What we learned from Matchweek 20

Takeaways from the weekend include Wolves' first win of the season and Aston Villa keeping the pressure on Arsenal.

Arsenal regroup in second half to take unprecedented six-point lead

Matchweek 20 proved to be one of the most significant in the title race so far, ending with Arsenal six points clear at the top, their biggest-ever lead in a Premier League campaign at this stage.

It could have been so different, and that’s before we even get on to Manchester City’s surprising late concession at home to Chelsea.

AFC Bournemouth put up a serious fight against Arsenal on Saturday, their high and hard press scrambling Mikel Arteta's side – until a half-time intervention changed things.

“It felt like they swarmed all over us in the first half,” Declan Rice told Sky Sports after the game. “But we’re a team and once we got in there at half-time and the manager spoke and we spoke between each other, we knew we had the quality and we knew the space was there to go on and win the game.”

What Rice is referring to is that, in the first half, Arsenal’s short passes and slow build-up play encouraged Bournemouth’s press and gave the hosts control.

By going more vertical and fast in the second, Arsenal found the gaps behind the press to effectively beat Bournemouth at their own game: Arsenal held 62% possession in the first half and just 51 per cent in the second, yet there is no doubt the latter was a more accomplished performance.

Nobody embodied that change – from being disrupted by Bournemouth’s press, to leaning into the spaces it created – better than Rice, whose two second-half goals were the result of his more direct and aggressive actions.

To change approach under pressure, to pierce lines and play more directly when the situation demands it, is the sign of champions.

Man City fall to McFarlane’s unusual tactical extremes

Pep Guardiola suggested that a near-perfect performance by Man City on Sunday was undermined simply by a freak late equaliser and his own side’s inability to get a second goal when on top but that analysis does disservice to the way Chelsea interim head coach Calum McFarlane went from one tactical extreme to the other to unsettle the hosts.

In the first half, McFarlane managed like Jose Mourinho, parking the bus to slow down Man City’s midfield-heavy team (there were no outright wingers or fullbacks in Guardiola’s starting line-up) and block the middle.

It worked well - right up until it didn’t - and after Tijjani Reijnders scored the opener, McFarlane made a dramatic swing in the opposite direction.

In the second half, Chelsea were as attacking as they were defensive in the first, as wild and unpredictable as they were safe and rigid before the interval.

They remained in a 4-2-3-1 formation but it often looked more like a 3-2-5, with Malo Gusto bursting forward to join a front four; Chelsea created carnage at times, simply by being so difficult to read.

The equaliser had been coming. Man City could not control the variables and, with so many midfielders out injured, Guardiola was unable to make substitutions that shut the game down. He must take some of the blame, however, for watching the chaos unfold while leaving Rayan Cherki and Phil Foden as No 8s until the end.

It was a costly inability to react that, against a novice coach taking huge swings, suggests the Man City manager did not see this one coming.

Amorim departs after a tepid performance that sums up his tenure

Ruben Amorim’s explosive comments after Manchester United dropped points for the fourth time in five matches over Christmas triggered dramatic action and less than 24 hours later, the head coach had departed Old Trafford.

Just like that it’s all over and the long view so often taken of each individual Man Utd game proves no longer relevant. Instead the performances and results simply speak for themselves. Fittingly, the final one at Elland Road summed up a lot of the issues.

It was another game in which Amorim's 3-4-3 formation looked erroneous, in which rigid football and a lack of creativity combined with a porous defence made Man Utd struggle.

The visitors began the game with just two attacking players on the pitch and although injuries partly explain Amorim’s team selection, his decision not to start Joshua Zirkzee was put into the spotlight after he assisted Matheus Cunha's equaliser within moments of coming off the bench.

Leeds had taken the lead via Brenden Aaronson, who, as a third-man runner from central midfield, showed the attacking intent Man Utd lacked. He also poked holes in an inexperienced back three that never looked comfortable at Elland Road.

It was the Amorim era in microcosm: results and performances, control and coherence, sacrificed at the altar of a formation that never really looked the right fit.

Tielemans helps breaks Forest's resistance

John McGinn’s first Premier League brace took the headlines but it was another performance in central midfield that defined Aston Villa’s comfortable win against Nottingham Forest.

Sean Dyche's deep-lying defence was difficult to crack, forcing Villa to hold the ball and wait for chances to present themselves.

They recorded 73.1% possession, their third highest in a Premier League game at Villa Park since Opta have recorded this data (2003/04).

The breakthrough finally came via another long-range strike but the space Ollie Watkins found to shoot was created by Youri Tielemans’ incisive forward pass.

Tielemans made 32 line-breaking passes against Forest, the most by any player in a Premier League match in 2025/26.

These included an important pass in the build-up to the first Villa goal and then the superb through-ball to assist the third.

Even when outscored by McGinn in midfield, Tielemans emerges head and shoulders above the rest. If Villa are to maintain their title challenge, he will be their most important player.

Wolves fans have renewed hope thanks to Mane performance

Having endured a half-season as difficult as any the Premier League has seen, Wolverhampton Wanderers supporters may simply want to bask in the uncomplicated joy of a victory at Molineux.

But others will already be looking at the table and wondering what’s possible.

Following an impressive 1-1 draw at Old Trafford, Wolves have now won four points from their last two matches, to leave them 12 points short of Forest in 17th.

OK, that’s a big gap but these are always easier to close at the bottom than they are at the top.

If Wolves beat Everton (A) and Newcastle United (H) in their next two and, if Forest lose at West Ham United and then at home to Arsenal, suddenly the gap will be reduced to just a very-much-attainable six points – with Forest still to come to Molineux.

Certainly a first win of the campaign, and of the Rob Edwards era, has the potential to radically change the atmosphere at the club, especially with a new gem unearthed in central midfield.

Mateus Mane was given his first Premier League start for the club just one week ago, on 27 December and on his third consecutive start, he rewarded head coach Edwards with a brilliant display. The teenager played a huge part in the first goal, won the penalty for the second, and then scored the third.

Mane was unplayable. If it’s the start of things to come, well, who knows? It isn’t over until it’s over.