Premier League 2025-26 Week 12 Updates: Arsenal Take Charge; Chelsea’s Bench Delivers; City Survive Newcastle Chaos

Chelsea’s backup guys are producing the goods

AN AWAY TRIP to a dogged Burnley isn’t the kind of hurdle that the Clarets presented the last time the club were in the Premier League, but they are still an awkward team to contend with. For at least the first half of this game, it showed. The Blues, without their midfield lynchpin Moises Caicedo — who finally got a deserved rest — were slow out of the blocks, and ponderous on the ball. There were moments of danger from Burnley, but eventually, the Blues found their rhythm and attacking verve. Most impressive of all the deputies, filling in the big shoes, was Andre Santos’ excellent turn as a holding midfielder. In a week where both of Chelsea’s best players — Caicedo and Palmer — were missing in action, the rest of the squad found a way to pull through a tricky contest. All the more important since the next two opponents are the small matter of Barcelona and Arsenal.

Watch Chelsea vs Burnley match highlights here

City blown away by Newcastle’s chaos

The game between Newcastle and City can only be described as one word — frantic. Both sides were guilty of missing chances, exerting little to no control and offering clinching evidence of the unpredictable patterns of this current Premier League season. Though he scored a brace, the match-winner Harvey Barnes should have really put the game to bed much earlier. On a day when Erling Haaland endured a quieter game, Newcastle made sure City’s slick wingers and their midfield maestros never quite found their rhythm. One of the key issues with this version of Pep Guardiola’s City is its one-directional dependence on Haaland’s prolificity. Block that route, and City look like a blunt, albeit silky, sowing machine that keeps running into solid, infertile ground.

Liverpool need to consider dropping some of their legends

What do you say about Liverpool that hasn’t already been said? How has a team that coasted to the title last year become suddenly so poor? Not to mention, with millions in additional supplements. Against Nottingham Forest — who have rediscovered their form — Alexander Isak produced the kind of clueless, ineffective performance that makes you wonder if the Reds have placed some incontrovertibly large bets on some unknown, understudied, highly depreciable assets. But that is only one of the many problems that Arne Slot must contend with. His biggest headache is the club legend, and once get-out-jail-card Mo Salah. No player should be untouchable to the point that he drags the rest of his team down. But with Salah on the wing, kicking at thin air, misplacing balls and being pocketed by defender after defender in the league, it begs to question if the Egyptian should make way for someone else. If not better, few players would do worse than Salah’s sorry, ineffective contribution to the squad. He is not the only misfiring legend, but he is the one who should make way.

WATCH | Liverpool vs Nottingham Forest (0-3), here on OTTplay.

Arsenal take destiny in their own hands with key derby win

The North London derby is one of the most keenly contested derbies in English football — if not the planet. In recent times, it has rarely dictated the destination of the title, with both clubs flattering to deceive in the chase of silverware. For Spurs, not much has changed, but Arsenal are on the cusp of something generational. At the Emirates, the Gunners faced a Spurs team content on blocking them with nothing to offer of their own in terms of attacking intent. It’s not a new problem, and it’s one that can trouble a team like Arsenal — who rely on set-pieces more than they would like to — but against their bitter rivals, Arsenal found alternatives. Both Eze and Trossard took their goals extremely well, and the absence of Gabriel was negated by a furious press that hardly gave Spurs a breather. In fact, Thomas Frank’s side could barely sniff a chance, let alone points. Over a weekend where City couldn’t take their chance to close the gap on them, Arsenal pulled clear with a no-nonsense demolition of an old rival. 

Watch the match highlights here.

Postscript:

Liverpool’s continual dysfunction will soon become a case study in the demons of mentality and pressure in elite sport. No one could have predicted their troubles. Not in the least, the people who believed they had emboldened an already excellent squad with the kind of riches that any European club would gladly take off their books. None of their new signings are unfounded quantities. They are instead established pros, players who have won things — Wirtz and Frimpong, in fact, went lossless for an entire Bundesliga season with Leverkusen. It’s baffling to witness their haplessness, their inability to wire themselves to equally intelligent football brains on the pitch. This isn’t quite the Galácticos of Real Madrid, but the stature of this experiment’s failure is starting to look the same in terms of proportion.

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