The second round of Premier League matches came to an end with Liverpool‘s victory over Crystal Palace. There were many contrasting individual performances from certain players, and we look at the two best and worst players from this past weekend.
Winner: David Silva
Manchester City’s Spanish maestro David Silva played his first game of the season against Huddersfield and was unstoppable as his side cruised to a 6-1 win.
Silva delivered six key passes during the course of the game and even scored from a sumptuous free-kick to open his goal-scoring account for the season.
Also read: Manchester City eyeing a move for Portuguese midfield star
In Kevin de Bruyne’s absence, Silva took over as the chief creative outlet. With players like Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan around him, Huddersfield could do nothing as the Spaniard was composed on the ball and made things tick in the attacking third.
Loser: Mesut Ozil
Arsenal showed some good grit and fight in the London derby against Chelsea as they clawed their way back from being 2-0 down to 2-2 at halftime. However, they failed to maintain the same intensity in the second half and Mesut Ozil’s horrendous performance was one of the major talking points from Arsenal’s loss.
Ozil was tasked with drifting in from the flanks and hence had to put in a shift off the ball. He failed to show the energy or intent and did not try to close down Jorginho, who dictated Chelsea’s play with his composed presence in midfield. The German hardly tried to recover the ball when he lost possession to Jorginho and that sort of summed up his afternoon.
Creatively, he was limited too and his demeanour was extremely uninspiring for a player of his experience and stature.
Winner: Naby Keita
Liverpool made it two wins in as many games and Naby Keita once again had an impressive outing in midfield.
Capable of playing in both advanced as well as the defensive midfield positions, Keita controlled the flow of the game from midfield, displaying his energy and was a good creative outlet in the match. He provided one key pass and took two shots on target, and completed one successful dribble too.
Also read: Liverpool Boss In No Mood To Pull Any Favours For Ex-club
Moreover, he put in five tackles and that demonstrates his ability to break the play and then swiftly convert defensive scenarios into attacking moves with his incisive passing. The Guinean has adapted quickly to life in the Premier League, and that is a promising sign for Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
Loser: Paul Pogba
Manchester United’s shock defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion meant that Jose Mourinho’s side dropped three crucial points against a relatively weaker opponent. United’s major weakness last season was the inability to take advantage in matches against opposition from the bottom half of the table.
From what we’ve seen so far, that could be a problem again this season. A major culprit for the same was Paul Pogba.
The Frenchman, who was excellent in United’s victory over Leicester despite only arriving in training a few days earlier, endured a disappointing outing, thus displaying the worrying signs of inconsistency in regard to his performances.
He was unable to control the proceedings from the midfield, and despite a couple of good moments, his performance left a lot to be desired.
Pogba, who was captaining the team against the Seagulls, admitted that his attitude was poor. Though the admission was fine, he can ill-afford to let his tempo drop considering the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool are off to fliers.
Stats via Whoscored
