Welcome to The DeBrief, a Sky Sports column in which Adam Bate uses a mix of data and opinion to think about some of the most important stories from the latest Premier League matches. This week:
🔴 Merino is not a natural striker⬇️ How disturbing is the shape of Palmer? 💪 Dominguez's key role for forest
There was a moment halfway through the first half of Arsenal's game to Manchester United when Mikel Merino saw the space open in the left channel and made the run. It was the right run and he received the ball in the penalty box.
It was what happened after that that was revealing. The improvised striker had isolated his marker and had the opportunity to complain Leny Yoro. Succeed in beating him and he was inside. Instead, Merino played the percentages and returned.
It wasn't wrong in itself. Merino Koos Declan Rice and the shot eventually came in from Thomas Pidey. Yet it was impossible not to wonder how this simple passage of playing may have gone very differently with a natural center-forward on the field.
Merino only had one shot. It came from his other touch that afternoon in the penalty box. “The efficiency in the last 20 meters was not good enough,” said Mikel Arteta. Merino even had more touches in his own half of the field than in that specific zone.
As the front three, the start of the trio of Merino, Ethan Nwaneri and Leandro Trossard had nine touches in the Manchester United Box in between. For context, Bukayo Saka is on average nine touches per game in the opposition box this season.
Without Saka that he spends widely, and with Gabriel Martinelli only introduced from the couch for this game, the absence of a real striker is only underlined. Merino's goals against Leicester were welcome, but that is consistently a different matter.
“He came up and got two goals against Leicester and they were good finishes, but you are not going to win the Premier League with him,” former Arsenal favorite Paul Merson told Sky Sports. “He looks lost in advance. He gives you no presence.”
Merino brings qualities. He is actually enough presence to score in the air and on the occasions that he fell deep to link the game that helped Arsenal's dominance. But that lack of penetration in the rear made this easier for the defense of United than it had to be.
That is not on Merino, perhaps not even on Arteta, who tries to find tactical solutions for what a personnel problem is. But as I was illustrated in Old Trafford for 25 minutes at that time, it is an indication of why Arsenal will be short again this season.
How disturbing is Palmer's goal drought?
Chelsea has won each of their last four Premier League matches, which should not be a surprise despite their not convincing shape – they have all been against teams in the bottom five. The surprise is that Cole Palmer has not scored in any of them.
In the 1-0 win against Leicester on Stamford Bridge, Palmer came close – saw his penalty saved by Mads Hermansen. It was one of the five shots of the English international, which extended his series of attempts to 29 without scoring in the competition.
Needless to say, that is more than any other player in the Premier League during this period, one that now extends to seven games in total and 683 minutes of football. Speculation is a lot about why it is that a previously productive player suddenly struggles to score.
The absence of Nicolas Jackson, who is missing for each of the last four Premier League matches from Chelsea since the collection of an injury to West Ham, is a popular explanation for the dip that Palmer has passed since scoring Bournemouth in the mid -January.
“Palmer makes Jackson and Jackson Palmer,” Paul Merson told Sky Sports. “He is a willing player who extends the game and then comes Palmer and gets the ball. He has no movement like Jackson who doesn't make runs.”
However, Jackson's replacement Pedro Neto has actually made more runs than any other player during the Premier League weekend. The problem for Palmer seems to be related to his finish instead of being in the right positions.
His expected target group during this run is 3.48, and ranks him among the top 10 players in the Premier League in terms of the quality of his chances. The other nine players on that list are on average more than five goals each, each of them succeeding at least twice.
The statistical evidence suggests that things will change quickly enough for Palmer and his Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca does not seem to worry about his form – pointing instead to a health problem that was a factor in his performance against Leicester.
“Cole did not train yesterday because he didn't feel good,” said Maresca on Sunday. “This morning he woke up and asked if he could be on the field to help this club play in the Champions League.” Expect that Palmer will do that exactly if he continues to get the opportunities.
Dominguez's key role for forest
Nico Dominguez made eight tackles in the 1-0 victory of Nottingham Forest on Manchester City – twice as much as someone else on the field. A remarkable statistics considering that the 26-year-old Argentinian midfielder was replaced halfway through the second half.
Dominguez has never made tackles in a game in a forest shirt. Indeed, no forest player has made this season in a competition. When asked to praise his full-backs for dealing with City's Flying Wingers, Nuno Espirito Santo Dominguez had his answer in mind.
“Credit for them but also the honor of the help, especially the midfielders to double,” said Nuno in the press conference after the game. “The help, the covers, the double ups were fundamental to have this defensive display.” There were so many examples of this.
The eight tackles were only part of it. There were 82 separate examples of Dominguez that penetrated the city, that this did more regularly than any other player during the Premier League weekend. His work made sure that Ola Aina was not isolated against Jeremy Doku.
Some coaches do their winger to do this work to support the full-back, but that would have made it harder for Anthony Elanga and Callum Hudson-Odoi to get in position to give their own threat to the counterattack for Bos.
Instead, they were given the task of closing the space, forcing city -wide, and Dominguez then had to hire. He covered more land than any other midfielder while he insists, worked to express Doku and limit his impact.
When the winning goal came, thanks to a Harkpas from Morgan Gibbs-White and a finish of Hudson-Odoi, Dominguez had already left. But it would not be exaggerated to say that this victory was largely made possible because of his display.
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