Richarlison has begun the season strongly and appears to have claimed a leading role at Tottenham. After scoring twice in the win over Burnley, he was central to Tottenham\u2019s impressive win at Manchester City. He set up the opening goal for Brennan Johnson and led a press that City struggled to deal with. Dominic Solanke was the favoured forward last season but Richarlison has made the most of his opportunity under new head coach Thomas Frank. In this form, he\u2019ll be difficult for Solanke to oust.<\/p>\n
West Ham head into a consequential week with the transfer window closing in seven days. Graham Potter\u2019s position is under real threat after a nightmare start to the season, with Friday\u2019s home humbling against Chelsea pushing him towards the exit door. Potter has failed to improve the side\u2019s fortunes since arriving last season and a modest summer in the transfer market has added to their issues. Mads Hermansen has started poorly, while the club\u2019s glaring issues in midfield have not been addressed. A midfield duo of James Ward-Prowse and Tomas Soucek lacks dynamism, with Chelsea cutting through at will during their 5-1 success in East London. After an uninspiring transfer window so far, West Ham need a lift before the deadline shuts. Based on their opening two performances, the Hammers are in a fight for survival.<\/p>\n
Promoted sides Sunderland and Leeds received a reality check after opening-weekend victories. Leeds were well beaten at Arsenal, losing 5-0 in North London. Sunderland, who stunned West Ham last week on Wearside, fell to defeat at Burnley on Saturday as Burnley ran over Regis Le Bris’ side at Turf Moor. Both clubs have learned that any off day will be punished at this level. A neutral positive is that Burnley\u2019s win means all three promoted sides have now tasted victory after just two games.<\/p>\n
Arsenal\u2019s start looks strong on the surface: two wins, two clean sheets and a place at the top of the table with Mikel Arteta. Viktor Gyokeres opened his Arsenal account with two goals against Leeds, answering critics after a quiet debut and an unremarkable first half. His first was a surging run into the box and his brace will have done his confidence a world of good ahead of next week\u2019s huge trip to Anfield. The arrival of Eberechi Eze could help unlock Gyokeres by supplying the early passes he often seeks.<\/p>\n
Jack Grealish made his full debut as Everton opened the Hill Dickinson Stadium with a win against Brighton and played a decisive role. The loan recruit created the historic first goal for Iliman Ndiaye and added a second assist for James Garner\u2019s fierce drive. After a poor period at Manchester City, this was more like the Grealish of old.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Richarlison leads Spurs; West Ham require signings; promoted sides humbled; Gyokeres and Grealish now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[414,59,594,794,296],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-epl","tag-eberechi-eze","tag-featured","tag-jack-grealish","tag-richarlison","tag-viktor-gyokeres"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2044,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2041\/revisions\/2044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}