Premier League embarrassment meter: Ranking Manchester United, Tottenham and other bottom half clubs

Usually at this stage of the Premier League season teams hovering around 12th place would scarcely merit recognition. Unmoored from the European hopefuls, but without risk of relegation, they would be England’s forgotten middlemen. Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth. Roy Hodgson’s Crystal Palace. Wolves between late stage Nuno Espirito Santo and Gary O’Neill.

But have you seen the names in the nethersphere this season? These are some of the grand old dames of the Premier League. Three never-relegated sides. One tracking for 19 of 20 seasons among English footballing elite. (There has been much debate over whether Crystal Palace merit a spot in this piece but they’ve been back in the big time for a decade so let’s take a look.) And two of them, Manchester United and Everton, are squaring off this weekend.

All of which means that it’s a great time for schadenfreude. The lower midtable and upper relegation regions are glowing with embarrassment eleganza realness, but who has the most to be ashen face over? We donned our lab coats, stuck the Bunsen burner on full flames and came up with CBS Sports’ first (and likely last) Premier League embarrassment-o-meter. And yes we all know Manchester United are going to break the scale but who comes second? That’s something, right? Please read on. Please…

12th, Tottenham, 30 pts

Do you want to say it or shall Ange? It’s all about the injuries you fools. And look, he has a point. In fact he has 17 of them in the 16 Premier League games since Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven went down, as well as the Premier League’s 16th best expected goal difference. Guglielmo Vicario and Destiny Udogie have been missing too and Postecoglou’s defense of his side’s form in that time has been compelling. To be without 80 percent of your starting backline is a challenge that would arguably be beyond any team.

The counter argument is that Arsenal’s attack has been battered and they are still second, that Manchester City’s disastrous, injury-plagued season still has them in the mix for Champions League qualification next season. Those are the teams Spurs aspire to assess themselves against. The Gunners, however, might have the same issues if they lost William Saliba and Gabriel for two and a half months. Postecoglou’s system necessitates center backs who can cover huge spaces behind them. Few teams are going to have backups who can do that anywhere near as well as Van de Ven and Romero.

Where it gets somewhat embarrassing for Tottenham is Postecoglou’s insistence that that approach would never change. It has. More ballast has been added to midfield, the defensive line has dropped deeper. It’s not who they are and you can tell. That is not the only time Spurs have been hoisted by their manager’s comments. The Europa League is still a live concern but you can already hear Postecoglou’s insistence that he always wins trophies in his second season soundtracking clips from their hammering by Liverpool, Aston Villa and A N continental opponent.

Embarrassment-o-meter rating: 3/5

13th — Crystal Palace, 30 pts

Honestly, they’re here because it looked weirder to leave them out. Sure there’s something faintly awkward for the Palace faithful about how this season has gone. Their rise up the table with Oliver Glasner in the spring of 2024 had fans hoping they would no longer have to settle for midtable and maybe a cup run. Now, well, that Millwall game looks quite fun? A few lucky breaks from the draw and Wembley awaits.

Anyway, a season of retrenchment was perhaps to be expected — admittedly not by this writer — given the departure of Michael Olise and Joachim Andersen. It took time but Maxence Lacroix looks a sterling replacement for the latter and while players like Olise might come along only once a decade, Palace’s recruitment in the Football League gives them the best possible chance of improving those odds. So yeah, it’s all fine.

Embarrassment-o-meter rating: 1/5

14th — Everton, 30 pts

Are you kidding me? Just think about the ignominy this season could have inflicted on Evertonians. Drawing the curtain up on their new stadium in the Championship wasn’t even the worst of it. At least then this club would be a going concern. Until the Friedkin Group took the reigns from Farhad Moshiri, that was not a guarantee.

The new owners were not intent on playing it safe. Sacking survival specialist Sean Dyche for David Moyes really could have backfired. Instead, the new boss has the look of a returning hero, a man who might bring with him the promise that good times are coming back for the blue part of Merseyside. If they feel anything like as giddy as James Tarkowski’s equalizer against Liverpool then the Moyesiah memes are going to be delicious.

So yes a team with Everton’s rich history should be aspiring for a bit more than 14th but a team with Everton’s current playing staff, who have spent years with one hand tied behind their back. They should be hailing this season to the rafters.

Embarrassment-o-meter rating: 0/5

15th — Manchester United, 29 pts

If you want an instance to encapsulate Manchester United as they are now, it would be the news that chief executive Omar Berrada has threatened to sack any employee found leaking to the press, a story you will find in… the Daily Telegraph. A year after Sir Jim Ratcliffe finalised his investment to become minority owner and human shield for the Glazers, there is little sign of structural improvement. Ratcliffe is pinching the pennies of bonuses for stewards and staff trips to the FA Cup final while over $18 million has been burned through in the sacking of Dan Ashworth and Erik ten Hag.

One might have assumed that moving on from a manifestly ineffective head coach would have solved things but United have built such an imbalanced squad that Ruben Amorim, considered one of the outstanding young tacticians in Europe, can’t get a tune out of it. Already they are rapidly approaching the stage where they have to decide if they want to build a squad for a coach who is averaging a point a game in the Premier League, one whose tactical approach necessitates a player pool that may look extremely cumbersome in the hands of whoever comes next.

You’d think the cash would at least be on hand to fund an Amorim rebuild but they continue to pay the price of their deluge of bad signings. Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee have cost well over $100 million between them and yet United still desperately need a center forward. It is hard to see how United fund several starter level purchases like that one without gritting their teeth and selling one of their bright young things, the sort you’re supposed to rebuild around.

This barely even scratches the surface. There’s the beatdowns by Bournemouth, Brighton and Crystal Palace, the diabolical defending of set pieces, the tone deaf management of ticketing strategy. The harsh truth is that United are 15th in the Premier League not because they’ve been unlucky but because they’ve got the results their performances deserve. About the only issue with putting United so high on the embarrassment-o-meter is that their supporters are entitled to feel much more belligerent to their club than just that.

Embarrassment-o-meter rating: 5/5

16th, West Ham, 27 pts

Frankly West Ham should be grateful for Manchester United’s presence just above them, shielding them from an awful lot of wider opprobrium. This is not a club short on resources nor one afraid to spend money, over $150 million in the summer. Precious little of it was well spent and it was no wonder that technical director Tim Steidten left earlier this month, leaving such misfires as Niclas Fullkrug, Konstantinos Mavropanos and Luis Guilherme in his wake. Then again the transfer business had the look of too many cooks from the start, Max Killman signed at great expense to reunite with Julen Lopetegui, who had little in his track record to suggest he’d really be an upgrade on Moyes.

Graham Potter seems to have found the same problems that his predecessors had. West Ham’s is a weirdly constructed squad. You could scarcely wish for more talent in attacking midfield, where Lucas Paqueta, Mohamed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen would enhance some of the finest squads in Europe. Behind them, though, it has been apparent for some time that Edson Alvarez is no successor to Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek is miscast when played deeper. It was deeply unfortunate that Michail Antonio’s car crash in December sidelined the club’s record Premier League scorer for the long term but for years West Ham have needed more at striker, something they did not get until Evan Ferguson arrived on a deadline day loan.

Two years ago West Ham had something to build off. They were going to lose Declan Rice, certainly, but they were also about to win European silverware after several years of being in the mix. There was money to be spent, a stadium that for all its experiential flaws delivers great revenue and a capital city to sell to prospective signings. Since then West Ham have gone backwards at such a pace that, even if they will almost certainly be fine this season, there is a real cause for concern that if things don’t go right in the summer Potter could find himself scrapping at the wrong end of the table in eight or nine months’ time.

Embarrassment-o-meter rating: 4/5