Premier League Winners and Losers: Matchday Three

As the first international break of the season looms large, Tottenham are now the only side in the Premier League that can boast a 100% record after three games.

That fact, coupled with bitter rivals Arsenal sitting at the foot of the table leaves Spurs fans with the bragging rights for the next two weeks.

Lets take a look at the other winners and losers from another eventful weekend.

Winners

Tottenham

Three consecutive 1-0 wins is about as good of a start as Nuno Espirito Santo could have asked for as his side sit at the summit of the table. Each match has been finely balanced but with Harry Kane now committed to staying in North London, the football can improve.

West Ham’s football

There’s an old adage that football in East London needs to be played ‘The West Ham way’. While this hasn’t always been the case in recent years, Pablo Fornals’ goal on Saturday showcased it in all of it’s claret and blue glory.

Fornals received the ball from Michail Antonio and subsequently slipped it back to the in-form striker. Antonio was through on goal but close to being surrounded by defenders and showed brilliant awareness to nudge the ball back to Fornals to place in the empty net.

While disappointed to have been pegged back, football like that will keep Irons fans happy for a long time.

Mason Greenwood

The arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo had the potential to push Greenwood into the losers section of this piece. With Ronaldo, Edinson Cavani, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Jadon Sancho all also looking for a place in the starting eleven, it was easy to assume that Greenwood’s game time may become limited.

Yet we are with the youngster scoring for a third game in a row, this time the winning goal at Molineux. The 19-year-old is strong off either foot and is becoming increasingly difficult to leave out.

It’s a nice problem for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to have but good luck to him keeping every one of those players happy and that’s without mentioning fringe players like Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard and youth talents like Anthony Elanga and Amad Diallo.

Rafael Benitez

Being a former Liverpool manager meant that Rafael Benitez was on the back foot from the off at Everton. The fixture list has been fairly kind which in a way increased pressure further. Benitez needed a fast start or the Goodison faithful would not be long in expressing their dissatisfaction even more.

Saturday’s win over Brighton made it seven points from a possible nine and the grumblings have quietened. The Spaniard is getting a tune out of bargain signing Demarai Gray with the winger opening the scoring.

Domenic Calvert-Lewin has picked up from where he left off with three goals so far. A good start is all it is, but confidence is ever so slowly rising among the fanbase.

Manchester City

Consecutive 5-0 victories after an opening day defeat is not bad as far as responses go. Did somebody say they need a striker? Ferran Torres may prove that the answer has been in the squad all along.

Marc Albrighton

Leicester have found a right-sided attacker in Ademola Lookman but it was great to see Marc Albrighton come up with the winner on Saturday after filling in for the suspended Ayoze Perez.

Albrighton may not be the most glamorous player in the word but rarely lets the Foxes down. A great player to have among a squad.

Chris Wood

The scorer of the 30,000th goal in the Premier League. The Burnley man joins Brian Deane, Moritz Volz, Marc Albrighton and Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a future answer in a football pub quiz.

Losers

Arsenal

While it was suggested last week in this column that the Manchester City match wouldn’t define Mikel Arteta’s tenure, there are ways and means to lose a football match.

This was another in a long line of meek Arsenal capitulations. The match was essentially over as a contest after 12 minutes and the Gunners registered just one goal attempt in the 90 minutes.

Arteta has two weeks now to come up with solutions. His job isn’t under threat right now but lose the following game at home to Norwich will surely see the knives sharpened.

Granit Xhaka

Arsenal have spent a lot of money this summer on younger players as they aim to build for the future. Xhaka is supposed to be among the leaders in the squad and guide these young players through this difficult period.

Lunging into a dangerous tackle when your team are two goals down in the 35th minute is a far cry from leadership. Arteta is now without one of his senior men for three matches though on the basis of this, it won’t be too much of a blow.

Wolves and missed chances

Wolverhampton Wanderers were comfortably the better side for much of the game against Manchester United yet remain on zero points and zero goals this season. Adama Traore looked on form while Francisco Trincao got into dangerous areas.

Unfortunately Trincao was denied by an amazing block from Aaron Wan-Bissaka while David De Gea did exceptionally well to stop Roman Saiss from close range.

On this evidence though the goals will come. Wolves just need to sharpen up a little bit and the fans need to remain patient.

Reece James

It’s a harsh law at times but Anthony Taylor made the correct decision in sending off the Chelsea defender in Saturday’s draw with Liverpool.

Despite the ball bouncing up off his thigh, James made sure the keep the ball out of the net with a swing of his right arm.

If supporters are angry about this they need to take it up with the lawmakers as referee Taylor’s hands were tied.

Neutral fans

The first half of Liverpool versus Chelsea was end to end and absorbing, with the added drama of the penalty incident just before half-time.

Unfortunately the second half saw a lot of Liverpool dominating the ball while Chelsea struggled to get out but kept the Reds’ chances to a minimum.

So often these big clashes fall flat yet on this occasion the football was of a high calibre. We’ll have to wait another while to see both sides go toe to toe properly.

Newcastle fans

Saint James’ Park was rocking after star man Allan Saint-Maximin’s late goal against Southampton only for Jamaal Lascelles to give away a penalty deep into stoppage time to surrender the three points.

Life as a Newcastle fan summed up in five short minutes.

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