Premier League Weekly Awards: Harry Maguire, Son, Liverpool

Every week we reward the best – and worst – of the Premier League action, and this week’s awards ceremony features Harry Maguire’s sloppy defending, Heung-min Son powering Spurs to victory, a super strike from a Saint, and Liverpool’s disintegration.

Moment of the Week

There was no specific moment to hail this weekend, because we just want to celebrate an absolutely insane gameweek of Premier League football. There were 41 goals scored, some totally off-the-wall matches, and unpredictable outcomes.

We all thought Leeds United nabbing a point against Manchester City in a chaotic, end-to-end battle would be the big talking point of the week, but then football happened, and West Ham, Spurs and Aston Villa all pulled off huge upset victories. So, let’s tip our hats to another mad week of pure, unadulterated Barclays.

This is a proper ‘one regular day of Barclays’ weekend of football. pic.twitter.com/unw6ONqaxk

— Insert Spooky Name Here 👻 (@ChristinaMcMc) October 4, 2020

Player of the Week

Another Heung-min Son masterclass sees the Spurs attacker picking up his second award in three games, as he scythed through a meek Man United defence to score twice and set up another for Harry Kane.

https://youtu.be/WCxaz4i_pmQ

Honourable Mentions: Ollie Watkins, Aston Villa; Pablo Fornals, West Ham United.

Premier League team of the week for gameweek 4

Goal of the Week

Oriol Romeu only gets one goal a season for Southampton, but he made sure this year’s one was an absolute corker, volleying the ball past a helpless Sam Johnstone in the West Brom goal.

Honourable mentions: David McGoldrick, Sheffield United (vs Arsenal); Ollie Watkins, Southampton (vs West Brom); Pedro Neto, Wolves (vs Fulham); Mo Salah, Liverpool (vs Aston Villa).

Pass of the Week

Aaron Cresswell‘s assist for Pablo Fornals’ goal against Leicester City was a garryowen kick taken straight out of a rugby textbook, hoofing it right into the space where the Spaniard could hurt the Foxes the most. Who needs Kevin De Bruyne when you can just pump it like that?

Pablo Fornals made this look incredibly easy 😂

West Ham double their lead at Leicester with another brilliant goal!

Calm and clinical 👌 pic.twitter.com/1hD8aJ3x05

— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) October 4, 2020

Cracking first touch from Fornals as well, it must be said.

The forgotten legacy of England’s first black captain

Quote of the Week

Richard Keys often has so much to say, yet little worth listening to. This week he suggested Pep Guardiola should draft in Big Sam to sort out his defence. Deary me.

"He could bring Sam Allardyce in on a temporary basis"@richardajkeys offers Pep Guardiola some advice on how he could fix @ManCity's leaky defence.#beINPL #PL #LEEMCI 📺 HD11 pic.twitter.com/YcapARFliE

— beIN SPORTS (@beINSPORTS_EN) October 3, 2020

Save of the Week

Another day, another defeat for Fulham, but there were at least some positives for the Cottagers to take from the 1-0 loss away to Wolves, namely the performance of their goalkeeper. Alphonse Areola made four saves on Sunday, including a terrific double save when it seemed certain that Nelson Semedo would score.

Brilliant double save! 🧤

Brilliant from Alphonse Areola to keep the scores level at Molineux!

📺 Watch on Sky Sports PL
📱 Follow #WOLFUL here: https://t.co/QhDeNAHEUt
📲 Download the @SkySports app! pic.twitter.com/1nbDmnPnjR

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) October 4, 2020

Benito Carbone, a frustrating import frozen in time

Howler of the Week

Harry Maguire should be the rightful owner of this award, but we’ll get to him in a moment. Instead, we’re going to focus on Adrian, Liverpool’s backup goalkeeper. With Alisson Becker suffering a medium-term injury for the second season in a row, the Spaniard was yet again called on to fill in. And it went worse then you can even imagine.

Just four minutes into their match with Aston Villa, the second-choice goalie hit a wayward pass towards Joe Gomez which was intercepted by Jack Grealish, who set up Ollie Watkins for the opener. It all went downhill from there.

Adrian evidently has trouble filling Alisson’s boots, as his inferior ball playing skills and lethargy in closing down attackers puts extra stress on the defence. In nine league starts last season he conceded 1.03 goals per 90 minutes, while Alisson conceded just 0.81 per 90.

And it’s not the first time he’s made a blunder leading to a goal, either.

Donkey of the Week

There were so many contenders for Howler of the Week in the Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur match that we had to just put in the entire Man United defence for their pitiful display on Sunday.

Spurs’ first goal was just one of the most comical things you’ll see in the Premier League this year. They have several opportunities to clear their lines, but head back towards goal somehow, before Harry Maguire pulls on his own teammate Luke Shaw to prevent him from clearing the ball. 1-1.

Just three minutes later Maguire fouled Harry Kane, but doesn’t stand over the ball to prevent the quick free kick. Aaron Wan-Bissaka makes a belated attempt to block it, but the England striker plays a perfect through for Heung-min Son. 2-1.

Two minutes after Anthony Martial is sent off, Eric Bailly tries to play it out from the back in this situation:

Predictably it was intercepted by Kane, who ended up putting the ball in the net. 3-1.

And from there it continued to unravel. Son lost his marker inside the box like he wasn’t even there. 4-1. Paul Pogba failed to track Serge Aurier’s run. 5-1. The Frenchman then committed a lazy foul on Ben Davies to give away a penalty 6-1.

Of course, Martial’s red card, which was also in the running for this award, didn’t help and they were a beaten team after that, but some of the awful defending preluding the sending off foreshadowed what was to come. It was one of the most comprehensive shitshows you will ever witness.

Just what has happened to United’s defence, one of the most solid from last season?

Read: The Twitter reaction to Spurs’ 6-1 hammering of Man United