Matchday 9 Awards

Another weekend of Premier League football is behind us now and we have thoroughly enjoyed the drama.

Matchday 9 brought us no fewer than five injury time goals that changed the outcome of their respective games, bringing plenty of edge-of-the-seat stuff for us all.

The weekend’s headliner was Arsenal drawing 2-2 against Liverpool and, while it was a great game, there was at least one more that was better (more on that later). Also on Sunday we saw United lose dramatically against West Ham and Crystal Palace getting their first W of the season against Tottenham.

Before all that, Chris Wood showed his class once again with a brace vs Leicester on Friday, City scraped past Southampton and Wolves got another point on the board thanks to a late Cunha goal against Brighton. 

You can also click here to check out all our reports from this weekend’s action.

So who gets our Premier League awards this week? Read on to find out.

Best Player

Cole Palmer gets this one again. It was a peach of a pass that sent Chelsea on their way to scoring the opener against Newcastle and he popped up with a goal at just the right time to secure the points for the Blues.

We can almost forgive him for not being familiar with Gianfranco Zola outside the confines of EA FC.

Best XI

GK – Mark Travers (Bournemouth)

CB – Marc Guehi (Crystal Palace)

CB – Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)

CB – Josko Gvardiol (Manchester City)

RM – Savinho (Manchester City)

CM – Ryan Yates (Nottingham Forest)

CM – Cole Palmer (Chelsea)

LM – Callum Hudson-Odoi (Nottingham Forest)

RW – Bryan Mbeumo (Brentford)

ST – Chris Wood (Nottingham Forest)

LW – Matheus Cunha (Wolves)

Best Goal

While Yates’ for Forest vs Leicester was certainly a contender, our winner is Nicolas Jackson and his striker for Chelsea against Newcastle.

A picture-perfect counter-attack started with a superb pass from Cole Palmer. Pedro Neto skipping over a sliding challenge and then leaving Jackson with a very simple job to do.

Chelsea 2-1 Newcaslte | PALMER powers past Magpies! | HIGHLIGHTS | Premier League 2024/25

Best Game

Brentford vs Ipswich was Premier League drama of the highest standard. Two teams who usually attack without a care in the world came up against each other and boy, did they deliver.

Brentford 4-3 Ipswich Town | Extended Premier League Highlights

Seven goals (two of which after the 85th minute), a red card-own goal-penalty committed combo from the same player (hi there, Harrison Clarke), see-sawing scoreline and great tempo to boot.

Fantastic watch!

Best Stats

Harry Clarke is only the second ever Prem player to score an own goal, concede a penalty and be sent off in the same game. The first one? Jan Bednarek vs Manchester United in 2021 and we still remember this gem popping up on social media back then:

Bukayo Saka is now Arsenal’s youngest ever player in the Premier League era to reach 50 Premier League goals, overtaking a certain Thierry Henry.

Manchester United now have the biggest negative difference between expected goals and goals scored in the Premier League this season: 8 goals from 14.6 xG.

Since Nuno Espírito Santo took over at Nottingham Forest (December 23, 2023), only Erling Haaland (18) has scored more non-penalty goals in the Premier League than Chris Wood (16).

And one more involving Forest. In the summer of 2022, the club signed 22 players after promotion to the EPL. On Friday, only one of those 22 was on the pitch: Dean Henderson, the Crystal Palace goalkeeper.

Best/Worst VAR Decision

Micky van de Ven should have seen red for denial of a clear goalscoring opportunity. Again, just like how Saliba got sent off last weekend and Adarabioyo did not, where is the consistency in refereeing standards?

Best Substitution

This one goes out to two players.

Evanilson: scored the equaliser for Bournemouth vs Villa in the sixth minute of injury time.

Beto: scored the equaliser for Everton vs Fulham in the fourth minute of injury time.

In a matchday with so many late goals, it was bound to have some standout performances off the bench. These were the picks of the bunch.

Funniest Moment

This one is also VAR-related. Among so many questionable decisions, perhaps it’s not too surprising that one of the VARs was checking how his Fantasy Premier League team was doing. And this was during the Arsenal vs Liverpool game, which was easily the most scrutinised one of the round.

All we ask for is that maybe they focus on the games a bit more next time.