Premier League Round-Up: United fortunate to keep Juan Mata on the pitch

Alex Netherton gives his round up of all the weekend’s Premier League action

Most important goal… Gabriel Jesus scores a second

As the best player of all time, Gerd Muller, demonstrated, there’s nothing more important in football than being able to score a goal. As the modern aphorism states: goals are not underrated. However you score, with a move you created yourself or scuffing in one from a few yards, they all count the same.

Right now, on an admittedly small piece of evidence, Gabriel Jesus has the ability to score from all kinds of awkward situations and to do this at vital times, too.

It seemed that City had succumbed to vintage Cityitis before Jesus turned up to poke on home with a couple of minutes left against Swansea City. Javier Hernandez has shown before – being in the right place often enough will send your team to titles.

However, unlike Hernandez, Jesus looks like he can play as well. His hold up play has impressed, and he has shown more skill in his time at Palmeiras than Hernandez has in a career of YouTube clips. It’s early yet, but Guardiola might well be correct when he described Jesus as ‘special’.

Surprise of the weekend… Manchester United don’t draw

It makes a change, after failing to take three points for what seems an age. United were helped by a few key factors. One, Juan Mata wasn’t seen red, when committing the type of challenge that would have seen even Jamie Carragher get a talking to, and might have seen Patrice Evra banned for life. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a ridiculous choice to just book him, and we have to keep in mind that the challenge was against Jamie Vardy, and therefore is less serious.

Another factor was Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s move into the middle of the pitch, allowing most of the play to go through him, rather than the inconsistent Paul Pogba, meaning he was on hand to open the scoring. His pass for Mata was typically smart and gave United a third. Third, Zlatan Ibrahimovic had his shooting boots on for a change, scoring his 20th of the season.

And lastly, perhaps most importantly, Leicester were absolutely awful, who collapsed in on themselves as soon as they conceded. They have the talent – they have a better squad than they did last year – but clearly their mentality is holding them back and risking their future.

Playing for a move to Real Madrid… Romelu Lukaku

Ross Barkley’s showboating, celebrating before he had even scored, might fit with Real Madrid’s tradition of acting like they are the best while rarely actually being the best. However, Romelu Lukaku’s continued improvement this season has shown him mature significantly under Ronald Koeman in a way he had not for Roberto Martinez.

Given he has played more than 300 games and is just 23, there are two key points. One, he should have matured earlier than most of his peers, because he has had more opportunity to fail and learn from successes. Secondly, we might anticipate that his career declines earlier than most, given his speed and strength might wither with early decay.

For now, though, Everton have a striker capable of scoring more than 20 goals a season for the foreseeable future. Given him either chances or space, and he can do something with it. There are few strikers his age that could be appraised in such a manner. He needs just eight more goals to equal his record for last season, 25, and there’s little doubt he can do it. Two more performances like Saturday’s would do it.

A disappointing weekend for… Jurgen Klopp

Jurgen Klopp was almost certainly aware that while this was Hull they were going to play, it wasn’t Mike Phelan’s Hull. Phelan appears a genial football coach, almost exactly what you’d expect from a traditional English assistant manager. A kind man able to do as told. Regardless of whether or not that’s a fair description, it certainly matches how Hull played for him – they played with spirit, but with no great nous.

Under Marco Silva, things have changed. Silva had something that Phelan didn’t, which was support in the transfer window, but they were also capable of standing in the right place for a whole match and defending accordingly. Andrea Ranocchia, a late addition to the starting line-up, fit into the side as if this was a long-established, well-drilled defence.

Liverpool, then, would need to have all the invention and creativity that they possessed in 2016 before Sadio Mane left for the Africa Cup of Nations. Before he returned, they’d looked sluggish, oddly uninspired for such an enervating manager. Sadly for Hull, that is how they looked once Mane was back, too.

Now, Didier Hamann has started with his own brand of hot air, complaining that Klopp’s six-year contract is ‘madness’. There have been increasingly weird calls on the radio for him to be let go, to be replaced by whoever is the foreign flavour of the month. Obviously, he is now under pressure. This, though, is not a call for him to be replaced, but a reminder of all the exceptional things he has done before he got to Liverpool, that suggests he needs time. However, it is also an observation: there is something cloying about Klopp. Not that he is that tedious piece of vernacular a fraud, but almost transparently insecure. He’s mateyness, his compliments for others, it all seems as if it comes from a place that Klopp isn’t quite sure of his excellence. Perhaps that grating nature has started to wear thin on his squad – though it is too early to be sure.

Best goal of the weekend… Eden Hazard

It is to be expected of football these days. Whatever is the most recent is the best, too. First, Henrikh Mkhitaryan scored the goal of the season. Then, Olivier Giroud’s was definitely better. After that, Andy Carroll needed an England call-up to reward his own special volley. Novelty is a virtue rather than a pleasing distraction or neutral value in the 21st Century. That’s why people claimed that Breaking Bad was the equal of the Sopranos, or why people pretend Game of Thrones isn’t just Lord of the Rings with nudity – because it is more recent, people will things into greatness.

It’s nonsense, of course, but it’s what has made Eden Hazard’s goal for Chelsea against Arsenal one of the best goals of all times, ever. A 50-yard run, shrugging off ex-Charlton defensive midfielder Francis Coquelin and then riding another challenge, is apparently a piece of unrivalled genius. It isn’t. It is very good, the best goal of the weekend, and it demonstrates all that Hazard can do when he is managed by the correct manager and in the right frame of mind. Chelsea’s repeated dominance of Arsenal set him up to exploit the space, and take another step towards what seems a well-earned title.