The Premier League elite’s levels have dropped – but why?

The Premier League season is 11 games old and the table is taking shape.

As The Athletic has previously reported, the trajectory of a team’s season is usually set by this stage — which means some clubs will spend this final international break of the calendar year stewing over a potentially long campaign.

What feels more unusual, however, is the contrasting fortunes of many of last season’s frontrunners. In total, six of last season’s final top half currently have fewer points than at the equivalent stage in 2023-24 — and some, significantly so.

Only three of the 10 clubs — Liverpool, Brighton and Chelsea — have more points, with the other, Brentford, matching their tally.

So what is behind the decline of these sides from one year to the next? We asked our experts to explain.

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If City have any concerns they normally fly under the radar, but at this point in time their problems are pretty obvious: first and foremost, there is an injury crisis and secondly, there is a fragility against counter-attacks (which is in no small part linked to their injury crisis).

“Maybe I have to reflect on the goals we concede,” City manager Pep Guardiola told reporters in October. “Normally it’s on transitions and set pieces, because without Rodri we lose this power, because he’s another guy who is so strong in this position.”

That was going into the previous international break, and now, going into this one, Guardiola has plenty more to reflect on following a run of four defeats in a row across three competitions, where that weakness on duels and against quick attacks has been exploited at a time when they are missing not just Rodri (out for the rest of the season with a knee injury) but several others, including all four senior centre-backs.

City had a similar problem with counter-attacks and comparatively weak defending around last season’s November internationals, resulting in a run of three draws and a defeat in the league, but they bounced back from that and went on to win a fourth straight title. Guardiola says there is a difference this time, though, and that is the sheer amount of injuries they have, and given Jeremy Doku and Jack Grealish are also out at the moment, Kevin De Bruyne is only just coming back from a seven-week absence, and Kyle Walker is “not ready for 90 minutes at all”, according to the City manager, it is certainly a dire situation on that front.

Guardiola is heartened by the periods in matches where they have played much more like themselves, and against both Sporting Lisbon and Brighton they could have been a few goals up before half-time. While nobody is hiding the problems they had after those stretches, it was clear at the weekend that big factors in the latter defeat were fatigue and a lack of options.

It is Guardiola’s belief that once his missing players are back available, City will be at their best, and it is easy to believe that too, although one part of their recent struggles is that the players who have been available to him have not been operating at their top level.

Phil Foden has been playing well of late but had a slow start to the season and is not yet as blisteringly good as at the end of the previous one; Ilkay Gundogan does not yet look the player who captained City to the treble before leaving for a season with Barcelona, and Mateo Kovacic is very good at many things but can leave the team open on the break. Erling Haaland is blowing hot and cold at the minute, too, so there are a few things that need to click into gear.

Sam Lee

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The biggest drop-off for Spurs this season has been in results rather than performances.

The underlying numbers across its opening three months have been largely promising (more shots, higher xG per game, more goals scored; fewer shots conceded, lower xG against, fewer goals conceded), yet there is clearly still an issue with key players not performing to a consistently high level.

That goes some way to explaining how this team can wipe the floor with Aston Villa in the second half of last Sunday’s 4-1 win, but sandwich that with humbling defeats to Crystal Palace and Ipswich — sides who had both previously been winless.

Or go from completely controlling the game at Brighton and holding a two-goal lead into the interval, to being 3-2 down and completely bereft of ideas by the 65th minute.

Head coach Ange Postecoglou’s football asks a lot of players mentally and physically, and with the added burden of midweek European matches in his second season, this relatively inexperienced squad have sometimes looked short of the necessary ideas or the running power to win when things aren’t going their way.

James Maddison has in flashes looked something like his old self, but in other moments like no more than a fringe player. Brennan Johnson has shown promise of a more clinical edge but does not yet regularly leave his mark on matches. Son Heung-min has struggled with injury, and currently doesn’t look like he can drag the team along as he once did — or at least not on a regular basis. Lapses in concentration from Cristian Romero have contributed to the concession of several goals. Even Dejan Kulusevski, surely the club’s player of the season so far, has struggled to make a discernible impact in some games — not least the one against Palace last month.

It is incredibly rare for a team to flit between devastating and dreadful with such regularity. The hope will be that with experience and some additions to the squad, Tottenham will find equilibrium and continue moving forward from there.

James Maw

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Arsenal’s first 11 games of this season require the context of their three red cards, injuries to key players and the fact they have faced six of last season’s final top seven away from home.

Even so, there are still factors they could have controlled better to be closer than the current nine-point gap between them and leaders Liverpool. The eight points Arsenal have dropped from winning positions have all seen those matches end in draws. Two of these came after sendings-off (against Brighton and Manchester City), with the other two (Liverpool and Chelsea) related more to themes Arteta has recently discussed.

In his pre-Bournemouth press conference last month, when Arsenal had gifted the opposition goals while winning the previous two league games against Leicester and Southampton, he said: “It’s about being very consistent and making sure that we play with a level of urgency, creation and focus in every action because in the last few games, especially at home, the way we’ve conceded the goals, I’m not too happy about.”

That has been a recurring theme in the four-game winless run since, with lapses costing them in each.

Against Bournemouth, Leandro Trossard’s horrid backpass put William Saliba in trouble and resulted in his first-half dismissal. Against Liverpool, the defence was unlocked by a hopeful ball in-behind by Trent Alexander-Arnold for Mohamed Salah’s equaliser. Opinions differ on this next one, but Anthony Gordon having the time to weigh up a first-time cross for Alexander Isak was costly at Newcastle. Most recently, the failure to close down Pedro Neto left him ample space and time to equalise at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.

Post-match, Arteta said of the Neto goal that it was “nowhere near the standards of our defensive habits”.

He is not wrong.

The Arsenal manager also sees similar room for improvement in attack, adding: “Sometimes we haven’t had that determination inside the box to make it happen. We are just hoping it will happen, which is something very different in football.”

Art de Roche

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Aston Villa: -4pts

Villa’s dip in form was inevitably going to come at some point. Two years of turbo-charged progression under Unai Emery’s management had been exceptional, transforming a team who were battered, bruised and only outside the relegation places on goal difference into one who have qualified for European competition in back-to-back seasons and are now playing in the Champions League, where they recently beat old pals Bayern Munich.

Their consistency over that period was demonstrated by Saturday’s 2-0 away defeat against Liverpool being the first time since May last year that they had lost successive league games and the first time they had ever lost four straight, across all competitions, under Emery.

The slump, strangely, has coincided with Villa having their best strength in depth of the Emery era including, for a brief period, having every senior player available.

Performances have not quite recovered since Bournemouth’s last-gasp equaliser a fortnight ago and with the exception of Jhon Duran, who cannot be tactically relied upon to start matches, and Morgan Rogers, who is currently suffering fatigue towards the later stages of games, Villa’s attacking players are all simultaneously going through a lean patch. Leon Bailey is their only archetypal winger and is short of confidence while Ollie Watkins’ pre-season programme was only a week long (having been in the England squad that got to July’s Euro 2024 final), in which time he had suffered a small injury, impacting his sharpness in these early months.

Emery’s patient and formulaic build-up structure requires pace and precision playing through opposing defensive lines and with Villa’s attacking players short of belief and end product, the system has often been seen to malfunction. Teams have been effective in crowding centrally and either pressing high or exploiting space on transition, as Liverpool did for their two goals.

A lack of goals and the ongoing shortage of clean sheets — just one in the 11 league matches for Emiliano Martinez, winner of the Yashin Trophy as the world’s best goalkeeper this year and last — has been the chronic issue over the past month.

Jacob Tanswell

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Newcastle United: -2pts

It has been a curious first 11 games for Newcastle.

After four of them, Eddie Howe’s side had recorded the club’s highest Premier League points tally by that early stage of a campaign in 29 years, winning three times and drawing one. Yet Newcastle had been entirely unconvincing throughout and arguably could have lost all four. Then, following a humbling 3-1 defeat at Fulham on September 21, when their poor form was finally punished, displays gradually began to improve, despite a five-game winless run.

Perversely, positive performances and positive results were simply not aligning.

After 10 games, Newcastle had only scored 10 goals, significantly down on their average of 2.2 goals per match from last season.

Alexander Isak’s early-season fitness issues and Callum Wilson’s continued absence (he is yet to play this season) left Newcastle without an out-and-out striker for two matches, essentially depriving them of a victory at Everton. Anthony Gordon’s uncertain contract situation also affected his form, before his new deal was agreed last month and his game-defining offensive influence returned.

However, a Carabao Cup last-16 victory at home against Chelsea, just three days after a 2-1 top-flight loss to them at Stamford Bridge, brought renewed confidence and subsequent momentum. In that cup match, Howe rediscovered the balance which Newcastle had been sorely lacking up until that stage, with Joelinton returning to a wide-forward berth, allowing Joe Willock, Bruno Guimaraes and Sean Longstaff to reunite in midfield against Arsenal a few days later. Sandro Tonali has dropped out of the XI and, for now, it appears to be a case of the Italian or Guimaraes starting, rather than both of them, to benefit the blend of the side.

That 1-0 home win over Arsenal was impressive and it was followed by Newcastle’s best all-round performance of the campaign, a deserved 3-1 victory at in-form Nottingham Forest on Sunday — the first time they have scored more than twice in a league fixture this season and also the first time they have won by greater than a one-goal margin.

Interestingly, Newcastle have the same number of points they’d accumulated after 11 games in 2022-23, when they went on to finish fourth and so qualify for the Champions League. The 11th match of that season marked the first victory of a six-game winning streak. If Newcastle can get even close to replicating that run in the weeks ahead, they will put themselves firmly back in the hunt for European football again.

Chris Waugh

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To be clear, Erik ten Hag’s men did not begin the 2023-24 season in dazzling form. The Dutchman’s ambitions to turn Manchester United into “the best transition team in the world” ran into problems on their opening night, when visitors Wolves found it easy to dribble through the large gap in central midfield.

Tottenham coach Ange Postecoglou figured out how to disrupt the pressing attempts of United’s front three after one half of football and it took his Brighton counterpart Roberto De Zerbi even less time to twig a few weeks later.

One season later, and United have somehow been worse despite spending hundreds of millions more pounds on more new players. Ten Hag averaged 1.7 points per game across his 84 Premier League matches; the same as David Moyes across his less-than-a-single-season tenure in 2013-14.

The Dutchman was in charge for two-and-a-bit seasons, yet it remained difficult to describe his preferred style.

Things weren’t helped by the fact Ten Hag was trying to cherry-pick the best parts of every tactic with little regard as to how it would all link together. United tried to press high up the field, but lacked the sort of hard-working diligent players to make that possible. It looked like he wanted to play with a higher defensive line, but his squad didn’t contain enough athletic defenders to make it happen.

And then there were the injuries.

Luke Shaw hasn’t featured in a Premier League game since February, while his nominal understudy Tyrell Malacia has not featured in the competition for 18 months following a knee injury — one of the richest football clubs in the world have been without a specialist left-back for close to a calendar year. Ten Hag’s plans in defence and attack stuttered as a result and he had difficulty finding an appropriate Plan B, C or D.

Ten Hag got off to bad starts in back-to-back Premier League seasons because he was slow to understand opposition coaches could be just as tactically adept as he was. He was either unwilling, or unable to correct things, and he has now been replaced by Ruben Amorim as a result.

Carl Anka

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)