Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday The Athletic discusses three of the biggest questions posed by the weekend’s Premier League action.

During this set of fixtures, Darwin Nunez rebooted his navigation software to lift Liverpool past Brentford, Arsenal gave up a late two-goal lead over Aston Villa to lose ground, Nottingham Forest continued to thrill, Manchester City romped back into the top four and the bottom three all lost (again).

But here, after another defeat at Everton, we will ask whether Tottenham’s biggest problem is their manager or the man who hired him, what Manchester United could learn from the most recent mid-table team to beat them and why Andoni Iraola is destined for a bigger stage than Bournemouth.

Surely, someone must go at Tottenham — but who?

We all know the answer to this one: football clubs cannot sack their players and firing the assistant-kit manager is unlikely to elicit the desired reaction.

So, despite winning three straight manager-of-the-month awards last season, returning Spurs to European competition and providing plenty of entertainment for neutrals over the last 18 months, Ange Postecoglou’s days as Tottenham boss look numbered.

A 3-2 defeat at Everton on Sunday, which was not as close as the scoreline suggests, means they have picked up only one point from their last six league games and remain stuck in 15th, one place and four points better off than their most recent conqueror but on track to match the club’s worst league finish for 31 years.

Given the fact that better returns did not keep Mauricio Pochettino, Nuno Espirito Santo and Antonio Conte in the job, Postecoglou cannot claim that speculation about his future is unfounded. And his pleas for patience are not helped by the fact Everton just demonstrated what a fresh(ish) face and change of voice can do for a squad low on confidence.

But is it really all Ange’s fault? Was it his predecessors’ fault, too?

Tottenham have had top-six revenues and wage bills for a quarter of a century but still only won one trophy, the 2008 League Cup, during that time.

Where they have led the way, though, is on executive pay. Year after year, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy tops that ranking. The 62-year-old, who joined the board in December 2000, gave himself a pay package worth £6.5million ($7.9m) last season, including a £3m bonus.

Daniel Levy cuts a glum figure at Goodison Park (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

OK, during his reign, Tottenham have built a new training ground and the best stadium in the country, and the club now boast soaring revenues (mainly thanks to that stadium). But he has also burned through 11 permanent managers, run up record levels of debt, posted financial losses for the last four years and sparked rows with his most loyal customers about ticket prices and concessions.

Maybe the problem is not whoever is in the dugout, it’s the bloke who keeps hiring and firing them?

Chairmen do not sack themselves, of course, particularly when they own big stakes in the business. But Levy had a front-row seat in the directors’ box at Goodison Park so he cannot have missed the “Levy Out” chants from the away end.

Levy runs Tottenham because he owns a third of the investment firm, ENIC, which owns the club. But Joe Lewis, his partner at ENIC, is now 87 and has passed his shares in the business to a family trust. And, for the last year, the Lewis family, who have always been open to offers, have actively been looking for a buyer for their stake.

Perhaps it is time for Levy to realise it is time for him to cash in his chips and let someone else have a go, too.

GO DEEPER

Daniel Levy’s Tottenham are seeking on-field vindication and off-field change

Manchester United need to accept their place – and learn

As bad as Manchester United have been at times this season, they are very unlikely to be relegated.

So, no, Ruben Amorim, the team you have chosen to manage is not the worst in the club’s history — United have been relegated five times in their history, so that is at least five sides this lot are better than.

But we all know what Amorim is getting at, don’t we?

Three wins in their last 10 league games, four defeats in five at home, 13th in the table, seven points behind 10th-placed Fulham.

But what do we expect? That is exactly where you would expect to find a team that Brighton beat home and away, lose at West Ham and Wolves and get thumped, at home, by Bournemouth. They even lost to Spurs.

Ruben Amorim did not pull his punches on Manchester United after their latest defeat (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Manchester United are bang average. Actually, Fulham are average, so they are not even that good.

Now we have cleared that up, let’s focus on how they might snap out of this slumber.

Well, for starters, they could take a good hard look at Brighton, a team that have spent most of their history in the third tier of English football but have recently become part of the Premier League furniture thanks to clear leadership, targeted investment and smart recruitment.

Obviously, Manchester United should have greater ambitions than a comfortable existence in English football’s top tier but some humility would not go amiss at the moment, which means acknowledging that the likes of Brighton are better than them right now, on and off the pitch.

Amorim is not to blame for this state of affairs but he is partly responsible for fixing it. He needs help from above, of course, and it is at that level where the improvement is most needed. Sir Jim Ratcliffe may only have been in overall control for a year but so far the gap between mission statements and tangible results is stark.

In contrast, Brighton’s owner Tony Bloom barely says a word publicly. He does not need to, we can all see the results.

Anyone know where an underperforming giant might find their next coach?

I know this one!

In fact, so does everyone else who has been paying attention to what has been happening 90 miles west of Brighton for the last season and a half.

When Bournemouth’s new owner Bill Foley replaced the popular Gary O’Neil with Andoni Iraola in the summer of 2023, the consensus view was “what are you doing?”

O’Neil led Bournemouth to Premier League survival on the back of five wins in seven games, including crucial victories over the club’s relegation rivals.

But having made his fortune in financial services, Foley is an underlying numbers guy. He knew that the unheralded guy who had made unfashionable Rayo Vallecano a tough opponent for every team in La Liga was a better bet.

Nine winless league games into last season, that bet looked like a bust. But then Bournemouth beat Burnley and everything started to make sense. By the end of the season, Bournemouth had 12 more league wins and had climbed to 12th, with a record points haul.

That record is unlikely to last long, though, as Bournemouth’s 4-1 win over Newcastle United on Saturday was their 10th in 22 league games and took them to seventh in the table. But this was no ordinary away win.

Newcastle went into the game as favourites. One, they had won nine straight games. Two, in Alexander Isak they had the hottest striker in the country. And three, Bournemouth were missing 10 players through injury.

Faced with those odds, Iraola laughed and said words to the effect of “we attack at dawn” (almost literally, as the coaches taking Bournemouth’s fans on the 350-mile trip north left at 2am).

Andoni Iraola is a coveted coaching talent (George Wood/Getty Images)

With nine youngsters on the bench and central midfielder Lewis Cook at right-back, Iraola told his players to stick to their hard-running, high-pressing, up-tempo game and blitz Newcastle from the off. By the time Justin Kluivert scored the first of his three goals in the sixth minute, they should have been two up already.

Kluivert, whose famous dad Patrick once played for Newcastle, obviously got most of the post-match plaudits, but Ryan Christie and David Brooks were immense in midfield, Dean Huijsen and Illia Zabarnyi faultless in the heart of defence and what a player left-back Milos Kerkez is.

Earlier this season, I passed on some praise to Foley from a director of football at a rival club. The latter had said Bournemouth were worrying him “because they look like they know what they’re doing”.

“I’d rather they think we don’t know what we’re doing,” replied Foley.

Sorry, Bill, the secret is out. Iraola, and many of your players, are brilliant.

Coming up this week

• We complete this weekend’s menu with a game between two sides badly in need of points but for very different reasons. Chelsea, the hosts, have not won in the league for a month and have been sucked into a scrap for Champions League football next season, while Wolves are fighting for league survival.
• After a month on a diet of domestic games only, European competition returns on Tuesday, with big helpings of Champions League and Europa League football. Top-of-the-table Liverpool host Lille on Tuesday, with Aston Villa visiting Monaco.
• The pick of Wednesday’s fare is Paris Saint-Germain versus Manchester City but not for the reason most would have predicted a few months ago, as this game is between the 25th and 22nd best teams in the Champions League so far this season. A defeat for either would leave that team with major Fear Of Missing Out. Arsenal, third in the rankings, have no such concerns ahead of the visit of Dinamo Zagreb.
• Thursday, as everyone knows, is Europa League day, but this week’s best game is no afterthought as it is a “Battle of Britain” between Manchester United and Rangers. Tottenham will travel in hope to Hoffenheim. And if cross-border clashes, with a North American flavour, are your thing, there is a cracker in League One: Wrexham v Birmingham City.

(Top photo: Getty Images)

Drawing extensively on Willie Lee Rose’s “Rehearsal for Reconstruction,” an influential chronicle of the Union’s early and mixed efforts to assist freed Black Americans, Parten argues that “what came after the march was as much a crucible, as much an ordeal, as the march itself.” Though Sherman triumphantly entered Savannah in December, most of the refugees never entered the city. Instead, they were sent up the coast to Port Royal, the Union outpost on the coast of South Carolina where about 15,000 freed people lived alongside Northerners who had migrated south to serve as educators and missionaries.

There, Brig. Gen. Rufus Saxton, the military governor of the Department of the South, had been ordered to take possession of all plantations previously occupied by rebels and to feed, shelter and generally care for the formerly enslaved. But as 17,000 Georgian refugees arrived, many had to be housed in rough tents, or they slept outdoors, often without blankets. At least 1,000 of them died of exposure.

In this, the second and somewhat more derivative half of his book, which is less about the march than about its aftermath, Parten largely focuses on how the “hopes and failures” of the march persisted, particularly when Sherman and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, in Savannah, met with Garrison Frazier, a formerly enslaved pastor, who told them, “We want to be placed on land until we are able to buy it and make it our own.” Sherman’s subsequent Special Field Order No. 15 allowed freed men and women to settle on a strip of captured land that stretched from Charleston down to Jacksonville, under a provision that came to be known colloquially as “40 acres and a mule.”

Men like Edward Philbrick, one of the Northerners who came to Georgia’s Sea Islands with humanitarian intentions, purchased 11 plantations in the strip, arrogantly assuming that by employing freed people on his property, he would bring about their “elevation.” As Parten rightly observes, Philbrick represents those capitalists who wanted “to reshape the slaveholding South in the image of the North,” with its highhanded, paternalistic privatization of land.

With the aid of a dropped two-point conversion attempt, the Buffalo Bills held on to defeat the Baltimore Ravens, 27-25, on Sunday in the final divisional round game of the weekend.

Ravens tight end Mark Andrews was open on the game-tying two-point try with 1:33 to go but couldn’t haul in the pass from quarterback Lamar Jackson. Buffalo recovered the ensuing on-side kick and secured the victory.

The two-point conversion is no good 😳

📺: #BALvsBUF on CBS
📱: Stream on @NFLPlus and Paramount+ pic.twitter.com/s1DAo0tdm1

— NFL (@NFL) January 20, 2025

The win puts Buffalo in the AFC Championship Game for the second time in five seasons and sets up a matchup next weekend with the Kansas City Chiefs — a nemesis that quarterback Josh Allen and coach Sean McDermott have yet to vanquish in the playoffs.

Allen emerged victorious over Baltimore and Jackson, a fellow MVP candidate, to improve to 7-5 in the postseason. Allen rushed for two scores, while completing 16 of 22 pass attempts for 127 yards (a season low in passing yards in a game where he attempted a pass). Rookie running back Ray Davis added a rushing touchdown as the Bills totaled 147 yards on the ground on the league’s top-ranked rushing defense (80.1 yards per game allowed in the regular season).

The Bills forced three turnovers — an interception and two fumbles. Buffalo’s secondary took a hit when Taylor Rapp was carted to the locker room in the second quarter with a hip injury and did not return.

The Bills will take on the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game next Sunday (6:30 p.m. ET on CBS). In three of the past four seasons, Kansas City has eliminated Buffalo from the playoffs — in the 2020 AFC Championship Game and the 2021 and 2023 AFC divisional rounds. During the 2024 regular season, Buffalo was the only team to defeat the Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes starting at quarterback in a 30-21 home win in Week 11.

GO DEEPER

‘It’s not normal’: Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs make it 7 straight AFC title games

Opportunistic defense delivers takeaways

In a game headlined by MVP co-favorite quarterbacks, Buffalo’s defense stole the show, emerging with several critical stops and takeaways.

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Despite the harrowing finish, Buffalo’s defense quashed Jackson and Derrick Henry for most of the night. Baltimore’s most effective weapon through three quarters was backup tailback Justice Hill, who finished with six carries for 50 yards. Jackson threw an interception to Rapp in the first quarter and fumbled while being sacked by safety Damar Hamlin in the second. Von Miller scooped up the loose ball and ran 39 yards to the Ravens’ 24-yard line. The Bills scored a TD four plays later.

CHAOS ON THE SNAP AND THE BILLS RECOVER 😮

📺: #BALvsBUF on CBS
📱: Stream on @NFLPlus and Paramount+ pic.twitter.com/gZTp8XSn3T

— NFL (@NFL) January 20, 2025

Later, with the Ravens down five points and marching late, Bills linebacker Terrel Bernard peanut-punched the ball away from Andrews after a 16-yard gain and recovered the fumble, a pivotal play. It was Andrews’ first lost fumble since 2019. Buffalo turned that takeaway into a field goal and an eight-point lead with 3:29 to go.

Terrel Bernard forces it.
Terrel Bernard recovers it.@BuffaloBills ball!

📺: #BALvsBUF on CBS
📱: Stream on @NFLPlus and Paramount+ pic.twitter.com/mAjj3dp0Ms

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— NFL (@NFL) January 20, 2025

Linebacker Matt Milano delivered three quarterback hits, waylaid receiver Rashod Bateman on a third-down play to force a field goal and deflected Jackson’s pass on a two-point conversion attempt to tight end Isaiah Likely late in the third quarter. Edge rushers Greg Rousseau and A.J. Epenesa combined for three tackles behind the line of scrimmage. — Tim Graham, Bills senior writer

Buffalo’s ground game comes up big

The Bills’ offense certainly didn’t have their best day, but when the opportunistic Bills’ defense gave them some chances, they held up their part of the bargain. The Bills focused on the running game, and surprisingly so, given how stout the Ravens’ defense had been against the run all season. The Bills found success early in the game with their trio of James Cook, Ty Johnson and Davis. The Ravens put up a better fight to begin the second half, but the Bills kept with it into the fourth quarter which helped set up what wound up being the pivotal field goal from Tyler Bass to put them up eight.

The Bills have one of the best offensive lines in the NFL this year, and they believed in them so much against this Ravens’ defense that they put the game in their hands, and they responded well. And to put the exclamation point on the day, Johnson gained 17 yards and went down to seal the game, sending the Bills to the AFC Championship Game for the first time since the 2020 season. — Joe Buscaglia, Bills beat writer

A date with the Chiefs awaits

The Bills had some nervy moments late in the game, but in the end, they booked their ticket to the AFC Championship Game for the first time since the 2020 season. The Bills finished the year with a perfect record at home and now get a chance to head to the Super Bowl for the first time since the early 1990s. And, because, of course, it’s them, the Bills will move on to face the Chiefs, the very team that has stood in their way over multiple playoff runs.

The last time the Bills were in the AFC Championship Game, the Chiefs turned them away at Arrowhead Stadium. The Bills are now a much different team and have certainly learned their lessons in the playoffs and otherwise. Now they get the chance to beat the final boss at the end of the video game, and finally, for the first time since McDermott became head coach, advance to a round in the playoffs further than the Chiefs. — Buscaglia

Required reading

(Photo: Timothy T Ludwig / Getty Images)