Top 5 Underrated Performances Of The Week Featuring Liverpool, West Ham & Man City Stars

As the first week of the English Premier League ends, last season’s top four have all kicked off their journey with wins, while Manchester United looking for a turnaround from last season seems to be still stuck in the rut. The week also witnessed some terrific individual performances. Daniel Sturridge, Aaron Ramsey and Sergio Aguero all continued from where they had left off last term, while Chelsea’s new arrivals Diego Costa and Cesc Fabregas have made a quick statement that they are here to stay.

But meanwhile, as the heavyweights and goal-scorers grabbed all the attention, there were some really impressive performances across the 10 games that went relatively unnoticed. So, here in no particular order, we take a look at 5 of such relatively underrated performances of the week-

1. CHEIKHOU KOUYATE
   

The strong holding midfielder made his Premier League debut against Spurs on the opening day, but showed no hiccups of a starter. Kouyate’s physical presence and tough tackling in the middle of the park meant the likes of Christian Eriksen and Eric Lamela were pretty much kept at bay. Kouyate impressed with his distribution as well, with a pass accuracy of 97% being the highest in the match for any player. While Eric Dier stole the limelight with an injury time winner and Spurs and Pocchetino deservedly gaining all praises for their resilience despite playing for almost 60 minutes with 10 men, Koyate’s impressive performance went relatively unnoticed.

2. SIMON MIGNOLET

Mignolet was Liverpool’s hero in last season’s opening match with a fantastic penalty save in the dying minutes of the game and kept a clean sheet as well. But ever since that opening day heroics, Mignolet received a lot of flaks last term for his occasional errors and this term with the permanent departure of Pepe Reina and the added responsibility of Champions League football, Mignolet has a lot to prove. Against Southampton, even as Liverpool’s defense was caught off guard a few times, Mignolet impressed overall- his distribution was decent, he was neatly positioned to stop a dangerous move which ended in a relatively weak shot from Steven Davis and then went onto make a match-winning close range save off Morgan Schneiderlin’s shot to give Liverpool their 3 points.

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3. WILFRIED BONY

Even the hero of the match, Gylfi Siggurdson, was second choice for all the attention, as the hot topic of discussion was Manchester United’s loss to Swansea. With Louis Van Gaal and to some extent, Siggurdson’s second homecoming to Swansea grabbing all eyes, Wilfried Bony’s significant contributions to the Swan’s historic victory was barely noticed. Bony played a crucial part in either of Swansea’s goals; for the first goal- he skillfully blocked Phil Jones as he advanced to stop Ki-Sung Yueng’s shot- and then, Bony started the move which lead to the second goal with a quickly taken free kick as the United defenders were just moving into position. While everyone expects Bony to deliver only with goals, he proved with Saturday’s performance that he can play a major part in a different way as well.

4. STEWART DOWNING

The ex-Liverpool winger was another player who impressed for West Ham against Tottenham. Downing was the architect of most of West Ham’s forays into the Spurs box with 3 key passes to his name. The former English international also got the better of Spurs’ left-back Danny Rose a few times, and played in some really dangerous crosses. Carlton Cole and Ricardo Vaz Te was average upfront and West Ham clearly missed a striker like the injured Andy Carroll, who is extremely good aerially and could have made better use of Downing’s crosses. Downing himself almost put the Hammers ahead in the dying moments after he picked up a clever backheel pass from Kevin Nolan and tapped towards goal, only for Hugo Lloris to make a wonderful stop to deny him.

5. GAEL CLICHY

Clichy was slotted at a not-so-familiar right-back position in the absence of Pablo Zabaleta and Bacary Sagna, but put a surprisingly good performance. Having almost slowly lost out his left-back spot to Aleksandar Kolarov, Clichy was widely expected to struggle against the pace of Yoan Gouffran and Remy Cabella. But the experienced Frenchman turned out the eventual winner after a spirited display that saw him lock down his French counterparts Gouffran and Cabella and later the young Rolando Aarons, with a total of 8 tackles, 5 interceptions and 7 clearances.

Even as Sergio Aguero and his goal from a short 9-minute appearance was the highlight of the match, Clichy silently stated that he does not intend to be the weak link in a team that looks an extremely strong title contender.