Own Goal steals the show: A Premier League recap

The title race suddenly looks spicy.

AuthorAuthor

Kim McCauley & Ted Knutson
December 15, 2025

Hey, remember when Arsenal were running away with the Premier League title virtually uncontested? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

The first half of this column is Ted, and everything from Burnley-Fulham down is from Kim.

It feels like… A While since Liverpool had a good week, so why not lead off with the defending champions?

It definitely helps to score in the first minute of play. And then to score a second without giving up the equaliser. Beyond that… Liverpool did what they needed to do, but it wasn’t pretty. Brighton had 1.75 expected goals off 14 shots in a home match. Ekitike had two goals, and Salah got an assist before disappearing to AFCON, but it wasn’t really an “oh shit, they’re back!” performance.

Speaking of the goals, the first one comes as a result of what may have been one of the worst defensive clearances this season. The area near the corners is not dangerous. The area the ball was somehow shanked to — just outside the D — is VERY dangerous. MINTEH MY GLORIOUS ADULT SON WYD?!?

In a similar vein, why did I bet on Brighton again?

Don’t look now, but City are ahead of Arsenal on goal difference.

Palace actually played pretty well in this match, winning on xG and outshooting City 16-7. Unfortunately for them, City have Erling Haaland.

Own Goal had a spectacular weekend, scoring both Arsenal goals here while tallying four in total on the weekend, and powering teams to three wins.

Arsenal have been the best team in the world through the first half of the season. (We can say this because they beat the other candidate for the title head-to-head a few weeks ago). They also look like the most tired team in the world. These dudes are knackered.

But the key to winning modern Premier Leagues is being able to win ugly, and my god, this was exactly that. Yes, Wolves were held to 3 shots and .20 xG, but everyone seems to do that to them. Arsenal clearly did not have legs to get the ball closer to goal, with 17 shots resulting in a paltry 1.08 themselves.

And as noted above, if the Gunners had not won this, City would now be sitting in first. Cue the PTSD Title Trauma cut for Gooners — I’m sure that’s exactly what they want for Christmas.

A home match against a midtable side, and Chelsea were pretty dominant - that’s a good sign. I’m less sure Marseca’s spicy post-match press conference was a second good sign. A bad couple days at the office or trouble brewing behind the scenes?

in the Premier League, Chelsea are clustered in a pack of seven fighting it out for the CL spots. The good news is that they have yet to face most of the bottom of the table at Stamford Bridge this season. The bad news… is they still have to play City and Villa, and have faced only ONE of the top ten teams in the table away.

Villa are on the longest, dumbest heater of the season. Nine straight wins! They have parlayed a +8 goal difference into 33 points, just three shy of league leaders Arsenal. Villa fans are like, “it doesn’t matter — we are playing well enough for victories!” And they are sort of right.

But also…

West Ham were executing a “what if we don’t mark them on shots” defense, which is not recommended.

🚨 WEEWOO WEEWOO 🚨 Fulham allowed 2.46 xG to Burnley. West Ham are probably bad enough that this doesn’t matter, but I fear that Fulham are currently favorites for 17th, and a couple of lucky results for the Hammers away from getting sucked into a relegation battle.

Wow, Ted conveniently got ill and passed the recap off to me before he wrote the Tottenham section, that’s crazy. What a coincidence.

I am on record as saying that Spurs’ front office leadership and squad are bigger problems than the manager. Their order of priorities should be something like:

1. Relieve Johan Lange and Fabio Paratici of their duties
2. Hire a Director of Football
3. Sign a central midfielder
4. Evaluate the job the manager is doing

But I’m not sure how you ignore this happening again. It’s just the same game over and over. Spurs regularly fail to generate any chances whatsoever, and their xG per 90 is now below West Ham.

A loss to Liverpool next weekend would probably be the last nail in Thomas Frank’s coffin.

And we said Nick Woltemade’s record and technique on headers was bad in the Bundesliga. That’ll show us! It’s clear that his heading technique has improved considerably.

Sunderland are in 7th place with the second-worst xG in the league, and the fourth-worst xG differential. You already know this isn’t sustainable, I don’t need to nerd lecture anyone about this. Just enjoy it while it lasts.

I wondered if Newcastle were out of the race for Europe now that they’re down in 12th, but they’re somehow just 4 points out of a likely Champions League spot. The Premier League is crazy.

Probably my favorite game of the weekend. The team highlights are linked because they’re not georestricted, but definitely go find the extended highlights for your territory if you didn’t see this game. Despite the relatively low shot volume and xG, both teams had some big chances to win the game in the final minutes.

Standard result for two teams that are way too good to get relegated, but not nearly good enough to compete for Europe.

Monday: Manchester United vs. Bournemouth

So… Bournemouth haven’t won in 6 games and are down to 15th. Man United go to 5th with a win. Oh, how the turn tables.

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