Premier League Awards For Matchday 28: Best Substitution?

Matchday 28 Awards

Liverpool are now one step closer to winning the Premier League title after beating Southampton, while Arsenal could only muster a draw away to a struggling Manchester United side.

In the top four battle, Forest beat Manchester City in the latest of a long series of proof that they belong in the Champions League conversation, while Chelsea also continued steadying the ship with a narrow (and perhaps a little lucky) win over Leicester.

The relegation tussle looks almost decided now after yet another matchday where Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich all lost. Wolves, the first team above the line, drawing against Everton means that they are now six points clear of Ipswich with 10 games remaining. It is very hard to imagine any of the teams that came up from the Championship last summer actually staying up.

As usual, you can 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 awards this time? Read on to find out.

Best Player

It’s not often that we can give this award to a goalkeeper, but rarely has there been a more deserving recipient of this distinction than David Raya for his performance against Manchester United.

He made five saves – of which at least three can be considered world class – to frustrate the Red Devils and, while Arsenal only won a point that won’t be helping them much in this title race (or rather Liverpool’s procession to the title), it’s clear that Arteta has his Spanish goalkeeper to thank for coming away from Old Trafford unbeaten.

Best XI

GK – David Raya (Arsenal)

RB – Ola Aina (Nottingham Forest)

CB – Jan Paul van Hecke (Brighton)

CB – Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa)

LB – Milos Kerkez (Bournemouth)

CM – Adam Wharton (Crystal Palace)

CM – Bruno Guimaraes (Newcastle)

CM – Declan Rice (Arsenal)

RW – Mohamed Salah (Liverpool)

ST – Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa)

LW – Ismaila Sarr (Crystal Palace)

Best Goal

Pape Matar Sarr, did you mean that?

Our guess is that he did, seeing as how his cross-cum-shot wasn’t really going anywhere near any fellow Tottenham players. He did glance at the goalie too, didn’t he?

Best Game

We were thoroughly entertained by Tottenham vs Bournemouth, from start to finish. It was a game that we were looking forward to for a week by the time it kicked off and it did not disappoint.

Four goals, a total of 4.26 xG, 12 shots on goal (eight of which for the visitors), a late goal by  a sub (more on that later) and more than enough excitement on a weekend where a few games fell flat.

Tottenham Hotspur 2-2 AFC Bournemouth | Premier League Highlights | Sonny scores Panenka!

Best Stats

Another weekend, another few stats about Mo Salah as he drags Liverpool to their 20th league title. Firstly, he is now level with Sergio Aguero as the fifth-best goalscorer in Premier League history on 184 goals. He will probably become outright fourth by the time the season is done, overtaking the Argentinian and Andy Cole (187).

There’s more though. Salah has now scored the third-highest number of goals for Liverpool in the club’s history, has 10+ home and 10+ away goals in the same season for the third time in his career and has scored more goals at Anfield than Rooney has at Old Trafford (is now third in the top of players with most goals at a single venue behind Aguero and Thierry Henry).

This matchday marked the 26th time that Spurs were two or more goals behind in a game and went on to salvage at least a point. The only team above them in this stat is Manchester United, who have done so 30 times in the EPL.

Best/Worst VAR Decision

That shove by Axel Disasi on Kevin Schade seemed like a pretty “clear and obvious error” to us.

What makes this worse is that Brentford created plenty in their clash against Villa and would have deserved a point from this game.

Best Substitution

Son Heung-min might not be at his imperious best this season, but he did save the day for Spurs when coming off the bench at half-time. In the latter stages of the game, he was fouled in the box by Cherries’ keeper Kepa Arrizabalaga, got up, dusted himself off and converted the spot kick by sending the Spanish goalie the wrong way.

Funniest Moment

Not as much funny, but rather heartwarming this week. Mohamed Salah was the centre of attention at the end of Liverpool’s win over Southampton, and not just for his two goals. A number of Saints’ players surrounded him to try to get his shirt and he selected Albert Gronbaek for this honour. Salah did tell the others that he might be able to give out some more of his shirts later on, from the dressing room.

The nicest thing about this was when Salah actually asked Gronbaek for his shirt, a show of respect which we assume was very well received by the Southampton player.