Whilst Covid weirdness still plagues the league we love with postponements and seriously depleted squads, there is still some football to be watched and some good football for that matter.
City’s gap at the top grows ever bigger as they downed a mediocre Chelsea on the weekend. Chelsea just can’t seem to find the same rhythm that they started the season with. Clayton Ward-Prowse scored one of the goals of the season in a losing effort against Wolves, and the Premier League said goodbye to another manager as Rafa Benitez was relieved of his duties at Everton.
Let’s have a look at some of the stand out moments from gameweek 21.
Watford’s new blood is rearing to go
Over the last fortnight Watford has gone on a serious recruitment drive, picking up a couple of lesser-known players including Maduka Okoye from Sparta Rotterdam, Hassane Kamara from Nice, Samir from Udinese, and Edo Kayembe from KAS Eupen in Belgium. Fans were a little unsettled by this near-anonymous shopping cart of imports, but their scepticism didn’t last long after Watford secured a hard-fought draw featuring three dazzling debutants.
The dynamic Kamara slotted in smartly at left-back, while at centre-back the Brazilian, Samir, buckled down for a good old-fashioned tussle with Newcastle’s Chris Wood, who he kept quiet the whole game.
The visitors’ best performer was Edo Kayembe, who patrolled the area in front of the back four with poise and authority and showed a nice eye for a defence-splitting pass.
João Pedro’s equaliser kept Newcastle in the bottom three, and Watford out of it. Will the same be said for Watford’s January arrivals come the season’s end?
Benitez bites the dust
There were a few memorable details from Norwich’s victory over Everton at Carrow Road – not least the pitch invader who gave Rafael Benítez the finger.
20-year-old Adam Idah is beginning to confirm some of his promise with a first Premier League goal for the Canaries, but watching Salomón Rondón alongside Dominic Calvert-Lewin for the Toffees, was pretty boring. Just two big dudes standing around for crosses that never came.
Norwich, however, played a much more fluid brand of football, albeit in a 4-4-2 formation.
By the time the match reached 55 minutes with the Canaries 2-0 up, Benítez abandoned his own formation experiment, going 4-2-3-1 in a desperate search for salvation. Despite Richarlison’s excellent overhead kick, however, it never arrived.
Benitez was relieved of his duties as Everton manager the day after their loss to Norwich. Another gaffer bites the dust and we can’t say we’re surprised about this one – Everton sit in 16th position on the table having won only 2 of their last 8.
Coutinho’s comeback
The glamorous debutant who struck a late equaliser understandably took all the headlines at Villa Park, but there’s a fair argument that Philippe Coutinho was only his side’s third most impressive midfielder on Saturday.
Emi Buendía, whose place looks most obviously threatened by Coutinho’s arrival, put on a remarkably creative display and showed enough flashes of link-up play with Coutinho to suggest that the two playmakers probably don’t need to compete for one position.
That being said, Villa’s star performer was Jacob Ramsey, who scored one and set up the other in a riveting central midfield performance. Ramsey has already started more games since Steven Gerrard took charge in November than he did over the whole of last season, and the early signs are that the new boss’s judgment is spot on.
After losing the beloved Jack Grealish last summer, have Villa found a new local hero? If so, then he’s already got the perfect mentor and adding Coutinho to the mix certainly won’t hurt.
Ward-Prowse can’t win on his own
James Ward-Prowse struck yet another preposterous free-kick from 30 yards out that may be a contender for goal of the season, however, his Beckham-esque display was more a mere footnote in a frustrating 3-1 defeat at Wolves.
Last week the Brentford head coach, Thomas Frank, suggested Ward-Prowse could be the best free-kick taker on the planet and only David Beckham can better Ward-Prowse’s tally of 12 free-kick goals in the Premier League.
His latest strike was surely his best yet, not that he basked in it for too long: the second the ball cannoned into the net, Ward-Prowse headed back towards the Southampton half, ready for the restart with six minutes left to play.
He’s some talent, but he can’t win on his own.
Raphinha raises the roof
Leeds’ 3-1 victory over West Ham in London proved yet again that Raphinha is one of the best in the Premier League. Even though Jack Harrison scored a hat-trick, it was the Brazilian’s passing and panache that cut West Ham’s defence to ribbons.
Leeds had a fourth goal ruled out when an offside Rodrigo failed to get out of the way of Klich’s shot, the ball having been laid on a plate by Raphinha after he had left Issa Diop with broken ankles.
We’re expecting a bidding war in the summer for a player who’s class is matched with a work ethic equal to any of Bielsa’s squad.
Liverpool succeed sans Africans
January has been long marked out as a danger-month for Liverpool because of the loss of two of the team’s much-lauded front three to the Africa Cup of Nations.
Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané have averaged 52 goals between them in their four full seasons together at Anfield. But it is also true that this campaign has probably been Mané’s most underwhelming in a red shirt, and a return of one goal in his last 10 outings means that his absence may not warrant the gloomy outlook many have adopted.
Sunday’s win featured goals from Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Takumi Minamino, while Mané himself has already found the net on international duty.
Salah and Mane’s African teams have progressed to the next stage of the competition and are likely to go further. Could this be the chance for some players who’ve sat on the bench to rise up and earn more starting time?
Pulisic not worth the pounds
Expectations were high when Chelsea shook hands on the £58m deal that brought the much sought-after Christian Pulisic to the club.
Three years and 95 Chelsea appearances later, Pulisic is yet to live up to that description and has rarely given the impression that he might ever do so. At Manchester City he was AWOL, seeing little of the ball and doing not much with it when he did.
City are undoubtedly the toughest opponents in the league and are looking pretty unstoppable but big money demands to be repaid on occasions such as this. Pulisic has the talent and temperament to deliver in such fixtures – his elegant goal against Liverpool this month was proof of that – but too often he seems content to exist on the periphery of matches rather than take them by the scruff of their neck.
At 23 time is on his side, although the Chelsea hierarchy are not exactly known for their patience.
Thomas Tuchel was a madman pitch side on the weekend the moment anything looked slightly off. Chelsea looked uninspired and Man City managed the game with aplomb, the way champions are expected to.