Premier League Awards For Matchday 33: Best XI?

Matchday 33 Awards

Here we are again, after a great round of Premier League football, handing out our Matchday Awards.

Arsenal managed to delay Liverpool’s coronation for at least a few more days by comprehensively beating Ipswich, while the Reds themselves had to work extra hard to beat Leicester and seal the Foxes’ relegation.

Chelsea had to come back from a goal down to win the west London derby, Wolves beat United at Old Trafford because, let’s face it, who doesn’t these days, while Brentford and Brighton treated us to a thrilling game of football.

The Champions League race is red hot at the moment thanks to Forest’s win at Tottenham and City’s triumph at Goodison Park. There are just three points between Nottingham Forest in third and Villa in seventh. Edge-of-the-seat stuff!

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

We’re going with Bryan Mbeumo for this one. He turned up yet again for Brentford in their fixture against Brighton, scoring two and assisting one to show once more, if it was even needed, that there is life after Ivan Toney.

His partnership with Yoane Wissa has yielded a total of 34 Premier League goals this campaign and, while the Bees probably won’t make it into Europe, it has been a joy to watch.

Best XI

GK – Dean Henderson (Crystal Palace)

RB – Pedro Porro (Tottenham)

CB – Virgil van Dijk (Liverpool)

CB – Santiago Bueno (Wolves)

LB – Nico O’Reilly (Manchester City)

CM – Elliott Anderson (Nottingham Forest)

CM – Mateo Kovacic (Manchester City)

CM – Martin Ødegaard (Arsenal)

RW – Bryan Mbeumo (Brentford)

ST – Leandro Trossard (Arsenal)

LW – Pedro Neto (Chelsea)

Best Goal

Pablo Sarabia’s awesome free-kick to give Wolves the victory against Manchester United was a thing of beauty and wins our Best Goal award this week.

It was struck perfectly and, to make matters even better, puts the Spaniard in contention for our Best Sub award as well, since it came roughly four minutes after his introduction off the Wolves’ bench.

Sarabia’s spectacular winner! | Man United 0-1 Wolves | Highlights

Best Game

Brentford vs Brighton gave us proper entertainment this weekend in a game that was extremely hard to call prior to kick-off. It went the way of the Bees thanks to some brilliant performances from Mbeumo, Wissa and Lewis-Potter, while Brighton also threatened to come away with something from this game after Mitoma’s goal.

There was also a moment of madness from Joao Pedro, who saw a red card for a violent outburst and, with this not being the first time he lashes out at an opposition player, seems to willingly screw himself out of a big move this summer.

Wissa + Mbeumo on target AGAIN! 🤩 | Brentford 4-2 Brighton | Premier League Highlights

Best Stats

Only Manchester City have won more Premier League away games by 3+ goals (20) than Arsenal since Mikel Arteta took over the Gunners (16).

This is the first time that Manchester United have lost 15 games in a single Premier League campaign and they are now certain to finish with their worst-ever points total too.

And speaking of United losing, Wolves have now won five consecutive top-flight games for the first time in 55 years, doing a league double over United for the first time since 1980.

Best/Worst VAR Decision

We didn’t really spot anything unreasonable this weekend, but nothing spectacularly good either when it comes to refereeing decisions, so more of the same please.

Best Substitution

Plenty of candidates this week. Unai Emery proved very inspired once again as he brought on Jacob Ramsey and Amadou Onana vs Newcastle. A cross from the Englishman caused Dan Burn’s own goal, while Onana scored a stunning goal moments later to put the game to bed.

We have already spoken about Pablo Sarabia and his Old Trafford exploits in our Best Goal section.

So our Best Substitution award goes to Trent Alexander-Arnold. Finally back from an injury lay-off and seemingly on his way out of Merseyside, he still found the time to net the winning goal – his first ever with his left foot – to simultaneously bring Liverpool to the brink of glory and ensure Leicester’s relegation. Top lad!

Funniest Moment

Trent Alexander-Arnold is bound for Real Madrid and seems to already be borrowing celebrations from Jude Bellingham.