Checking in on the EPL's Big 6: Stock up, stock down at the international break

With the international break upon us and seven matches in the books for each team, it’s a good time to take stock of what we’ve learned so far about the giants of the Premier League and whose performances are liable to shape their fortunes heading into the January transfer window. Let’s have a look at who is trending up or down for each of the Big 6.

Arsenal

Team Position: 3rd, 17 pts

Stock Up: Jurriën Timber

After arriving from Ajax for £34M, Timber missed the bulk of last season recovering from an ACL injury he suffered in the team’s Premier League opener. The Dutch international was superb during his time in the Eredivisie, showcasing impressive athleticism and attacking mentality from his left-back position. Now that he’s back in the lineup for the Gunners, he’s been exactly as advertised, becoming a mainstay in manager Mikel Arteta’s preferred eleven. He’s fourth on the team in carries that end in a chance and is completing more crosses than any other defender on the roster. 

His defensive ability was on full display against Manchester City, where Timber locked down defensively on the right side, effectively neutralizing Jeremy Doku in their one-on-one matchup. In Arsenal’s match against Leicester City, he showcased the other side of his game, creating seven chances and recording an assist.

Timber is proving himself a complete player and a vital presence as Arsenal look to win the league for the first time since 2003-04.

Stock Down: Jakub Kiwior

With Timber locking down his place in the starting eleven, the signing of Riccardo Calafiori from Bologna, and Oleksandr Zinchenko and Takehiro Tomiyasu on their way back to fitness, it’s difficult to see a path to consistent playing time for the 24 year old Polish international barring an injury crisis. After arriving for £19.5M in 2023, Arsenal could look to turn a profit in the January window with clubs such as Juventus reportedly interested.

Chelsea

Team position: 4th, 14 points

Stock Up: Cole Palmer

After a breakout 2023-24 campaign, Cole Palmer has taken his game to another level this season under new manager Enzo Maresca, becoming a truly world-class performer. He’s near the top of the league in nearly every attacking metric:

• 6 goals, T-2nd behind Erling Haaland (10)
• 5 assists, 2nd behind Bukayo Saka (7)
• 23 chances created, 2nd behind Saka (27)
• 11 shots on target, T-3rd behind Haaland (23) and Mohamed Salah (15)
• 8 carries ending with a chance, T-1st with Jarrod Brown

Despite the £100M+ fees Chelsea paid for Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo, and with players such as Mykhailo Mudryk, Christopher Nkunku, Marc Cucurella, and Wesley Fofana arriving for more, it’s Palmer - who joined from Manchester City for a fee of £41.5M — who has emerged as the club’s undisputed best player and one of the best in the Premier League.

Stock Down: Mykhailo Mudryk

Mudryk’s arrival from Shakhtar Donetsk for a fee in the £80M range felt high at the time, but the winger clearly had immense physical tools and natural talent that made even a speculative overpay seem at least understandable. Increasingly, however, it’s looking like a failed experiment.

Mudryk has appeared in four Premier League matches this season, three as a substitute, racking up a total of 81 minutes. He has failed to register a goal or an assist and has been the target of blunt comments from Maresca during his press availabilities. A loan move away from the club for consistent playing time and ideally, a rebuilding of the talented player’s confidence might be in everyone’s best interests at this point.

Liverpool

Team position: 1st, 18 points

Stock Up: Arne Slot

It would be remiss not to mention Ryan Gravenberch’s emergence as an anchor in Liverpool’s midfield. He deserves an enormous amount of credit for adapting his game to suit the team’s needs and thriving in a new role. However, it’s Arne Slot who has put Gravenberch in position to succeed and has Liverpool humming in the early going, sitting atop the Premier League table.

Consider the magnitude of the challenge that Slot faced upon his arrival at Anfield. He was replacing Jurgen Klopp, a beloved club legend with a larger-than-life personality and a bulletproof reputation and a commitment to entertaining football. The entire backroom staff was changed, including some critical front office leadership positions. He inherited a squad with undeniable talent; this wasn’t a rebuilding project where patience and understanding would be in generous supply as the club looked to regain past glory. Slot needed to hit the ground running, get results, and do it in style.

He’s done exactly that, to the tune of six wins and a single loss across the first seven league matches, one point clear of Manchester City atop the table. Yes, the early match schedule has been reasonably kind to Liverpool and much tougher tests are still to come, but it’s undeniable that Slot was and is the right man for the job.

Stock Down: Darwin Núñez

Uruguayan international Darwin Núñez has undeniable talent, but for every miracle strike, there seems to be an equally astonishing miss. He’s played 134 minutes across just four appearances in the league this season, one of them a start. Odds are that he will see minutes in all competitions as Liverpool compete for multiple trophies, but he’s clearly second choice to Diogo Jota and after arriving from Benfica for a fee of more than £100M two seasons ago, it feels unlikely that he’ll live up to that price tag. You can easily imagine a scenario in which he asks to leave Anfield sooner rather than later for more consistent minutes with a club where he would be the clear number-one option.

Manchester City

Team position: 2nd, 17 points

Stock Up: Mateo Kovacic

Kovacic’s arrival from Chelsea for a fee in the neighborhood of £30M was seen as shrewd business. He wasn’t a superstar who would push Kevin de Bruyne, Phil Foden, Rodri, or anyone else for minutes in the midfield, but he was a steady player and reliable rotational presence who would get the job done adequately when called upon. Injuries to those ahead of him on the depth chart pushed him into more minutes than manager Pep Guardiola might have originally envisioned, but he’s simply been excellent.

He’s second on the team with three goals and is one of just three City players to appear in every league game thus far. He has grown from a squad player into a key part of Guardiola’s midfield unit and with Rodri now out for the season, it’s likely the 30-year-old Croatian will remain so for the foreseeable future.

Stock Down: Phil Foden

Last season's Premier League Player of the Season has oddly struggled for consistent playing time thus far. He missed a couple of games due to illness, but across his four appearances (one start), he’s failed to make any real impact, with just a single shot on goal and no assists. For such a talented player with no clear nagging injuries, it doesn’t add up from the outside looking in. Supporters are speculating that there’s perhaps a rift between him and Guardiola and he’s being frozen out in the same way Riyad Mahrez was.

Guardiola has proven he can win under any circumstances, but one would imagine it would be a whole lot easier to maintain City’s stranglehold on the Premier League with Foden’s talents front and center, especially after Rodri’s unfortunate injury. Time will tell what the legendary manager has in mind for his talented attacker.

Manchester United

Team position: 14th, 8 points

Stock Up: Diogo Dalot

Despite the club’s struggles over the last few seasons and this one in particular, you can’t blame Diogo Dalot. He’s provided steady, reliable defensive play on a match in, match out basis, second behind Matthijs de Ligt in ground duel win percentage and third behind de Ligt and Jonny Evans in aerial duel win percentage.

He leads the Premier League in possessions won (48) and is tied for second in interceptions (15). He’s appeared in every league match and leads the team in minutes.

Dalot is as solid as they come, and it’s difficult to imagine how bad things might be for United without his steadying presence on the backline.

Stock Down: Erik ten Hag

Where to begin. 

Manchester United have been underwhelming and disappointing to say the least, with ten Hag guiding his side to fourteenth place in the table with just eight points from seven games. It’s the Red Devils’ worst start ever in the Premier League, and troublingly, despite massive investment during the summer transfer window, the team is poor in almost all the same ways it was poor last season.

Midfield is a constant area of concern, as is creativity and composure in the final third. The team looks disorganized in defense and out of sync in possession. Opta predicts the club to finish with around 53 points — an eighth, ninth, or 10th-place finish as the most likely outcome. Given their current form, that seems a long way off.

Some managers are known to take immensely talented rosters and find a way to maximize individual skill to win trophies; think Guardiola or Carlo Ancelotti. Some are renowned for building togetherness and toughness within a smart system, achieving results beyond what the talent on the squad might suggest is possible; Diego Simeone and Porto/Milan-era Jose Mourinho come to mind. 

Erik ten Hag has proven himself to fit into neither archetype. Manchester United has talented players. You might argue they’re the wrong players, but they are talented nonetheless. It’s not difficult to imagine a better leader, a better tactician, getting better results. 

The manager continues to preach patience and a long term vision for the club that will end with it coalescing on the field, even now in his third full season on the job. It feels like he’s overmatched by the challenge, and it would be a surprise if he still had his job at the end of the season.

Tottenham Hotspur

Team position: 9th, 10 points

Stock Up: Dominic Solanke

Tottenham paid a premium — around £65M — to pry Dominic Solanke away from Bournemouth, and it’s looking like a wise investment. Solanke is tireless out of possession — he’s won more ground duels than Cristian Romero, a center-back. He leads his team in shots on target (9) despite being ninth on the team in minutes after missing games against Newcastle and Everton with an ankle injury.

As he rounds into full fitness and becomes comfortable in manager Ange Postecoglu’s system, it seems as if Solanke will blossom into an extremely valuable asset: a pressing forward that can wreak havoc on opposing build-up play while offering a steady supply of goals. It’s a role that's been unfilled in Tottenham’s lineup since Harry Kane’s departure, and though it’s unlikely that the 26-year-old Solanke will develop into the kind of game-breaking, world-class talent that Kane remains, he certainly looks certain to become a fixture in the lineup for years to come.

Stock Down: Guglielmo Vicario

Last season, his first in England after arriving from Empoli for a fee around £20M, Guglielmo Vicario settled in nicely, starting all 38 league fixtures and keeping seven clean sheets. He was very good, but thus far in 2024 he’s been merely ‘ok’. In his defense, Tottenham’s backline has been porous, but he is toward the bottom of statistical measurements among keepers who have played at least six of seven games:

• 4th worst save percentage (65.22 percent)
• T-2nd worst goal-prevented rate (0.9 percent)

Tottenham have a number of problems when it comes to goal prevention, and laying all the blame on Vicario isn’t fair. However, if Spurs want to qualify for Champion’s League football at the end of the season, in addition to solidifying things generally out of possession, they’ll likely need Vicario to find another level and start to perform on par with his contemporaries currently statistically outpacing him at other top-four challengers.

Transfer figures via Transfermarkt. Statistics via Premier League & Opta Analyst.