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• Chelsea quartet left at home as Bompastor rotates squad for Celtic clash

  Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor has said that they will be without four key players ahead of their Champions League game away to Celtic on Wednesday.

  Bompastor confirmed that Millie Bright, Mayra Ramirez, Sjoeke Nusken and Kadeisha Buchanan have not travelled to Scotland for their encounter at Celtic Park.

  The Blues know a victory will seal their progression to the knockout stages, though have decided to rest a few of their key players during a hectic fixture schedule. 

  Their trip to Scotland will be the second of three matches inside seven days in all competitions for Bompastor's side and, as a result, she has decided to rotate her squad.

  "The squad is in a good place and we have a good dynamic and we are full of confidence," she told a press conference

  "We have been playing a lot of games and this week we play three games so it’s important to manage players as individuals.

  “We have some players who didn’t travel for this game. Kadeisha Buchanan, Millie Bright, Sjoeke Nusken and Mayra Ramirez didn’t travel."

  Chelsea come into the game with a 100% record in all competitions under Bompastor, including two wins from two against Real Madrid and Twente in the Champions League.

  And they will be confident of maintaining their perfect run, having lost just one of their previous 20 group stage matches in the competition (W14 D5) and are unbeaten across their last 14 (W11 D3). 

  “As you know, Chelsea have a good squad with quality and a good team will start the game and be competitive because we want to finish first in this group," she said.

  Their early-season form has them second in the Women's Super League and top of their Champions League group, at least three points ahead of any other team.

  Despite resting players, Bompastor reassured people that it was Chelsea's ambition to fight on all fronts.

  “The Champions League is important and we have ambition and we want to make sure we finish first in the group," she said.

  “We have ambitions and if we want to go for all the competitions then you need to beat every team.

  “It will start again in March and that’s when the really important games start, but right now we are focused on the group stage.”

• Premier League MD11: Lucky winners and unlucky losers

  The final international break of 2024 is here, and we can safely say the Premier League is starting to take shape.

  Opta's supercomputer now has Liverpool, who are five points clear at the top following their win over Aston Villa on Saturday, as the favourites to go on and win the title.

  Manchester City lost a fourth straight game in all competitions as they went down 2-1 at Brighton, while Chelsea and Arsenal are third and fourth respectively after sharing the points.

  When assessing the underlying metrics, it looks like Sunday's draw at Stamford Bridge was a fair result, but that was not the case across the board this weekend.

  Here, we pick out the lucky winners and unlucky losers from matchday 11.

  Lucky winners: Manchester United

  Manchester United are now under new management, with Ruben Amorim officially starting as head coach on Monday. But interim boss Ruud van Nistelrooy ensured he went out with a high as the Red Devils beat Leicester City 3-0 on Sunday.

  However, it is fair to say United were rather fortunate to net three times at Old Trafford, with the data suggesting they did not even create chances worthy of one goal, never mind three.

  United's expected goals (xG) was 0.69, the third-lowest total in the league this weekend and behind Leicester's 0.77.

  Bruno Fernandes scored one and set up another on his 250th appearance for the club, either side of Victor Kristiansen's own goal, but from 13 shots, United, who had only 17 touches in Leicester's box, really did not create much in the way of quality opportunities.

  Indeed, their attacking quality instead told, with Fernandes and Alejandro Garnacho finishing well. At the other end, Leicester failed to make their moments count, despite hitting the target with five of their six shots.

  Spare a thought for Erik ten Hag, given when he was in charge, United's attack was underperforming. Now Amorim just needs to pick up where Van Nistelrooy left off...

  Unlucky losers: Manchester City

  Man City are suddenly the crisis club, having lost four straight games for the first time since August 2006. Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, has lost four games in a row in all competitions for the very first time in his managerial career.

  Erling Haaland also lost a Premier League match in which he scored a goal for the very first time, having put City ahead before Joao Pedro and Matt O'Riley clinched the points for Brighton.

   

  Brighton finished with 2.29 xG, so they did deserve to score at least twice. However, City can still consider themselves unfortunate, given their 2.22 xG was the third-highest of any team across the weekend.

  Their post-shot expected goals on target (xGoT) also rose to 2.98, showing that Brighton goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen was on fine form.

  City also created five big chances, missing four of them, and hit the woodwork once. That being said, they conceded eight big chances, with Brighton letting them off for six of those, so it was not a good day at the office for Guardiola.

  Unlucky losers: Bournemouth

  If Man City were unfortunate, then the team to have created the highest xG (2.61) this past weekend – Bournemouth – can consider themselves hard done by.

  Andoni Iraola claimed his team were worthy of the three points against Brentford, despite the Cherries losing 3-2, and the underlying metrics suggest the Spaniard was fair in his assessment.

   

  Only Tottenham (35 in their loss against Ipswich Town) had more touches in the opponent's box than Bournemouth's 34 at the Gtech Community Stadium, but Iraola's side were made to pay for some dismal finishing.

  Their xGoT dropped to 1.68, while Brentford's rose from 1.48 xG to 1.84 xGoT – essentially, the level of finishing from Brentford's players increased the likelihood they would score, while Bournemouth's finishing was below what would have been anticipated based on the quality of chances they had. That is further backed up by the fact the Cherries only got three of their 15 attempts on target.

• Bournemouth deserved to topple Brentford in thriller, claims Iraola

  Andoni Iraola was insistent that Bournemouth "didn't deserve to lose" as a 3-2 defeat at Brentford saw them travel back to the south coast with nothing to show for a decent performance.

  Bournemouth had taken the lead twice, first through Evanilson and then Justin Kluivert, but could not hold on either time.

  Yoane Wissa's brace and a goal from Mikkel Damsgaard handed Brentford the three points, as the Bees bounced back from their late capitulation to Fulham on Monday.

  Iraola's team had the better of the chances, creating 2.6 expected goals (xG) to Brentford's 1.5, and the Spaniard felt the result was not a reflection of Bournemouth's display.

  "I don't think we deserved to lose today. I think we were better for most of the game. Probably, they've been more efficient than us in the key moments, and they've made the difference," Iraola told BBC Radio Solent.

  "We had very, very clear chances to score. We played really well again. The problem is when you lose, people always say, 'No, but you lost.' Against Everton [a 3-2 win in August], we played much worse, but we won, and it looks much different.

  "Overall, we've been the better team, especially in the first half. I was very happy with the performance in the first half.

  "We hit the crossbar at the end, and I think there was a clear penalty to Evanilson to score and make it 3-3, but we couldn’t do it."

  Bournemouth's Brazilian striker Evanilson netted his third goal in as many games, making him the first Bournemouth player to score in three successive league games since Dominic Solanke in December last year.

  Evanilson had shouts for a penalty denied on the hour mark after it appeared Ethan Pinnock had caught his leg, and Iraola was not satisfied with the explanation he received from the officials.

  "They tell us he kicks himself, but he kicks himself because he was kicked. To me, it is very clear and obvious, but to them, they don't think so," he explained.

  Thomas Frank concurred with Iraola's assessment of the visitor's strong first-half performance but praised his side's fightback.

  "The bounce-back mentality was unbelievably good. Maybe even more impressive than if we had won 3-0 because we actually played badly in the first 20 minutes. Bournemouth were better than us," he told Sky Sports.

  "We gave them clearly the first goal and then one or two other chances. But after that goal we stepped up and we found some of that great bounce-back mentality."

  While Brentford are scoring plenty, they have shipped 12 goals in their last five games, though Frank is keen to focus on the positives.

  "The positive is that we are a very dangerous team going forward," he said.

  "We must be up there [as a team that's scored the most goals]. That is incredible. We are Brentford. I think that is insanely good. I think people don't understand how good it is.

  "But of course, I am also very ambitious and I would love us to win 3-0 today."