Premier League Winners and Losers: Manchester United's Redemption, Emery's Curse, and Carrick's Masterclass

Winners

Arsenal

The Gunners edged further clear of their two main title challengers, though the silverware lining here is distinctly tarnished. Two goalless draws in succession have left supporters craving sharper attacking play.

Manchester United

Strip away the noise about needing 427 transfer windows to sort themselves out, and there's a fundamental truth: these lads can still perform when conditions align. Michael Carrick's arrival has proven that much of their dysfunction was self-inflicted—a consequence of square pegs in round holes.

The midfield now functions with genuine structure. Casemiro isn't tasked with patrolling alone. Kobbie Mainoo operates with discipline in a two-man setup. Bruno Fernandes sits higher, where his talents flourish. It's common sense dressed up as coaching, and it's worked.

Michael Carrick

Four matches in charge have yielded victories against the managers of the top three Premier League sides and the England head coach. On any given weekend, that's quite the haul. Manchester United being the sole top-five side to win this past Saturday tells you something about the rarity of their current form.

Callum Wilson

West Ham's curious logic—splashing £46.1m on new forwards whilst potentially releasing a free agent who still has plenty to offer—was always going to bite them. Wilson's winner against Spurs proved the point. At 33, he's not six goals from the Premier League 100 Club by accident.

Sunderland

Here's a statistic that defines their season: they're the only team besides Arsenal to follow every league defeat with an immediate win. Arsenal have had two chances; Regis Le Bris's crew have bounced back five times. That resilience, paired with second place for points salvaged from losing positions, marks them as the country's most durable outfit.

Brian Brobbey

For £17.3m, the Sunderland forward has delivered five goal contributions that defy his limited minutes. A 93rd-minute assist at Stamford Bridge. A 94th-minute equaliser at home to Arsenal. Winners at the 69th, 71st minutes against Bournemouth and Crystal Palace respectively. An 80th-minute leveller against Spurs. That's absurd value from someone who's started roughly a third of his team's matches.

Everton

"It's in our DNA; we dig wins out," David Moyes said, and the evidence stacks up. Everton have ransacked City Ground, battled Old Trafford with ten men for 80 minutes, and now conquered Villa Park's fortress. Since Moyes arrived last January, no team has won more Premier League away fixtures. Only Arsenal (37 points) have accumulated more on the road than Everton's 34 from 20 matches.

Consider the contrast: their previous ten away victories stretched across 66 games to August 2021. One of their intervening managers even mocked them for forgetting how to win away. Moyes has refreshed that memory spectacularly.

Leeds

Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Lukas Nmecha cost nothing in transfer fees but plenty in wages and medical department overtime. Yet the gamble has paid dividends. Nmecha scored in two 1-0 victories. Calvert-Lewin has been instrumental since Daniel Farke's December awakening. They're the only club boasting two free-agent signings with five Premier League goals each this season.

Sean Dyche

"It can't all be beautiful; you've got to do the basics well" ranks among his finest pronouncements. Nottingham Forest's 0-0 draw with Arsenal showcased the grit and organisation that carried them to Europe. This was Dyche's fourth goalless stalemate against Mikel Arteta across 11 meetings with three different clubs. The man knows his fundamentals.

Bashir Humphreys

Chelsea's defender on loan at Burnley will almost certainly command a fee dwarfing what the Clarets received for James Trafford months ago. Whether Humphreys' presence all season would have fundamentally altered their campaign remains debatable, but he'd likely have set a record for most goalline clearances by September.

Wolves

Rob Edwards has halted the bleeding. Four games unbeaten have injected life into a club careening toward relegation and implosion. He's kept as many clean sheets as Ruben Amorim this season despite playing nine fewer games. The rehabilitation has begun.

Liam Rosenior

A win and a clean sheet in his Chelsea debut clears an admittedly low bar. Being outshot 15-6 at home to Brentford doesn't inspire confidence, but the points on the board matter.

Losers

Spurs

The lowest-placed team in the table to suffer defeat this weekend. They're genuinely embroiled in a relegation scrap, and Thomas Frank surely cannot weather this storm.

Manchester City

Pep Guardiola's own assessment—"the better team won"—said everything. No performative shoulder-grabbing. No passive-aggressive "so good" remarks. His side was outplayed and outcoached. Injuries provide context but not excuse for a deeply troubling display.

Perhaps Guardiola has identified his one true weakness: the caretaker. He's now lost to Carrick and drawn with Calum McFarlane (Chelsea), Simon Rusk (Southampton), and Steve Agnew (Middlesbrough) in the Premier League alone. Quiz compilers, take note.

Aston Villa

Unai Emery's post-match interview betrayed frustrations simmering behind the scenes, shifting blame away from coaching decisions. The curse strikes again. Emery himself suggested Villa are "not contenders to be in the top five," an extraordinary admission from a manager crowned Premier League Manager of the Month in December.

Before him, the award went to Vitor Pereira (April), Nuno Espirito Santo (March), Oliver Glasner, Ruben Amorim, and Enzo Maresca. The pattern is unmistakable. Losing a forward to Spurs in the transfer market, then watching him score on debut for his new club without replacement, would unsettle most.

Liverpool

Never go full Jose Mourinho 2016/17.

Arsenal

Ground hasn't been lost to Manchester City or Aston Villa, and some actually gained. Yet the frustration lingers. Two consecutive goalless draws represent a stutter Arsenal cannot afford to develop into genuine crisis. Their fixture list—Manchester United, Leeds, Sunderland, Brentford, Spurs, Chelsea, Brighton, with Champions League and a Carabao Cup semi-final second leg interspersed—demands rediscovered attacking sharpness. And Viktor Gyokeres needs dropping.

Crystal Palace

The summer transfer window offered opportunities to strengthen. They weren't maximised.

Newcastle

Wolves arrived with seven points from 21 games and a manager who'd lost 31 of his 48 Premier League matches. Yet Edwards observed, "Newcastle have very good players, but the game went how we expected." Translation: Newcastle dominated possession whilst creating nothing of substance—a predictable side running a flawed system rather than evolving it.

Eddie Howe's triple substitution arrived at the hour mark, his only bench deployment. Newcastle managed two shots on target, both after the 86th minute. Nick Woltemade managed 13 touches. A team supposedly boasting excellent players was read like a book by opponents recently considered among the division's worst ever.

Keith Andrews

That's three defeats across his professional meetings with Liam Rosenior now: as a player in 2011, as a coach in 2026, and during the infamous mid-2010s Lego battle mandated on the UEFA Pro Licence course. His gameplan at Stamford Bridge deserved better, but Kevin Schade's ridiculousness proved the ultimate variable.

Fulham

Ryan Sessegnon's 14 touches and three completed passes in 64 minutes tells one story. Issa Diop replacing Harry Wilson at 1-0 down in the 88th minute tells another. Watching Sasa Lukic and Sander Berge manufacture nothing in midfield completes a bleak picture.