🦁 Premier League Player of the Week: World class at last | OneFootball

It's tight at the top of the Premier League title after another fascinating weekend of action.

And for the third time this season, our Player of the Week is...

Phil Foden (Manchester City)

With just two points separating first and third in the table, it's shaping up to be one of the all-time great Premier League title races.

And it's looking like a pretty interesting race for the Premier League Player of the Season award too.

During Sunday's Manchester derby, it felt like for the first time in his career, boyhood City fan Phil Foden truly threw his hat in the ring where that accolade is concerned.

Foden has been on an upward trajectory for pretty much his entire senior career, but there were times last season and early in this one when it seemed like that trajectory was beginning to flatten out somewhat.

However, the way he took Sunday's game by the scruff of the neck and scored two excellent goals (his sixth and seventh in his last eight matches, taking his tally to a career-high 18 for the season) suggested he has now gone up another level, and perhaps now belongs among the pantheon of the world's very best players.

Foden has oft been heralded as the best pure English talent since Paul Gascoigne, with City manager Pep Guardiola even saying the 23-year-old is the best player he has personally coached since Lionel Messi.

But if we are to compare Foden to Messi, there has been at least one clear distinction between the two which Guardiola summed up neatly after Sunday's game.

"The good players, you can play good - but you have to win games, and I met the biggest ever player like Messi," said Guardiola.

"He can win games and I don't want to compare because Phil is not the level from Leo, but he is winning games."

Foden is not and probably never will be quite on Messi's level, but this season he has added that match-winning ability to his game, and gone from being one of City's many supporting characters to boldly taking on a lead role.

The champions dominated their neighbours in Sunday's derby but at half-time they trailed 1-0 to Marcus Rashford's stunning strike.

It needed a moment of magic to get them back into the game, and that's exactly what Foden delivered with a stunning left-footed strike into the top corner to turn the tide.

There has been much debate about what his best position is. Is he a left winger? A right winger? A number eight? A false nine?

That's a conundrum that Gareth Southgate will be faced with when picking his best XI at this summer's European Championship, especially after Foden showed on Sunday that he can play all four positions equally well, with the England boss watching on from the stands.

It was from the left-hand-side that he scored his second to put City in front, playing a one-two with Julián Álvarez before drilling a shot across goal and into the far corner.

And before he was substituted to a standing ovation, he had just enough energy left in the tank to race back and put in a big tackle, to the delight of the home supporters.

England's current generation have many talented players, but Foden is arguably the most naturally gifted and the most complete of them all.

He surely must be central to Southgate's plans in Germany this summer, and might just land that Player of the Year award come the end of the season if he keeps performing like this.