Premier League weekend awards: City’s NBA tactics and Villa’s wild swipe

Goal of the week

Welp, Manchester City have taken notes from the NBA and figured out how to set screens on set pieces.

Time for us all to pack up and go home, I guess.

City’s opener in their 1-1 draw at Liverpool was a moment of magic from Kevin De Bruyne, with a helping hand from a crafty set-piece routine. Nathan Aké set a pick on Liverpool’s Alexis Mac Allister, clearing room for John Stones to drive from the middle of the box to the near post for a tap-in. But it was De Bruyne who did the heavy lifting. His cross required speed, bend and accuracy – and De Bruyne delivered.

It was a rare bright spot in an otherwise uncharacteristically sloppy City performance. They were scattershot with the ball, and cut open too often without it. Liverpool’s intensity turned the pitch into a blur, with City giving the ball away at an unusually high clip; it was the first time this season Pep Guardiola’s team were held to under 50% possession. They conceded a cheap penalty in the second half and were fortunate not to fall behind, with Luis Díaz missing a hat-trick of chances and Jérémy Doku almost conceding a 98th-minute penalty.

The draw keeps City (narrowly) ahead in the title sweepstakes, despite falling to third in the league. They host Arsenal in a must-win game at the Etihad on 31 March. A win at home would give City an edge over Liverpool, who have a trickier run-in and a lengthy injury list.

Player of the week

How many teams are kicking themselves at allowing Liverpool to nab Alexis Mac Allister for £35m? Mac Allister was partly at fault for City’s opener, but he leveled the score with a penalty early in the second half and ran the show across 100 breathless minutes.

Mac Allister was Liverpool’s best player. In a fervent atmosphere, he brought calm and purpose to Liverpool’s attack and led the team’s press. Only Liverpool’s center-backs saw more of the ball.

“Probably Pep saw it too,” Jürgen Klopp said after the game. “How we played through their midfield today – some of the best moments of my coaching career to be honest.”

Mac Allister was at the center of it all. In the absence of Trent Alexander-Arnold, he has become the team’s creative hub, the player sat in the middle of the pitch that Liverpool’s forward line orbits around. In the last seven Liverpool goals where he has been on the pitch, Mac Allister has scored, assisted or been involved in the buildup.

And he’s been just as impactful out of possession. Mac Allister set his sights on Rodri early on Sunday, knowing that halting City’s metronome was the quickest way to spring counters. You can count on one hand the number of times Rodri has been disposed on the ball this season; Mac Allister robbed the ball from Rodri twice on Sunday. That has only happened two other times this season. One of those? When Rodri faced Mac Allister at home in November.

Coach of the week

And now for your weekly reminder that Gary O’Neil is cooking up something special at Wolves. A 2-1 win over Fulham on Saturday took the club to ninth in the table, just six points behind Manchester United in sixth. With 10 games to go, a European place is within reach.

It’s worth remembering where the club was when O’Neil inherited the job on the eve of this season. O’Neil rocked up just four days before the start of the league campaign after Julen Lopetegui’s shock resignation. For most teams, those preseason antics would have set up a long, hard relegation slog. Instead, O’Neil wagered he could squeeze more out of this squad.

It’s worked. The win over Fulham was Wolves’ 12th of the season, an improvement over last season. O’Neil has internalized a long-held Premier League maxim for those without the resources of Manchester City: To win big, you have to master every style. O’Neil’s team shapeshifts on a week-to-week basis. Few managers have been better at devising one-off gameplans.

There is a dearth of young managers, we are told, who can step into the shoes of the big beasts. But in his early career, O’Neil has hit all the checkpoints. He kept Bournemouth in the league before they ditched him in the hopes of bringing in a more exotic style. At Wolves, he walked into one of the most corrosive situations in the league – and has guided his team into the top half of the table. As resumes go, that’s pretty, pretty good.

One of the biggest swing factors of this summer will be whether Wolves can retain O’Neil when the managerial merry-go-round starts spinning. The club have already spoken with O’Neil about extending his contract. But those considering Brentford’s Thomas Frank or Brighton Roberto De Zerbi should take a closer look at O’Neil.

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Controversy of the week

Kai Havertz scored a late winner to give Arsenal a 2-1 win over Brentford, lifting them to the top of the table.

But Havertz was lucky to still be on the pitch. Booked in the first half for an elbow while jumping for a header, Havertz took a tumble in the box midway through the second looking for a penalty. The con didn’t work, though Havertz was not shown a second booking.

“Havertz is a clear, clear dive,” Brentford manager Thomas Frank said after the game. “I wish they would just admit it. That should of course been a second yellow and a red card. And then he wouldn’t be able to score the winner and hopefully maybe we would have gained a little bit more momentum, maybe to win the game.”

The ‘what were you thinking?’ award

When the Guardian Weekend Awards rise to power and take over the Premier League Hall of Fame, John McGinn’s swipe on Tottenham’s Destiny Udogie will be a first ballot entry in the ‘what was he thinking’ wing.

Villa imploded against Spurs on Sunday. They were 2-0 down before McGinn’s red card. After his dismissal, Tottenham ran out comfortable 4-0 winners.

Unai Emery made a change at the back, switching from his traditional 4-4-2 formation to a 5-3-2 to try to contain Tottenham’s mobile frontline. The plan failed. And then Villa’s captain appeared to lose his head.

McGinn’s reckless challenge cost Villa more than a shot at getting back into the game. The midfielder will miss the team’s next three matches, including a trip to Manchester City. And that’s on top of losing Boubacar Kamara for the remainder of the season with a knee injury.

The defeat to Spurs could be a momentum-swinging result in the race for top four: Villa are now down two key players, Spurs have a game in hand and the four-goal margin tipped the goal difference battle in Tottenham’s favor. Villa haven’t played in the Champions League in 40 years, when it was the European Cup, and there were signs on Sunday that they’re beginning to feel the pressure.

Disappointing performance of the week

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Everton struggled in front of goal in a frustrating defeat. For large passages of their 2-0 loss at Manchester United, they were the better side. Where United looked disjointed in the opening 10 minutes, Sean Dyche’s side had a clear plan. And then Everton gave away a cheap penalty in the 12th minute. And then they gave away a near identical one in the 36th minute.

They probed throughout the remainder of the game, but lacked a cutting edge in the final third. It was emblematic of Everton’s form for the last three months– they have not won a league game since 16 December.

The United performance hit on a common theme. Everton have scored just 29 goals this season despite posting an xG of 48. They’ve failed to score in 11 league games this year. In open play, they’ve been outscored 22-14 this season, despite racking up an xG of 30 in open proceedings.

As always with a Dyche team, they’ve relied on set plays, scoring 15 times from corners or free kicks – one better than their return with the ball in play. You’d like to think at some point luck will roll in Everton’s favor. Dyche continues to point to xG and other dorkier metrics as proof that Everton are playing above their record. But, at some point, you are what your goalscoring tally says you are.

The lack of a clinical touch in and around the box reduces Everton’s margin for error. They need to get the little things right to stay up. At United, they lost composure in both boxes and cost themselves a shot at least a point.