The Football Faithful
·7 October 2024
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Yahoo sportsThe Football Faithful
·7 October 2024
Our weekly Premier League awards honour the best – and worst – of the football action from the weekend.
All football games are a game of two halves, but not always quite like Brighton vs Tottenham. Spurs seemed out of sight at half-time with a slick performance from the visitors rewarded with a healthy cushion, as the in-form Brennan Johnson and James Maddison put the North Londoners 2-0 up at the break. While not quite job done, the game certainly felt over.
Brighton, however, are made of sterner stuff. Yankuba Minteh’s goal three minutes after the restart breathed life into the Amex Stadium, before Georginio Rutter equalised just ten minutes later. With Ange Postecoglou’s side against the ropes, Brighton completed the comeback when Danny Welbeck headed home from Rutter’s cross, a sweet moment for the evergreen ex-Arsenal forward.
Postecoglou’s thunderous stare painted a thousand words. The Australian declared this as the worst defeat of his Tottenham tenure.
Bukayo Saka is quite brilliant. There seems to be a trend towards dismissing the Arsenal winger of world-class status, but the numbers do not lie. In Europe’s top five leagues this season, Saka leads from the front for assists (7), chances created (13) and key passes (27).
Last weekend, Saka became the first Premier League player in a decade to take seven shots and create seven chances in a single game against Leicester. This weekend, he did it again against Southampton.
After playing the pass for Kai Havertz’s opener, a wonderful back-post cross picked out Gabriel Martinelli for Arsenal’s second. He sealed the comeback win with a third of his own, slammed in on his ‘weaker’ right ride.
It’s easy to forget that Saka is still just 23 years old. He now has more Premier League assists (42) than Arsenal great Robert Pires.
Saka’s starring role wasn’t enough to entertain everyone, however, with sub ‘keeper Neto taking time out of the clash to catch up on some rest…
Hits don’t come much sweeter than this.
Jeremy Doku sealed three points for Manchester City this weekend with a fabulous finish against Fulham, a strike that sped and swerved past Bernd Leno in a flash.
Take a bow, Raul Jimenez.
The Mexican’s magical assist saw Fulham threaten a shock at Manchester City, as Jimenez audaciously assisted Andreas Pereira’s opener with a brilliant back-heel. Exquisite.
It’s fair to say the Everton fans enjoyed this one.
Jordan Pickford was the hero with a penalty save from pantomime villain Anthony Gordon, as the ex-Evertonian saw his spot-kick stopped in the goalless draw with Newcastle at Goodison Park. Gordon is far from the most popular player in these parts and the Toffees took delight in seeing him falter.
Yeah, this is a made up award but James Ward-Prowse’s dismissal at Chelsea is an all-timer. After his mis-control left the Nottingham Forest midfielder in all sorts of trouble, Ward-Prowse went into rugby-mode to stop Nicolas Jackson from racing through. The end result was inevitable.
No matter how hard Tottenham try to leave the Spursy jibes behind, it always seems to come back and haunt them…
It’s uncanny.