{"id":17554,"date":"2025-08-26T12:04:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=17554"},"modified":"2025-08-26T12:04:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T12:04:03","slug":"three-talking-points-from-the-premier-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=17554","title":{"rendered":"Three talking points from the Premier League"},"content":{"rendered":"
Liverpool needed more late heroics to keep pace with Arsenal and Tottenham at the top of the Premier League as 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha snatched a dramatic 3-2 win for the Reds at Newcastle on Monday.<\/p>\n

Arsenal were far more convincing in a 5-0 demolition of Leeds, but Spurs produced the performance of the weekend as they eased to a 2-0 win at Manchester City.<\/p>\n

AFP Sports looks at the major talking points from the second round of Premier League fixtures:<\/p>\n

Liverpool are yet to drop a point in their title defence, but could easily have failed to win both their opening games as Arne Slot is yet to strike the right balance between his high-powered attack and a struggling defence.<\/p>\n

Slot’s men also struck twice late on to beat Bournemouth 4-2 on the opening night of the season.<\/p>\n

Newcastle dominated most of the match at St. James’ Park despite going down to 10 men in the first half when Anthony Gordon saw red.<\/p>\n

Ngumoha’s emergence adds to the wealth of attacking talent on offer to Slot, who started all of Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike.<\/p>\n

Newcastle’s wantaway star striker Alexander Isak could also yet arrive at Anfield for a British transfer record fee this week.<\/p>\n

But Arsenal will be confident of picking off their title rivals in Sunday’s showdown at Anfield unless Liverpool immediately improve.<\/p>\n

Tottenham’s decision to sack Ange Postecoglou despite the Australian ending the club’s 17-year trophy drought has paid immediate dividends under Thomas Frank.<\/p>\n

The former Brentford boss masterminded a controlled and commanding display at City on Saturday to secure maximum points from his opening two league games in charge without conceding.<\/p>\n

That defensive discipline is a world away from the high-wire act of Postecoglou’s reign, which combined Europa League glory with Tottenham’s worst league finish since 1976\/77.<\/p>\n

“It is a big thing we’ve been working on, the defensive side of the game,” said Frank. “(With) clean sheets you are closer to win the game.”<\/p>\n

Frank also came within minutes of starting his reign with a trophy before conceding twice late on to European champions Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Super Cup.<\/p>\n

The Dane has shown his tactical flexibility by changing his approach for a 3-0 home win over Burnley last weekend, either side of a more counter-attacking gameplan against PSG and City.<\/p>\n

Postecoglou also got off to a flying start two years ago and Frank is yet to experience the strains of Champions League football on a squad that was decimated by injuries last season.<\/p>\n

But he has silenced any doubters of the decision to axe Postecoglou with a spectacular start built on solid foundations.<\/p>\n

Jack Grealish has been handed a fresh start to spearhead a new era for Everton and got off to the perfect start with a man-of-the-match display as the Toffees christened the Hill Dickinson Stadium with a 2-0 win over Brighton.<\/p>\n

Grealish created both goals, scored by Iliman Ndiaye and James Garner, to register more assists in one game than he had for Manchester City in the entirety of last season.<\/p>\n

Just four years ago City paid a then British transfer record \u00a3100 million ($135 million) for Grealish from Aston Villa.<\/p>\n

But he slowly slipped down the pecking order under Pep Guardiola and conceded he needed to feel the love from his manager and a home crowd again.<\/p>\n

“The main thing was to enjoy football and enjoy playing every day. I think maybe at times in the last couple of years I’ve not fallen out of love but didn’t enjoy football as much as I should,” said Grealish.<\/p>\n

“I want to have that feeling again when you get up on a match day and can’t wait to get out there. That’s how I felt today and hopefully my performance showed that.”<\/p>\n

Grealish has already been taken to Evertonian hearts and is the marquee signing the club hope will bring a new 53,000 capacity crowd to its feet.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Liverpool needed more late heroics to keep pace with Arsenal and Tottenham at the top of the Premier League as 16-year-old Rio Ngumoha snatched a dramatic 3-2 win for the Reds at Newcastle on Monday. Arsenal were far more convincing in a 5-0 demolition of Leeds, but Spurs produced the performance of the weekend as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}