At the end of every round of fixtures, BBC football pundit Garth Crooks is on hand to give you his Team of the Week.
Here are this week’s choices and, as ever, Garth has also given his view on the game’s big talking points in the Crooks of the Matter.
Sam Johnstone (Crystal Palace): It might be Manchester United’s worst start to a league campaign for 34 years but Johnstone won’t lose a wink of sleep over that. In fact the Palace keeper is somewhat responsible for that rather damning statistic.
Johnstone kept United at bay as the home side tried to crank up the pressure. Two memorable saves, the first from Bruno Fernandes and the second a blistering header from Rasmus Hojlund, supported by some quite brilliant defending by the likes of Marc Guehi and Tyrick Mitchell, produced a memorable result for the Eagles.
I must say at this point Palace manager Roy Hodgson is defying all logic. He seems to have once again quietly rejuvenated the London club.
Craig Dawson (Wolves): Seeing Pep Guardiola having to watch his team from the stands due to his touchline ban should have told us something. This was a bad afternoon for Manchester City and matters got progressively worse as the day wore on.
The ball from Ruben Dias was matched by the cross-field volley from Matheus Nunes but the clearance by Wolves defender Dawson, as Erling Haaland was about to tap the ball home, was magnificent.
Dawson went on to clear another certain goal off the line just as the champions looked as though they were back in control of the match. Wolves defended brilliantly on the day and Dawson in particular. They reduced arguably the best striker in the world to one genuine strike on goal.
Tom Lockyer (Luton Town): I’m not entirely sure if this win by Luton is a commentary on how good the visitors were to pick up their first ever win in the Premier League or how poor Everton were in front of goal. What is it with Everton and home matches? They’ve lost seven out of their past eight.
Wales centre-back Lockyer showed the sort of grit and determination his team will need to stay in this league when he pounced on a rebound off the Everton crossbar. Ashley Young required two touches to clear the danger but the Luton captain had no intention of letting him have more than one, and promptly stuck the ball in the back of the net.
Lockyer should have scored earlier when he rose above the Everton defence and couldn’t control the header from going over the bar, but later made amends. In the scheme of things this was a very important win by the Hatters away from home.
Joachim Andersen (Crystal Palace): I was a little surprised by the heavy nature of Palace 3-0 ‘s defeat in midweek against Manchester United in the Carabao Cup. However having seen Hodgson’s selection for that fixture I could see why they lost.
Their team on Tuesday night didn’t look remotely like the one that beat United 1-0 in the Premier League four days later. Their performance on Saturday was also unrecognisable from the one they produced in midweek.
As for the goal by Andersen, I could hardly believe what I saw, and it’s the second time I have seen the Denmark international score this season while keeping a clean sheet at the same time.
This was a very impressive away performance by Palace and they don’t seem to be missing Wilfried Zaha. In fact I’m starting to think Palace look better without him. They certainly look less complicated.
Conor Gallagher (Chelsea): This is more like it. Chelsea looked, and for the very first time this season, like a team that had some serious money spent on it. Manager Mauricio Pochettino hadn’t taken a scalpel to shape his squad against Fulham on Monday night – more like a machete with 12 first-team players out injured.
Five of his subs had never kicked a ball in the first team before while Mykhailo Mudryk and Armando Broja looked a useful partnership up-front. Thiago Silva and Levi Colwill looked comfortable at the back while Moses Caicedo is clearly going to have an impact on the team.
However nothing prepared me for the way Gallagher performed at Craven Cottage. The newly installed Chelsea captain didn’t just cover every blade of grass but also played with a maturity that justified the role. Fulham’s manager Marco Silva looked dazed by the end of this encounter and had every right to be as Chelsea had just blitzed his team.
Douglas Luiz (Aston Villa): The ease with which he struck the ball to score his fifth consecutive home league goal in the 6-1 win over Brighton said it all for me. This player has been a revelation for Aston Villa since the arrival of Unai Emery.
I always thought it would have been Philippe Coutinho who would be setting the scene alight at Villa Park, but it’s another Brazilian who seems to be doing that right now.
Luiz is playing out of his skin at the moment, meanwhile the team don’t look out of place in the top six. Something mildly exciting is going on at the Villa and with another couple of additions in January who knows what they could achieve.
Martin Odegaard (Arsenal): This was more of a stroll down memory lane than a walk in the park for Arsenal away at Bournemouth.
Two penalties given away needlessly by Bournemouth due to defenders making challenges recklessly in their own box. Why they felt the need to go to ground when the player on the ball still had so much to do remains a mystery to me.
Odegaard put one of the penalties away before being brought down for another and then providing the perfect cross for Ben White to add Arsenal’s fourth goal.
This means no win for Bournemouth in their opening seven league games with Everton, Wolves and Burnley to come. It doesn’t look good for the Cherries at the moment. I wonder if Bournemouth are starting to regret parting ways with Gary O’Neil?
Yves Bissouma (Tottenham): For the second consecutive week Bissouma makes my team selection. The Malian was at the heart of Tottenham’s performance against a hard-done-by Liverpool.
The decision by referee Simon Hooper to send off Curtis Jones was a poor one. At first glance you can be forgiven for thinking that the tackle was a bad one because you see Jones make contact with Bissouma.
However, the Liverpool’s player’s foot moves with the momentum of the ball, and that momentum then carries Jones’s foot into Bissouma. Hooper should have seen this on the replay and didn’t, which is most concerning – a yellow card was plenty.
No sooner do Liverpool feel the effect of one injustice when another one comes along, but the video assistant referee (VAR) remained conspicuously silent. Luis Diaz’s superb strike was ruled offside when you could see from the naked eye it was a perfectly good goal.
Carlton Morris (Luton Town): Whatever concerns I may have about Luton Town’s ability to survive in the Premier League, credit where credit is due, there can be no doubt about the quality of the finish by Morris against Everton.
Luton needed that second goal at Everton in order to take victory, and long may it continue if they have any chance of securing points in future fixtures. The question is where are all their goals going to come from? Morris can’t score all of them.
Bournemouth are a similar-sized club and were in a comparable position some years ago. They had Callum Wilson who has gone on and built an international career for himself having adjusted to the Premier League, and they created an outstanding manager in Eddie Howe who is now managing in the Champions League, so we have seen what can be achieved.
Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa): What on earth happened to Brighton? Three goals conceded in 15 minutes. As for Aston Villa’s Watkins – everything he touched seemed to turn gold. I’ve seen better hat-tricks but players who score three goals in a match invariably make my team selection.
When it’s going for you, it’s going for you. Watkins’ first goal was a side foot after a decent cross from Matty Cash; the second he scuffed and I can’t for the life of me understand why keeper Jason Steele didn’t do better to get a hand to the ball. The third was a deflected shot.
I don’t know if Watkins plays the lottery but I suggest he buys a ticket this week, because the way his luck is going anything is possible.
Miguel Almiron (Newcastle): I can’t watch Almiron score a goal like the one he got against Burnley and not put him in my team. We’ve seen him do this before, but just when I was beginning to think the Paraguay international was starting to run out of the spectacular he comes up with the most glorious finish.
Meanwhile, I can’t help but agree with Vincent Kompany in that Burnley have had a very unfortunate fixture schedule. They have already played three teams out of the top six and Newcastle who are in the Champions League.
Even though the Clarets have looked competent throughout, their next few games, including Luton away, will be telling
The Crooks of the Matter
We were told that any offside decision made by VAR was irrefutable and that we could trust the science.
It would appear, having seen Diaz’s superb strike ruled offside and Liverpool denied a share of the spoils against Tottenham, we can’t in fact trust the operators in charge of the science due to what can only be described as human frailties.
The best of us have suffered from sweaty palms, dryness of the mouth or a lapse in concentration during intense moments, but assistance is often at hand to get you through the moment.
However when the entire system comes crashing down then we have a problem, and with it a far greater question is posed: to what extent has this apparent system failure affected other fixtures in the past?
It’s not that long ago retired referee Mike Dean declared that he failed to correct a mistake in a match to save his friend and fellow official Anthony Taylor from extra “grief”. When I first read this comment I thought it must be a joke… ‘save his friend from extra grief’?
Match officials have always made mistakes but they have been honest mistakes. The integrity of the game has always been held in the hands of our match officials and so it should remain.
However when mistakes are made they need to be rectified immediately without fear or favour, and our officials should not be afraid that the science or the technology might expose their human frailties.
The game has always had the capacity to forgive the honest mistake and that should never change.
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