With another round of Premier League action done and dusted, it’s time to take a look at which midfielders excelled and which ones were left eating their dust.
One of the stars of the midfield in England’s top flight at the weekend was Man City’s David Silva. He was instrumental when his side travelled to Watford, and influential in the 6-0 drubbing of their hosts. Silva provided two assists – earning two points apiece – and of course the clean sheet added a couple of bonus points, meaning he finished the weekend with six points added to his score.
That means the Spain international increases his overall score to 13, moving him to ninth in the EPL’s midfield big hitters.
Also scoring six this past weekend was Henrik Mkhitaryan, for City’s rivals Man United. Mkhitaryan scored one goal in their 4-0 win at home to Everton, and again – the clean sheet took his weekend tally to six. That means he now sits atop the midfield table overall for the season in the Premier League, meaning he has leapfrogged the likes of Roberto Firmino who failed to bag any points during his side’s 1-1 draw with Burnley.
Raheem Sterling was another six point scorer too. A team-mate of Silva’s, Sterling scored his points in the same vein as Mkhitaryan – one goal and the clean sheet. That takes his score to 13 for the season so far – not bad for a player who has come under such intense scrutiny at times for his work rate and overall ability.
Antonio Valencia bagged six through the same means, as did Southampton star Steven Davis. Those six for Davis more than doubled his season tally to date – he started off with four, but the winning goal and clean sheet in Saints’ 1-0 win at Crystal Palace ensured he was among the bigger stars of the weekend.
It wasn’t quite so much fun for some of the other previous high fliers though. Abdoulaye Doucouré sits eighth overall, but the Watford midfielder had a weekend to forget to say the least! As previously mentioned, his side lost 6-0 at home to City but Doucouré was booked during the match, meaning he bagged -1 point for his fantasy managers.
Shinji Okazaki, too, was booked during Leicester’s 1-1 draw at Huddersfield, and so he also scored -1.
Crystal Palace star Jason Puncheon is holding up the rest of his colleagues, sitting at the bottom of the EPL midfielders pile with a disappointing -4 points. Make no mistake, Puncheon can be a player of real quality, but – like many of his team-mates this season – he just hasn’t managed to get the job done yet.
All of those -4 points have been for bookings, in four of his five games so far this season. Discipline is always a factor to take into account when deciding whether or not to include a player, and Puncheon’s points so far only emphasise that fact.
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