Premier League: Chelsea, Aston Villa and Manchester United slowly behind the podium

Enzo Maresca’s “Blues”, in fourth place, spend the break three points behind Manchester City and Arsenal, and four behind leaders Liverpool, who face them at the restart on October 20 at Anfield Road. The west London club are ahead of Aston Villa on goal difference (5th, 14 pts), held back by the Manchester United side who are still in fourteenth place (8 pts), but with defensive strength again – updated.

The feet of Unai Emery, “Villans”, who were not as smart as usual, may have been a little heavy, four days after their main performance against Bayern Munich (1-0) in the Champions League. However, this was no excuse for Chelsea, who were able to field a completely different eleven from one game to the next.

Manchester finally firmly behind

On Sunday, coach Enzo Maresca brought back his usual starters in the Premier League, three days after playing the places against La Gantoise (4-2) in the Conference League. On the bench, there wasn’t even a place for Benoit Badiashile, Ben Chilwell or even Marc Guiu, an absence that shows the richness of the team available to the Italians.

The selected representatives of the day, however, did not succeed in continuing the good trend at the beginning of the season. They took the lead after a goal from Chris Wood (49th, 0-1), came back quickly through Noni Madueke (57th, 1-1), but did not benefit from the dismissal of James Ward -Prowse after a second yellow card (78th). ).

“We went into the game with the intention of taking three points, but we couldn’t do it and it’s difficult,” Madueke admitted to the BBC. “They defended almost the whole game and sometimes they didn’t It came. » In Birmingham, the goals that didn’t come were that Aston Villa didn’t have the power and Manchester United defended well, two rare things.

The draw at Villa Park looks like a small victory for Erik ten Hag, the coach of the “Red Devils”, under a lot of pressure after the defeat against Tottenham (a 3-0 loss) at Old Trafford and a chaotic 3-3 against Porto in the Europa League. The defensive haemorrhage stopped thanks mainly to Jonny Evans, a 36-year-old veteran back, named man of the match. The Northern Irish also had to change partners after Harry Maguire was injured just before half-time.

“We had very good organization and very good cohesion. We showed character and showed great team spirit. Determined, smart,” he brought up ten Hags. The Dutchman’s smile could have been even bigger if his captain Bruno Fernandes’ direct free-kick had not been deflected by Villa’s crossbar (68th).

The gray outlook for Tottenham

Ange Postecoglou, the coach of Tottenham, seemed to have a bad day on Sunday after the 3-2 defeat at Brighton, staying on the pitch for long, disappointing seconds. His “Spurs” led 2-0 at the break but then collapsed, suffering the attacks of Kaoru Mitoma and Georginio Rutter in particular. The young French striker equalized then provided the winning goal on a plate for Danny Welbeck in a tackle.