Another unpredictable weekend in the Premier League saw déjà vu for a former England manager, a £58m teenager scored on his debut and the reigning champions slip into 17th place. All this and more in this weekend’s winners and losers.
The Winners:
Louis van Gaal
After a turbulent run-up to the weekend; captain Wayne Rooney and vice-captain Michael Carrick went to Van Gaal’s office to tell him the atmosphere in the dressing room was ‘flat’, things couldn't have gone much better for the Dutchman. His new record-breaking teenage signing Anthony Martial scored a great goal, David de Gea was back between the sticks and, most importantly, his side recorded a 3-1 win at home over their arch rivals. It's hard to imagine the dressing room being flat after that.
Steven Naismith
Scoring a perfect hat trick against the reigning champions in front of your home crowd is about as much as you can hope for when coming off the bench as a first-half substitute. Very much a statement of intent from the Scot, who, according to reports, came very close to leaving Goodison for Norwich on deadline day, he'll be mightily glad he didn't make that switch having staked a claim for the injured Tom Cleverley’s first-team place.
Claudio Ranieri
For a man who was taking flak from all sides when he took the job in the summer, Claudio Ranieri is having a hell of a start to the season. Sitting in second place going into the weekend, it looked as though the Leicester bubble had burst when they went down 2-0 against Aston Villa at home with half an hour remaining. A couple of inspired substitutions from the Tinkerman; N’Golo Kanté and the incredibly brave Nathan Dyer, helped turn things around, along with the ever-improving Riyad Mahrez, and The Foxes left the King Power Stadium with their tails up.
The Losers:
Tim Sherwood
For someone to experience the highs that Claudio Ranieri has, someone must also experience a low. That someone was Tim Sherwood. In the grand scheme of things José Mourinho and Brendan Rodgers have probably got more to worry about as managers but for sheer disappointment Sherwood takes the crown. Never before have I seen a manager look so devastated after a game of football, you’d have thought it was a World Cup final. “Who cares if we played well? We lost.” Got to love post-match press conferences.
Sunderland
Losing when you play as badly as Sunderland played in their first two matches is expected, to then recover with two points from the next two fixtures can be seen as a triumph, but to take no points after performing so well against Spurs will come as a blow to Dick Advocaat’s side. These are exactly the kind of matches that they need to be winning if they want to stay up. It's going to be a long season.
Steve McClaren
Seeing your team slip into bottom is bad enough but for Steve McClaren, who suffered the embarrassment of failing to get England to Euro 2008 after a defeat at the hands of Slaven Bilic, this result will hurt on a personal level too. It's not looking good for The Magpies, whose defending was poor and attackIsn't even worse. The handful of chances they did create were squandered; it's not hard to see why McClaren’s men have drawn blanks in four out of their five league games this season.
The Winners:
Louis van Gaal
After a turbulent run-up to the weekend; captain Wayne Rooney and vice-captain Michael Carrick went to Van Gaal’s office to tell him the atmosphere in the dressing room was ‘flat’, things couldn't have gone much better for the Dutchman. His new record-breaking teenage signing Anthony Martial scored a great goal, David de Gea was back between the sticks and, most importantly, his side recorded a 3-1 win at home over their arch rivals. It's hard to imagine the dressing room being flat after that.
Steven Naismith
Scoring a perfect hat trick against the reigning champions in front of your home crowd is about as much as you can hope for when coming off the bench as a first-half substitute. Very much a statement of intent from the Scot, who, according to reports, came very close to leaving Goodison for Norwich on deadline day, he'll be mightily glad he didn't make that switch having staked a claim for the injured Tom Cleverley’s first-team place.
Claudio Ranieri
For a man who was taking flak from all sides when he took the job in the summer, Claudio Ranieri is having a hell of a start to the season. Sitting in second place going into the weekend, it looked as though the Leicester bubble had burst when they went down 2-0 against Aston Villa at home with half an hour remaining. A couple of inspired substitutions from the Tinkerman; N’Golo Kanté and the incredibly brave Nathan Dyer, helped turn things around, along with the ever-improving Riyad Mahrez, and The Foxes left the King Power Stadium with their tails up.
The Losers:
Tim Sherwood
For someone to experience the highs that Claudio Ranieri has, someone must also experience a low. That someone was Tim Sherwood. In the grand scheme of things José Mourinho and Brendan Rodgers have probably got more to worry about as managers but for sheer disappointment Sherwood takes the crown. Never before have I seen a manager look so devastated after a game of football, you’d have thought it was a World Cup final. “Who cares if we played well? We lost.” Got to love post-match press conferences.
Sunderland
Losing when you play as badly as Sunderland played in their first two matches is expected, to then recover with two points from the next two fixtures can be seen as a triumph, but to take no points after performing so well against Spurs will come as a blow to Dick Advocaat’s side. These are exactly the kind of matches that they need to be winning if they want to stay up. It's going to be a long season.
Steve McClaren
Seeing your team slip into bottom is bad enough but for Steve McClaren, who suffered the embarrassment of failing to get England to Euro 2008 after a defeat at the hands of Slaven Bilic, this result will hurt on a personal level too. It's not looking good for The Magpies, whose defending was poor and attackIsn't even worse. The handful of chances they did create were squandered; it's not hard to see why McClaren’s men have drawn blanks in four out of their five league games this season.
Comments
Post a Comment