🦁 Premier League Player of the Week: Running down the wing | OneFootball

There were two big derby day victories over the weekend but it was a player from one of the other matches who had us on the edge of our seat.

And our Player of the Week is …

Kaoru Mitoma (Brighton)

Mitoma, Mitoma, running down the wing.

The Japanese shared a side of the pitch with Mo Salah at Brighton on Saturday but the chant the Liverpool fans serenade their Egyptian King with would have been much more fitting had it come from the home crowd this time around.

Right now, there is perhaps no more exciting wide player in the Premier League than Mitoma.

And why would there be? He’s studied the art of playing on the flank.

An Athletic article at the end of last week saw Mitoma talk about his time at university and his choice to write a thesis on dribbling effectively.

“There were no rules on how much to write, but I progressed with it by analysing my team-mates that were good and not-so-good dribblers and trying to find out why that was,” the 25-year-old explained. “I put cameras on the heads of my team-mates to study where and what they were looking at and how their opponents were looking at them.

“I learned that the good players weren’t looking at the ball. They would look ahead, trap the ball without looking down at their feet. That was the difference.”

The research has paid off.

There was no goal or assist for Mitoma against Liverpool but he repeatedly put Jürgen Klopp’s side on the back foot when the ball arrived with him on the left.

Whether breaking into space or driving at a set defence, Mitoma was assured and aggressive, driving outside, jinking outside, and giving Trent Alexander-Arnold a nightmare.

And while there was no reward in the form of end product, the winger set the tone for Brighton to dominate.

His first season in England is going well and there is surely plenty more to come.