Premier League (FPL) Team of the Weak - GW Twenty Seven

Kepa (CHE 5.5) – Stealing his way into the team despite not having a Premier League fixture – extraordinary acts require extraordinary consequences. Normally keeping a clean sheet for 120 minutes against Manchester City would be worthy of nothing but respect – but then with seconds left of the fixture Kepa reacted to being substituted by… well… just flat out refusing. In ridiculous scenes that lasted a full two minutes, manager and keeper hurled comments at each other before Sarri cancelled the substitution, stormed down the tunnel and then came back out to watch his keeper help lose the penalty shootout. 

In truth I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed something like this in over 30 years of watching the game – so it’s hard what to think beyond the obvious soundbite that player power has now reached new levels of farce. More so, as is likely, that Sarri loses his job this week whilst Kepa continues to play for Chelsea unpunished.

Chelsea have played down the incident as a “misunderstanding” – which even if taken at face value, raises the question of how the correct message wasn’t relayed to the keeper at the time. Namely that the manager wanted a famed penalty saver, complete with unique knowledge of City’s takers, to step up for the shootout. No Chelsea player stood up and took responsibility, not least the captain. David Luiz appeared to encourage Kepa to stay on.

Chelsea now find themselves without a trophy, with a 2 window transfer ban and having to finish above both Arsenal and Man Utd, or win the Europa league to make a success of this season. They have a broken squad, a manager on the brink and their next fixture is Spurs.

In the words of Lord Buckethead. It will be… a shit show.

Morrison (CAR 4.7) – Coming back from injury perhaps quicker than his manager would have liked; Morrison was pressed into action on Saturday and looked exactly like someone who hadn’t played for a month. Torn an anal fissure by Gerard Deolofeu; Morrison and Cardiff were blown away by this slick, vibrant Watford team.

Aurier (TOT 5.8) – An absolute sham of a wing back – Aurier is both woeful defensively and as an attacking outlet. His pace and power means that he often finds himself in the right positions, but then doesn’t quite seem to know what to do when he’s there. “Looking up” appears words that remain alien to him – instead preferring to cross blindly and hope for the best. He’s basically a non-vegan Bellerin.

You have the league’s best right back right there Poch – stop fucking rotating him, he’s not a pensioner – he can cope.

Ream (FUL 4.2) – An embarrassment of a performance even by Fulham’s shocking standards. Ream won no tackles, no blocks and cleared the ball once in 90 minutes playing at centre back. He was literally a passenger.

Foyth (TOT 5.0) – Youthful impudence could politely be used to describe young Foyth’s ridiculous tackle that only got him a yellow. Dragged shortly after, the Argentine had been on the pitch for 76 minutes and boasted a guttural pass completion rate of 68%. That’s bad for Alexis Sanchez, let alone a centre back who mostly has to play it 5 yards. On top of this, Foyth won zero tackles, made zero interceptions and won less than half of his headers.

To put it another, more simple way. He was bollocks.

Salah (LIV 13.6) – 6 penalty area touches, 1 shot, 1 successful dribble the entire match and only receiving a pass every 3.3 minutes… it would be fair to see that Salah was marked out of the game on Sunday by the excellent Luke Shaw. It would also be fair to say that the league’s best player has to stop going completely missing in the big matches. These are the games where markers are laid down… where seasons are won and lost… and Salah has thus far scored in just 1 of the 8 matches he’s played this season against the big six.

More than that though, his work ethic whilst far from poor (or say… Willian) – was incomparable to some of the United attackers (Rashford, Pogba, Sanchez when he came on). He didn’t look hungry and it’s a valid criticism to observe that his head drops too easily when the game is tough.

If Liverpool are going to stop themselves falling short of the title yet again, and with Firmino leaving the ground on crutches, Salah needs to step up and carry his team over the line.

Anderson (WHU 7.2) – Wandering around like Leroy Sane’s unsuccessful understudy – few players seem to exude so little fucks given as Anderson. At times this can work to his favour – his change of pace is breath-taking and he often strays into fantastic positions rarely seen by either team mates or the opposition. Presumably because they think he might have fallen asleep.

Against a rancid Fulham team however, Anderson did nothing to step up and take the game to the opposition. Instead he strolled around casually making easy balls and trotted off with 15 minutes left without breaking sweat.

Paterson (CAR 5.0) – Looking like a man who can’t wait for half time to have a cigarette and a can of Skol, Paterson has been fantastic for Cardiff this season… but not this weekend. This was rum stuff. Paterson looked drunk.

Over the course of 90 minutes he completed just 44% of his 32 passes. Quite literally helping the opposition more than his own team. Rubbish.

Son (TOT 9.0) – One of the players of the season, Son had no answers to the puzzles posed by the Burnley defence. His face at times the picture of a man silently screaming “please… will anybody give me a week off?”

See you again in 48 hours kid.

Lukaku (MUN 10.7) – Despite helping his side to a well-earned, injury ravaged point; this was a game which highlighted the limitations of Lukaku’s game. Asked to play wide to cater for Rashford’s injury, Lukaku looked like he had climbed Everest as the match entered its final few minutes. Whilst he possesses a decent understanding of the game, Lukaku’s first touch is now so comically bad that you wonder at what point he will start naturally allowing for it. It’s often impossible to tell whether short passes were actually attempts to trap the ball.

With Rashford almost certainly out and half the rest of the squad on its knees… United need Lukaku to rediscover his old, youthful self or risk missing out on the top four after doing everything to get back into contention.

No pressure lad. But, you know... you did cost rather a lot like.

Depoitre (HUD 5.1) – 18 hours without a goal. There comes a point when players should have the position of “striker” removed for them by trading standards.

HM