Hojlund signing and Romero vice-captaincy among the biggest mistakes of the Premier League season

There has been some goalkeeper-based silliness and a few transfer decisions have been made to look foolish, such as Manchester United signing Rasmus Hojlund.

10) Tottenham making Cristian Romero vice-captain
A decision which had paid dividends through an unbeaten first 10 games of the season nevertheless blew up in Tottenham’s face eventually. The ostracisation of Hugo Lloris and departure of Harry Kane meant a new leadership group had to be established by Ange Postecoglou, who found the perfect bridge between the club’s past, present and future with Heung-min Son assuming the armband and Romero and James Maddison installed as his chief lieutenants.

It seemed to galvanise all three. Son recovered his goalscoring touch and formed a phenomenal partnership with the quite brilliant Maddison. Romero became a dependably brilliant centre-half alongside the impeccable Micky van de Ven. All was well. Then he kicked Levi Colwill, got away with it and used his reprieve to test the structural integrity of Enzo Fernandez’s shin, receiving his fourth red card in 74 Tottenham games, conceding a penalty and handing Chelsea an initiative they would bungle for hilariously long but eventually exploit.

‘Cry at home,’ Romero advised Alexis Mac Allister after a valiant nine-man Liverpool were beaten by Spurs in a match dominated by referee discourse earlier this season. Wise words the World Cup winner can heed for three matches while watching Eric Dier and Ashley Phillips face Manchester City from the sidelines. It feels ever so slightly like he let Tottenham down when they needed him.

Udogie will be better for that. It’s a good, albeit tough lesson for him. Romero’s lapse back into his previous character was a bit more worrying, but hopefully that’s the anomaly, rather than his vast improvement in the previous games.

— Seb Stafford-Bloor (@SebSB) November 6, 2023

9) Crystal Palace crawling back to Roy Hodgson
Again, a call that Steve Parish and many others might consider to already have been vindicated. Crystal Palace are snug in mid-table, clear of the mess at the bottom and perhaps even allowing themselves a peek up at the European qualification places.

But it all feels a bit pointless. It is not possible to take meaningful forward steps into the long term under the oldest manager in Premier League history on a one-year contract. It is a holding pattern which will guarantee safety but the last two times Palace have tried to evolve, the Hodgson safety blanket has been clutched as soon as things turned a little dark.

The 76-year-old has backtracked somewhat on his recent comments admonishing some of the club’s younger players but realistically Hodgson is going to favour Joel Ward and Jeffrey Schlupp – players he knows, has worked with extensively and can trust – over Jesurun Rak-Sakyi, Matheus Franca and others. There is little incentive for Hodgson to help develop talents he himself will never benefit from. He cannot be blamed for that but Palace absolutely can and this stasis they continue to lock themselves in for fear of the unknown is unhealthy.

8) Brighton’s goalkeeper rotation
It might be too simplistic a prism through which to view Roberto De Zerbi’s continued spinning of plates marked ‘Bart Verbruggen’ and ‘Jason Steele’, but Brighton have yet to keep a single Premier League clean sheet this season. That is a distinction they share with the three promoted clubs and no-one else.

“There isn’t a clear rule,” De Zerbi has said of his goalkeeper rotation, adding that Verbruggen “can become one of the best keepers in Europe, but Jason knows better our idea of football”. Yet the job share seems to be suiting neither player, nor Brighton themselves. Perhaps just recall Carl Rushworth from his productive loan spell with Swansea and split the minutes three ways instead?

7) Nottingham Forest signing Matt Turner
Steve Cooper might actually have benefited from employing more of a revolving door with his glovesmen. Nottingham Forest were always going to encounter the rare challenge of replacing both their first-team keepers from last season after the loan spells of Dean Henderson and Keylor Navas expired. That left Wayne Hennessey as the only viable option between the sticks and there was an understandable reluctance not to interfere too much with his ongoing research into the Third Reich.

Forest’s solution was, as it tends to be, to sign more footballers. Understandable in this case, as Arsenal back-up Matt Turner and Benfica title winner and Champions League regular Odysseas Vlachodimos represented some more permanent class in a key area. Less understandable was the former being made first choice, presumably off the back of his two career FA Cup games.

Turner rarely exuded confidence for Cooper’s side, culminating in a high-profile mistake in defeat to Liverpool. Vlachodimos was given his chance the very next game and he thrived in keeping a clean sheet against a previously free-scoring Aston Villa. It is worth wondering where Forest might have been if they had simply entrusted the better option first.

6) Wolves not biting the Lopetegui bullet sooner
It was May 23 when reports first emerged suggesting Julen Lopetegui might leaves Wolves. The working relationship was never built on solid foundations, considering the Spaniard had rejected initial overtures the previous October before a change of heart. It rarely felt as though that would produce a fruitful long-term union between manager and club.

A perceived betrayal over summer transfer plans eventually bubbled over into Lopetegui’s departure six days before the season began. It was a rough window in which Ruben Neves, Diego Costa, Joao Moutinho, Conor Coady, Adama Traore, Nathan Collins, Raul Jimenez and Matheus Nunes were shed, with only a late burst of investment eventually giving the squad something resembling a fresh lick of paint.

Wolves reacted far sooner in replacing Lopetegui, appointing Gary O’Neil within a day of a mutual split which might ordinarily have ruined their season but instead seemed to invigorate them under one of the league’s brightest man-managers. They are sitting comfortably enough for now but it can’t have helped to start a few steps behind every other team when Lopetegui’s writing was on the wall for months.

5) West Ham persevering with Michail Antonio
He is 33, was a middling right-back a few years ago and is busy trying to goad Richarlison on his weekly podcast. Only one club in the Premier League and probably Championship would consider those traits to represent a guaranteed starting striker not worth trying to replace in the transfer market purely because Gianluca Scamacca wanted to play football instead of tirelessly running the channels.

4) Fulham not adequately replacing Aleksandar Mitrovic
There might be no way of superseding such a ubiquitous attacking talent but Fulham could at least have tried. The Cottagers did technically sign a Raul Jimenez with all that Saudi money but Rob Holding, Liam Cooper, Teemu Pukki and Dan Gosling have all scored Premier League goals since the Mexican’s last in March 2022.

Mitrovic was always likely to leave a gaping hole in Fulham’s forward line but they barely seemed to attempt to rectify it beyond bringing in Adama Traore and Alex Iwobi to create a few more chances for some poor sap to miss. Just twice have Marco Silva’s side scored more than a single goal in a Premier League game this season and only Burnley have scored fewer than their nine goals overall. Mitrovic has as many in Saudi already and scored seven after 11 matches last campaign.

3) Manchester United putting it all on Rasmus Hojlund
There is another side to that coin, as evidenced by Manchester United’s decision to hand a 20-year-old with 35 career league starts and a scoring record of roughly one every three games the bulk of their attacking burden at the cost of £64m.

The deal to sign Hojlund might eventually pay off, as was presumably the plan when the £8m in add-ons across an initial five-year contract were ratified. And it is a perfectly acceptable transfer in isolation, with the Dane’s potential showing in tantalising bursts.

But to lumber Hojlund with that responsibility and little protection at this stage in his development is preposterous, not least because his teammates are hardly providing the forward with ample enough opportunity to rise to the challenge. Hojlund has yet to score in the Premier League but has also had fewer shots than Lewis Dunk, Pedro Porro, Declan Rice and five fellow Manchester United players.

Hojlund’s finishing ranks him among the worst in the division currently but the onus is on Erik ten Hag and Manchester United to accentuate his strengths and prove why they supposedly prioritised his signing above that of Harry Kane. Rumoured interest in a more experienced support striker would be a fine start.

Rasmus Hojlund and Marcus Rashford.

2) Bournemouth changing too much, too soon

“It really wasn’t so much about Gary not doing what he was asked to do, it was more about the opportunity to give our football club a different identity through the coach we made contact with some time ago and then initiated contact very recently. It wasn’t about Gary, it was about a different opportunity. We just felt that to be as successful as we believe we can be in the transfer market and we are going to change the style of football that we played, then we needed to go a different direction.”

Bournemouth owner Bill Foley might be better served taking things more gradually next time instead of jolting into a complete 180. The desire to reinvent, to evolve, to “change” is perfectly natural but there need be no overnight transformation. These things require time and patience.

The Cherries swapped managers and their respective philosophies, then spent more than £100m in the transfer market to overhaul the squad and grant Andoni Iraola more suitable players for his style.

In comparison to last season, Bournemouth are having more shots per game, more possession, a better pass-completion rate, more tackles and more dribbles. But a more gradual transition might have alleviated the sort of growing pains which have left them mired in a relegation battle.

1) Burnley extending Vincent Kompany’s contract
The ridiculousness of Spurs 1-4 Chelsea was hardly lacking in any one thing, but it is weird to think that Kompany could well have been in charge of either team this season. Tottenham identified the Belgian as a prime candidate to permanently replace Antonio Conte, while the former defender was linked with the Stamford Bridge vacancy before Mauricio Pochettino’s appointment.

“I’m not engaging on any of these conversations,” Kompany said of those Chelsea links at the time, signing a five-year Burnley contract extension the following month to put the speculation to bed and signal his intention to crack the Premier League with the Clarets instead.

Kompany has not been the biggest problem at Burnley by any stretch but his search for solutions continue into a fourth month. A hotchpotch summer transfer window has been compounded by constant chopping of players and changing formations by a manager who understandably looks a little lost.

Should Burnley sack him? No, or at least not yet; it is difficult to envisage many coaches doing better with the tools at hand. But they have essentially removed the option when trying to protect an asset whose value has plummeted. After the most lavish transfer spend in their history this summer, a big pay-off is difficult to countenance.