The Good, the Bad, and the Shelvey
Grading the debuts of the three promoted Premier League teams
“Look, sometimes I just need to reign it in on the football pitch. I need to just shut up and stuff. I need to not get involved and walk away.”
— Jonjo Shelvey, from a Daily Mail interview
Amidst a slew of seemingly underwhelming matchups came a lot of talking points, from both ends of the table. A lot can be made out of the country-mile-wide range of results from the big six teams, and rightfully so. Truthfully, that’s almost the direction I went when I wanted to discuss this opening week in the Premier League.
But while everyone is busy pointing and laughing at Chelsea or fawning over the Manchester clubs, it’s also important to take a glance at the other end of things. Three newly promoted teams (all with very different stories) made their debuts in or back in the top flight, and just like the big teams the results were… bipolar. Sometimes even in the same match. Let’s hand out some report cards for their 2017–18 debuts, and see where they head after their opening acts.
The Good
Huddersfield
Grade: A-
I feel like a proud father.
Huddersfield came into this match (and this season) with the bar of expectations laid gently on the beaches of the Dead Sea. Which, given that they got promoted despite not winning a match in the Championship playoffs and sporting a negative goal differential on the season, is pretty fair. But there has always been hope for this team. They’ve spent like they want to stay up, they play an attractive, German-influenced game of football that should fare well in England’s top division, and their opening schedule to the season gives them a platform on which to build momentum for the rest of the campaign.
All of those points were driven home in this match against the Frank De Boer-led, still-mediocre Crystal Palace.
Last season’s golden boy Aaron Mooy delivered on the set-piece that led to their first Premier League goal, then contributed an assist to record signing and new local hero Steve Mounie on a wonderfully-worked goal:
Mounie later nailed in a brace to make that £11m+ fee look a hell of a lot cheaper, while their latest loaned-in keeper, Mainz’s Jonas Lössl, already looks like a shrewd pickup with some clutch saves to keep a clean sheet(!) in their first match at the top.
Crystal Palace’s 3–4–2–1 has potential, especially with the addition of Timothy Fosu-Mensah to that backline, but Huddersfield were absolutely clinical and punished Palace’s lackadaisical defending. The Terriers only registered 9 shots, but 6 of those were on target, and that doesn’t include a couple of clear chances saved only by last-second tackles on the occasions that the Eagles actually decided to put in effort on that end. Huddersfield could have done a little more damage with those, and they did have a few potentially costly mistakes upon which Palace (surpriiiise!) couldn’t capitalize, but beyond that this was a flawless entrance.
The Terriers won’t face a “true” test until their September 30th match against Tottenham, but if they play with the same intensity then as they seem to have entered the Premier League with, they should be up for the challenge.
The Bad
Brighton
Grade: C-
Honestly, it’s hard to punish them too much. They opened their campaign against the pre-season darlings in Manchester City, and even with their defensive approach it’s a colossal ask to keep 90+ minutes of a clean sheet against a team like this. You know, especially in your first Premier League match.
Brighton did well for the most part defending in numbers against City’s possession and ball movement, and for a while looked like they had a decent shot of claiming the draw. Even after a couple moves got City close (as well as a back pass gone horribly horribly wrong. IT’S AN EPIDEMIC, as Patrick would say), the Gulls looked to have what it took to net a result.
Ultimately though, a wonderful counter-attacking move that capitalized on Brighton’s lack of awareness put them behind, and then Lewis Dunk scored a clinical header on his own net to put it out of reach. To be fair, though, Dunk also did this, so he’s off the hook:
Brighton only ever really threatened for a couple minutes of the match, and 6 shots on 22% possession doesn’t inspire confidence, but again, it’s their debut in the Premier League, against Manchester City. I’m not a huge advocate for them regardless, mind you, but this was far from the best litmus test of their season. Their next matches, against Leicester, Watford, and West Brom, will really demonstrate where this team’s survival chances lie.
The Shelvey
Newcastle
Grade: S
Actual Grade: D-
There was a lot of hope for Newcastle going into this season. They’d gone down, retooled with Rafa Benitez (Champions League winner Rafa Benitez, in the second division alongside Rotherham and Burton Albion), and come back up at the first asking with an impressive season-long performance.
And this is how their return to the Premier League begins:
You could say this was a tale of two halves, of course. Tottenham was held pretty well by Newcastle’s defense for the first half of the match, whereas they just decided to try 50% as hard with only ten men on the pitch, and that’s what cost them. However, they only had 0.1 xG before the red card, off one shot, and this is a Tottenham squad adjusting to life without possibly two first-choice wingbacks. Both of the goals the Spurs scored were a result of great movement as much as a lack of movement by Newcastle; this is not how you want to come out of the gate defensively:
Maybe I’m just disappointed because I wanted to see Newcastle put on a repeat performance of the last time they faced Tottenham, but they can do a lot better than this. Like Brighton, this was a tough start to the season, but a lack of discipline overall is what did them in when they had promise to achieve a result. Given that they face a slew of lower-table teams next (starting with Huddersfield) and don’t face a real challenge until their date with Liverpool to begin October, there’s more than enough hope for them to find their footing… or, at least, find it better than Jonjo Shelvey did.
Will Clarke is co-creator of The Challengers Podcast, a soccer website and podcast that discusses the Premier League, the Bundesliga, and La Liga. Listen to their show on iTunes, like them on Facebook, and follow them on twitter — @ChallengersPod.
