Wolves are facing must-win fixtures with their managers’ jobs in danger.

How Chelsea vs Arsenal Will Decide Each Team’s Start To The Season

Somehow, Arsenal head to Stamford Bridge on Sunday sat below Chelsea in the Premier League table. Winless in their last 3 league games, the Gunners head to West London desperate for a victory to keep in touch with Liverpool and Manchester City at the top.

Mikel Arteta didn’t acknowledge that this game is a ‘must-win’ for Arsenal’s titles hopes, and shared his belief that the points tally for the league title this season will be lower.

Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca has settled into life well in his new role, but has taken 1 point from a possible 7 against ‘big six’ teams so far this season.

Both teams have big question marks over key players: Maresca is hopeful for his superstar Cole Palmer’s fitness but said a decision will have to be made on Saturday. Mikel Arteta is equally unsure regarding Declan Rice’s fitness, but did clarify that Martin Odegaard is able to at least make the bench. Arsenal’s captain returned to the pitch in Milan on Wednesday night, albeit only for a few minutes.

If Odegaard was to start, it will be intriguing to see if he has an immediate impact on Arsenal’s fluidity and chance-creation in attack. Chelsea will be desperate for Cole Palmer to be fit, with the Englishman having 12 g/a across 10 Premier League games this season.

The implications and fallout of this game could be huge when it comes to looking at the narratives around the two clubs going into (another) International break.

Brighton to Capitalise on City’s Injury Struggles?

In a shocking turn of events, Pep Guardiola has lost three competitive, real-life football matches for the first time in 6 years: away at Tottenham in the EFL Cup, away at Bournemouth in the Premier League, and away at Sporting in the Champions League.

So when they travel to Brighton this weekend, is a fourth upset in a row the likely outcome? Still probably not. But Guardiola has maintained that there is “no good news” regarding the injury difficulties he claims has impacted his squad so badly – he gave this update when he eventually arrived to his press conference half an hour late. City will be without Ruben Dias, John Stones, Jack Grealish for this weekend, with Oscar Bobb and Balon D’Or winner Rodri out for longer.

Fabian Hurzeler’s reign at Brighton has started in a swirl of positive football and impressive performances, yet hasn’t always yielded the results fans would like. They are sat eighth in the table, and Hurzeler has admitted that given the performances “we could have more points”.

Coming off the back of a 2-1 defeat at Anfield (after holding a 1-0 lead until 70 minutes), the Seagulls will be determined to get something out of their Saturday evening hosting the league’s perpetual champions. Even with the Citizens’ injuries, it will take a goliath effort. But if any team was to pour salt into City’s wounds, Brighton would be a strong candidate.

Julen Lopetegui and Gary O’Neil: Victories Vital for Survival

Sat in 14th and 20th respectively, new West Ham boss Julen Lopetegui and Wolves’ Gary O’Neil would without doubt want to go back and restart their seasons. And while it would be rude to say that neither team has really started their season yet, it wouldn’t be wrong.

Yet to pick up a league win this season, Wolves host promoted Southampton, in a game that, if they were to lose, would surely see Gary O’Neil sacked.

In fairness to O’Neil, who was appointed as Wolves manager in August 2023, the fixture list wasn’t particularly kind to them. In their opening 10 games they have played Arsenal, Chelsea, 3rd place Nottingham Forest, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Manchester City – a run that most teams would struggle to pick up points in.

The upside for Wolves is that these games are now out of the way, and they face a largely favourable run in to Christmas. However, Saturday’s game against Southampton could prove to be one very big banana peel for O’Neil. They are in desperate need of a result, as with the international break next week, Wolves higher ups could see it as a perfect time to change the face in the Molineux dugout – despite O’Neil’s unrelenting insistence that he is not worried about his future.

West Ham haven’t had quite as tricky a start to the season as Wolves (in terms of fixture difficulty), but hope at the club is extremely low given the nature of their performances under new man Julen Lopetegui. He was hired with such expectation, welcomed with such support from Hammers fans, but simply hasn’t lived up to anything.

The London Stadium hosts Everton on Saturday afternoon, who on paper have a much lower quality squad than West Ham, and who sit 16th in the Premier League table. They are however, well-drilled and will without doubt put in a committed performance. Essentially, they will do what West Ham are yet to show fans under Lopetegui.

Having only had the job since the summer, it seems harsh that the board could consider sacking Lopetegui so quickly. But like O’Neil, the international break could be coming at a very inconvenient time if West Ham were to lose tomorrow.

With each of these teams fairly strong favourites to win tomorrow, it feels unlikely that we see any managerial casualties over the international break. However, as the Premier League has proven to us over the last 10 gameweeks, it is entirely unpredictable.