5 Things We Learnt: Premier League weekend 30/1/14 - 31/1/14

1) Arsenal MUST buy a striker before the transfer window closes



With Olivier Giroud out till the New Year due to a broken leg, Arsene Wenger has to find a soultion to who will be the club's target man for the next four months. He's tried a variety of different alternatives, none of which have been fruitful for the Frenchman. Despite clearly having great potential, Yaya Sanogo looks out of depth playing at this level of football. On Sunday's game against Leicester, he frequently mis-controlled the ball and was caught offside on several occasions. He needs time to be nurtured and to develop his game; not thrown in at the deep end against the top defences in the country. Wenger has also used new signing Alexis Sanchez in the lone striker role for 45 minutes against Everton but again this proved to be unsuccessful (the Chilean failed to have a single touch of the ball in the opponent's penalty area, and was consequently subbed off at half time). Arsenal have many creative players, but the chances they create are largely wasted due to a real lack of orthodox number 9s in the squad. Arsenal fans must have really hated it looking on their phones at half time on Sunday to see that Chelsea had signed Loic Remy for a mere £10.5m while they were struggling to overcome newly promoted Leicester. With the Gunners starting the season with 5 poor performances in a row, Arsene must surely get the cheque book out and bring in a centre forward.


2) Manchester City may have the best squad in the division, but the players can't turn up simply expecting to win



Now there is no doubt that credit must be given to Stoke for a brilliant performance and they must be given credit for frustrating the Premier League champions. However on watching the game, it soon became apparent that many of their players were putting in very minimal effort. When you don't play with any real tempo or purpose, and defend with limited concentration, teams who are set-up to go on the counter attack like Stoke, will punish you for it. Throughout the 90 minutes, they rarely threatened the Stoke City goal and their defending for the goal was absolutely pitiful. The fact that Diouf was able to travel from mid-way inside his own half to the Manchester City penalty area virtually unchallenged was disgraceful. But this isn't merely a blip, there were many occasions last season where they simply didn't play with any kind of intensity and switched off defensively. If they wish to retain the title, they cannot afford to let those kind of performances become a recurring feature.


3) Southampton look to be putting their nightmare summer behind them



Following the departures of  5 first team players and manager Mauricio Pochettino, Saints fans can be excused for fearing the worst ahead of the new season. However three positive performances including a comprehensive win over West Ham at the weekend, means that there is grounds for optimism at St Mary's. The new signings appear to be settling in well, while the youngsters Ward Prowse and Clyne seem to be coming on leaps and bounds. Now all they need is to keep hold of Morgan Schneiderlin until the transfer window shuts...


4) No quick fix for Van Gaal at United



Failing to win any of their opening four matches and only managing to muster two goals in total, it's fair to say that the Louis Van Gaal era at Old Trafford has got off to a terrible start. Defensively, they look extremely vulnerable. The new 3-5-2 formation does spread the defensive responsibilities round a bit more, but with a very inexperienced back 3 of Phil Jones, Chris Smalling and Tyler Blackett behind a midfield 5 which offers them very little defensive protection, Manchester United need to seriously consider dipping into the transfer market and buying some defenders. 


5) Martinez has to address Everton's defensive frailties



When Roberto Martinez was appointed Everton manager in June of last year, the one main concern was how his philosophy of attacking football would affect Everton's ageing defence. Well, nothing screams out louder that you need to sort out your team's defensive situation than conceeding 10 goals in your opening 3 matches. Club captain Phil Jagielka set the tone for a disastrous defensive display against Chelsea on Saturday, trying to catch Diego Costa offside which back-fired spectacularly. Martínez now has a delicate decision to make regarding his captain after the international break. “If we keep conceding goals like that it means the competition for places needs to be open,” said Martínez on Saturday. “I’ll allow football to make those decisions. We’ve got very good centre-halves that at the moment are not playing.”