Premier League winners and losers: Palace set record in futility
By Ty Finch
Week five of the Premier League is officially in the books. Here are the winners and losers of the fifth matchday.
The Premier League table is beginning to take shape. There are teams like Manchester City who are hitting their strides and demolishing opponents, and then clubs such as Crystal Palace who can’t seem to buy a win, or even a goal. The top four race is beginning to feature many of the usual suspects, while the relegation battle offers quite the opposite. Even though there weren’t many nail-biting contests this week, there was not a dearth of talking points. Here’s the winners and losers of the fifth week of games.
Winner: Sergio Aguero
Manchester City have an abundance of attacking options to choose from. Pep Guardiola has to make a difficult decision every week with the starting lineup and who may be dropped. Last season, Sergio Aguero was one of the starting lineup casualties when he was sat in favor of Gabriel Jesus. Now, Aguero is scoring in bunches and making it impossible not to be selected for every contest.
Aguero scored three goals as City cruised to a 6-0 drubbing against Watford on Saturday. The Argentinian opened up the scoring in the 27th minute and completed his hat-trick in the 81st. City outclassed Watford in every facet of the game and never looked like relinquishing the lead after their star striker headed in a goal off a set piece from Kevin de Bruyne for his first score of the day.
City have gone with a two-striker approach to start the season, and the results have been excellent. Aguero and Jesus have started to build a partnership up front that has led to them being a nightmare for opposing defenses. The pair combined for City’s third goal of the first half after Aguero picked out a good run from the Brazilian and slid in a ball in behind the defense. Seven of the last 11 goals for Guardiola’s side have come from the striker duo, including the first three goals against Liverpool last week as well. City thrashed their last two opponents by a combined 11-0, and look like they might be the team to beat going forwards. Aguero is a huge part of that.