Premier League Matchday Awards (24): Best Player?

Matchday 24 Awards

A lot of significant results this week, so there are plenty of repercussions up and down the Premier League table.

Firstly, we tip our hats to Nottingham Forest, who bounced back from a humiliating defeat to Bournemouth last weekend to, in turn, thrash Brighton 7-0 on Saturday.

There were probably more surprise results than usual on matchday 24, with Fulham, Southampton, Wolves and Palace all registering wins, some more formidable than others, while Spurs somehow mustered up a win away to Brentford.

And then there’s the title race, which again was a case of ‘what you can do, I can do better’ as far as Arsenal are concerned. After Liverpool dispatched Bournemouth on the south coast, the Gunners dismantled reigning champions Manchester City in a fiery game that made us regret football games are only 90 minutes long. 

As usual, you can also click here to check out all our reports from this round’s action.

And you can visit our YouTube channel for previews of each matchday, as well as predictions and hot takes on current EPL topics.

But back to the task at hand: who earned our Premier League matchday awards this time? Read on to find out.

Best Player

It would be easy to go with either of Forest’s chief architects in their destruction of Brighton – Chris Wood scored three and Anthony Elanga assisted three – but we were simply too impressed with Declan Rice’s performance against Manchester City.

An absolute Rolls Royce of a midfielder strutting their stuff against a team that has dominated the Premier League with such authority for so many seasons is just too good to overlook. Rice recorded two assists to go with his outstanding underlying numbers: 100% take-on success, 100% duels won, 88% pass accuracy, five passes into the final third, five chances created, as well as two interceptions and two clearances, to show that he did not neglect his defensive duties.

The Gunners’ club record signing has been one of their most important players since rocking up in north London and they will need him to hit these levels consistently if they are to keep chasing Liverpool for the title.

Best XI

GK – David Raya (Arsenal)

RB – Neco Williams (Nottingham Forest)

CB – Maxence Lacroix (Crystal Palace)

CB – James Tarkowski (Everton)

LB – Miles Lewis-Skelly (Arsenal)

CM – Declan Rice (Arsenal)

CM – Morgan Gibbs-White (Nottingham Forest)

CM – Jean-Ricner Bellegarde (Wolves)

RW – Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)

ST – Chris Wood (Nottingham Forest)

LW – Anthony Elanga (Nottingham Forest)

Best Goal

While we enjoyed Matheus Cunha’s tenacity and delicate touches for Wolves’ victory-sealing goal against Aston Villa, as well as Mohamed Salah’s second goal vs Bournemouth, this award goes to Ethan Nwaneri for the manner of his gloss-adding goal against City.

Take nothing away from the cross-field pass from Rice, but the 17-year-old’s skill and confidence to pull off that strike were just mesmerising.

ETHAN NWANERI VS MAN CITY 😮‍💨 – YouTube

Spectacular.

Best Game

No prizes for guessing this one.

Arsenal vs Manchester City, while not much of a contest due to a poor showing from Guardiola’s team, had everything to entertain us this weekend. Six goals, plenty of feisty moments, good tempo, outstanding performances, huge misses and a fair bit of sh*thousery, thanks especially to Gabriel and Lewis-Skelly.

Enjoy!

HIGHLIGHTS | Arsenal vs Manchester City (5-1) | Odegaard, Partey, Lewis-Skelly, Havertz, Nwaneri

Best Stats

Mikel Arteta is now on a run of five games unbeaten against City (W2, D3), which matches the performances of Thomas Tuchel (2016-2021) and Jurgen Klopp (2021-2022) against Pep Guardiola.

Abdoulaye Doucoure’s opener for Everton vs Leicester was the fourth-fastest goal in Premier League history, clocking in at 10.18 seconds. It is also the quickest-ever goal scored by a home side in the EPL. And, perhaps even more impressively, Everton’s 14 goals in the opening minute of games is more than any other team have ever managed.

Mohamed Salah’s brace against Bournemouth takes him to sixth place in the top of players with most Premier League goals, having overtaken Chelsea legend Frank Lampard. The Egyptian has also joined a very exclusive club of Premier League icons who have scored 20+ goals in five or more EPL seasons. Only Alan Shearer (seven seasons), Sergio Aguero and Harry Kane (six each) rank higher than the Liverpool winger, who is now level with Thierry Henry in this statistic.

Ruben Amorim has now lost five home games in charge of Manchester United, becoming the fastest manager in the club’s history to reach that marker in the Premier League, after only seven games. By comparison, David Moyes’ fifth league defeat at Old Trafford came after 14 games, Erik ten Hag’s after 28 and Alex Ferguson’s after 88.

Best/Worst VAR Decision

Aston Villa will feel aggrieved that their equaliser against Wolves did not stand due to an offside call on Morgan Rogers.

While we can sympathise with them, especially since there is the argument that Nelson Semedo would not have reached that ball, we are choosing to praise the match officials this week for at least showing consistency with previous (very) similar decisions.

It doesn’t make it 100% right, but at least it’s a more level playing field.

Best Substitution

Rodrigo Muniz nipped in to score Fulham’s winner at St. James’ Park roughly nine minutes after his introduction, which might prove to be a crucial goal for their intentions to chase down a European spot this season.

Funniest Moment

As we already mentioned, there was no love lost between Arsenal and City, which was evidenced by the Gunners’ treatment of Erling Haaland. After the Norwegian’s “Stay humble, eh?” jibe back in September, it was Gabriel’s turn to rub salt in the wound after Arsenal’s opener.

Meanwhile, Miles Lewis-Skelly scored his first goal for the club and decided to make it all about Haaland too by copying his celebration.

Proper wind-up merchants.