Your Update: Gameweeks 14 & 15

Thanksgiving was late in the year this year. Christmas is in ... frantically checks calendar ... >two weeks. In the past week and a half alone, there have been 29 Premier League matches.

What even is time?!

The festive season is the best time of year because of presents/family/good food/time off/lots and lots of football, but it's also arguably the most frantic time of year.

Hence, you're getting a consolidated update for gameweeks 14 & 15. Enjoy!

Chelsea title contenders?

The Liverpool-Everton match was cancelled on Saturday due to 90 mph wind gusts a lil bit of weather, so attention shifted from Merseyside to London, where Chelsea faced their local foes: Tottenham.

I don't think anyone had "Chelsea coming from two goals down to beat Tottenham" on their bingo card, but that's exactly what happened. Despite a blistering start from Spurs, the Blues hung in there, and, thanks to some tactical tweaks from head coach Enzo Maresca, ultimately scored 4 goals.

The last of their goals included a cheeky "Panenka" penalty from Cole "Cold" Palmer, aka Mr.-I-Failed-P.E.-Class. Brr!

Chelsea currently sit in second place, and after beating Tottenham, it's safe to say they've overcome their biggest hurdle this month.

Let's all resist the urge to laugh at Tottenham–I know, it's hard!–because it's more fun to analyze Chelsea's title hopes. The Blues have come a long way from their past two mediocre seasons, and I think a big part of it is because Enzo has actually 1. picked a starting 11 and 2. encouraged his players to bond and form cohesive partnerships on the pitch. Apparently, that helps! Who knew!

But what's interesting is that pundits/people/Chelsea players don't really view themselves as title contenders. Not yet, anyway. As Chelsea player Levi Colwill told reporters,

"When we're ready to push for a (Premier League) title, we won't be 2-0 down in the first 10 minutes. That's the level we need to be at and that's what we need to keep working on."

Speaking to Sky Sports, Enzo said,

“Probably Arsenal, City, and Liverpool don’t slide like Cucurella did. So for me, we are not ready, we are far from these teams.”

He's referring specifically to Marc Cucurella's defensive errors that led to Tottenham's opening goals. (Marc blamed all that slip n slide action on his faulty boots but whatever.) Boom! Roasted!

Take Me Home, Home to the GTech

Few things in life are certain. Death. Taxes. Brentford scoring a bucketload of goals at their home stadium, the GTech, and absolutely bombing everywhere else.

Brentford would be top of the league on home form alone. On away form alone, they'd be 19th.

Just take the last two matches as a sample. Away against Aston Villa, Brentford lost 1-3. At home against Newcastle United, they won 4-2.

So is the discrepancy psychological? Or something else?

Speaking on "Match of the Day," ex-Manchester City player Micah Richards attributed it to a quirk of their preferred playing style. He said,

"Brentford's ground is always buzzing but away from home, I think it is because they play attacking football and at home they can get the crowd behind them. Away from home, it's not quite the same."

If you (like me) enjoy throwing away money on DraftKings or LadBrokes, then by all means put some cash on Brentford winning at home.

Manchester United, you good?

No one expected new Manchester United manager Ruben Amorin to come in and immediately work miracles. But 5 matches into his time with the club, and the consensus has been very much, "new manager, same problems."

Most recently, Man U lost back-to-back matches against Arsenal and Nottingham Forest. The Arsenal result wasn't a surprise, but losing to Nottingham Forest? At home? That hasn't happened for 30 years!

Goalkeeper Andre Onana had an especially bad day against Forest. First, he let in the softest of soft goals.

In added time, he received the ball following a foul and tried to push it further forward than where the foul took place. The ref noticed, and put him on blast. Onana chewed up time while he argued with the ref, gave the camera his best "confused" face, and dithered around with the ball.

The classy thing to do was defend Onana, which Ruben Amorin did. But he kind of has to right? Think about the optics if he'd just come out and said Onana was trash!

Man U co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is well aware of the club's issues, which he highlighted in a recent interview, saying,

"The club has drifted for a long period of time, a decade or so. Manchester United has become mediocre. It's not elite and it is supposed to be one of the best football clubs in the world. ... There is major change to come to achieve elite status."

The Newcastle project

If I was going to sum up the entire Premier League season so far in a single word, it would be "inconsistent." The Athletic reported that across 15 game weeks, there have been just 39 instances of teams winning back-to-back games – with 7 teams failing to win two games in a row.

Tottenham are the most obvious example of an inconsistent team, but let's not forget Newcastle! Within the past two gameweeks, the Magpies kept us on the edge of our seats in a scintillating 3-3 thriller against league leaders Liverpool, and then lulled us to sleep in the Brentford game.

In the 2022-23 season, Newcastle had one of the meanest defenses in the league. They were formidable and absolutely no one wanted to play them at St. James Park.

St. James Park will always be an unfriendly place for the visitors, but teams are no longer afraid of Newcastle. So what changed? Well they can't hide behind the "injury" excuse this year, so I'd say ... transfers. Or lack thereof.

Newcastle have done zilch zip zero in the past two transfer windows and that's led to stagnation. With new players comes new and innovative playing styles that Newcastle are sorely lacking. Plus, it's easy for the opposition to figure them out because they never change anything!

Like, I adore Harvey Barnes, but you can't just bring him off the bench in every single game and hope for a miracle. The man's only got so many bow and arrows in his quiver!

I'm fascinated by the transfer market because you can see how the extremes – the Chelsea perspective of buying everyone, versus Newcastle or Everton who stood still during the transfer windows – negatively impact teams in different ways.

Let's hope Newcastle manager Eddie Howe has something exciting up his (black-and-white) sleeves for the January transfer window.

And with that, I've got presents to wrap and my day job to attend to, so I'll see you next week!