Arsenal bounce back and there’s no Silva lining for Watford

Each week, ‘In On Goal’ co-hosts Colin Murray and Dion Dublin give your their expert reaction and analysis from the weekend’s Premier League football. Don’t forget to tune into ‘In On Goal’ every Friday for your weekly football fix with previews and predictions of the weekend’s Premier League action.

Arsenal’s defeat at Bournemouth last weekend made many question the character of individuals, the culture of the club and the ambitions of all concerned. They lost to a side who simply wanted it more than they did.

With the imminent departures of star players, Arsene Wenger and the club hierarchy as a whole were coming under increasing pressure from their army of disgruntled fans.

What they didn’t need was to face a Crystal Palace side, revitalised under Roy Hodgson who would relish inflicting another defeat on their underperforming counterparts from North London. An upset was certainly on the cards for those who fancy a flutter and Wenger needed to somehow get his side to roll their sleeves up and provide a performance to silence the doubters. I think it’s fair to say they did, being 4 goals up within the first 22 minutes at the Emirates.

They often talk about sides needing to bounce back from defeat and Arsenal did it emphatically on Saturday. They’re a long way off the title race, but at least some pride was restored and some pressure eased on the league’s longest serving manager.

The league’s newest manager took office at the Britannia this week as the merry go round continues to spin around and around. Paul Lambert was something of a surprise to replace Mark Hughes at Stoke, with the Potters starting the day in the bottom 3, but he kicked off his tenure in the best possible way with maximum points and a 2-0 win over Huddersfield, lifting his new side out of the relegation zone (for now anyway).

Paul Lambert insisted this week that he can keep Stoke City up this season and maintain his record of never being relegated from the Premier League. He’ll be hoping that he’s given the time to prove that and history would suggest that the Coates family will show patience. Something that may not have been the case if he was employed by the Pozzo family at Watford.

Having valued their manager at £20m in October when Everton made an approach for their exciting new Portuguese coach, few would have imagined that 3 months later the Hertfordshire club would be sacking him, but that’s exactly what has happened.

Watford have slumped significantly in that time, having dropped from 4th in the table when Ronald Koeman left Everton and the Merseysiders were courting Silva as a possible successor, to where they are now, 4 points above the drop zone and having lost 11 of their last 16 games.

The Watford board issued a strongly worded statement clearly blaming Everton for the unwarranted approach to their manager, which they firmly believe turned his head, de-stabilised the dressing room and resulted in a serious dip in form which the board feel threatened the long term future of the club.

The Pozzo family are well known for chopping their managers with frequent regularity, having done so 10 times since 2012 but it’s unusual for them to make such a decision mid season. Javi Gracia has been appointed as Silva’s replacement, and only time will tell whether he lasts a little longer than his predecessors.

It now remains to be seen whether Everton go back in for Silva in the summer or whether they continue their forced marriage with Sam Allardyce. Their performance against struggling West Brom at Goodison on Saturday did nothing to suggest that things are improving at Goodison, and the game will sadly be remembered more for the horrific double leg break suffered by James McCarthy, in an accidental collision with Salomon Rondon. We wish James a full and speedy recovery.

Don’t forget to tune into ‘In On Goal’ every Friday for your weekly football fix with previews and predictions of the weekend’s Premier League action.