Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Premier League Winners and Losers From The First Week Back

It has now been a week since the Premier League restart began.  There has been a festival of football with football being played pretty much every day.

Some teams and players have looked good since football began and some have looked not so good. Lets have a look at who the winners and losers are of the first week back.

Winners Of The Premier League Restart:

Kevin De Bruyne

Manchester City may have lost their Premier League crown to Liverpool but Kevin De Bruyne has looked very impressive in the return to football after the three month hiatus. 

A 3-0 win last Wednesday over a poor Arsenal side was then followed up by a 5-0 win over Burnley. City have all their players back, with players such as Americk Laporte and Leroy Sane being back fit despite the latter not signing a new contract. They may have lost 2-1 to Chelsea to hand Liverpool the title with a poor defensive performance but their wins over Burnley and Arsenal were very impressive.

Kevin De Bruyne continues to impress and further his case for being named PFA Player of the Year with his brilliant performance against Arsenal catching the eye.  His wonder goal against Chelsea was one of the goals of the season.

Manchester City will hope to reduce their expected Champions League from two years to just one. If so they would probably be able to keep star players such as Kevin de Bruyne. If not then they could see some players leave. 

Kevin De Bruyne has said recently that he would not be sure if he could spend two seasons away from Champions League football. 

If Man City keep players such as De Bruyne and continue to play like they have the past week, then De Bruyne and Manchester City will certainly be a force to be reckoned with once again next season. 

Manchester United

Anthony Martial and Paul Pogba during the win at Old Trafford over Sheffield United.

Manchester United had a poor first half against Tottenham Hotspur but from the second half onwards in the game against Spurs and the 3-0 win over Sheffield United, the Red Devils have been excellent. 

Paul Pogba came on and made a huge impact off the bench against Tottenham and Anthony Martial was superb in the 3-0 over Sheffield United. 

Manchester United will be looking to try and get a spot in the Champions League football and were in good form before the hiatus. They have not looked any different during the restart.

Wolverhampton Wanderers

Raul Jimenez and Pedro Neto were both on the scoresheet against West Ham.

Some were fearing that Wolves may struggle without fans at the stadium but have been as good as ever since the restart began.

A 2-0 win over West Ham was followed with a 1-0 win over Bournemouth on Wednesday night.  

Raul Jimenez has scored two of those goals, Adama Traore has set those up and Pedro Neto has looked frightening. 

Wolves are level on points with Manchester United and it will be interesting to see how the two clubs battle out for the Champions League spot.

Losers Of The Premier League Restart:

David Luiz

David Luiz had a day to forget at the Etihad.

David Luiz was surprisingly given a new one year contract this week, despite one of the worst cameos in Premier League history last week against Manchester City in a 3-0 loss.

Luiz came off the substitutes bench midway through the first half and was at fault for Raheem Sterling’s opener before giving away the penalty and being sent off as Manchester City made it 2-0. 

This was expected to be Luiz’ last game as his contract was ending, but this new contract has shocked many. 

Norwich City

Norwich were already looking like they were going down before the hiatus, but since the restart they have looked even more likely to be relegated after two losses.

They lost 3-0 to Southampton on Friday night and lost 1-0 to Everton on Wednesday night. 

I did not watch the Everton game but Norwich never looked like scoring in the Southampton game. 

They have looked like a team broken and look all but set to spend next season in the Championship.

Sheffield United

Poor Poor Sheffield United. They were looking like making a surprise push for Champions League football and Europa League football was looking like a strong possibility. 

The worldwide pandemic then came in and after the three month break, Sheffield have come back looking a shadow of themselves.

A 0-0 draw against Sheffield United and 3-0 loss to Manchester United makes Sheffield’s chances of Champions League football all but impossible and their task to secure Europa League football looks all the more harder.

They will consider themselves very unlucky considering the failure of goal-line technology in the goalless draw against Sheffield United as the ball went clearly over the line.

With the Carlos Tevez West Ham transfer saga during their last Premier League season in 2006-07, Sheffield United will have even reason to feel that they are cursed in the Premier League.

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