EPL Sunday round up - Manchester United and Tottenham win as Liverpool are held
Manchester United survive a late Southampton scare as they scrape through a 3-2 win at St Mary's while Liverpool were utterly wasteful of their chances against a resilient Norwich side. Earlier in the day, Tottenham new boy, Son Heung-min, scored his first Premier League goal for the North London side to give them a close 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace.
Martial looks like money well spent
Anthony Martial scored a brace for his new club Manchester United in what was an incredibly mature performance. After some nifty footwork within the opposition D, Martial – with the ball at his feet – turns Jose Fonte inside out and dispatches beyond Martin Stekelenburg. That close-control and intelligence inside the box is something Manchester United have needed in their strikers for a while.
Maya Yoshida then gifted Martial the ball after a poorly judged back pass which the Frenchman collected and cooly shot beyond Stekelenburg. He had the ball, ran towards the goalkeeper, opened up his chest and deftly curled the ball into the corner.
Meanwhile, Southampton scored their first goal thanks to a Graziano Pelle header for which Sadio Mane supplied the perfect cross. Pelle was on the scoresheet much later in the game thanks to another Mane cross.
United finished things off as Mata dispatched a reflected Memphis shot to give Louis van Gaal 3 points over compatriot, Ronald Koeman.
Anfield is juggling strikers: Sturridge makes comeback as Benteke is taken off injured
Liverpool – who failed to finish off Norwich – welcomed back Sturridge back with open arms but go back to biting nails as Christian Benteke was taken off for precautionary reasons.
Danny Ings – a halftime substitute – scored for the Kop 3minutes after coming on gave the Liverpool crowd and the team some much-needed hope only for Russel Martin to calmly flick the ball into the back of the net after a Simon Mignolet punch.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers continues to figure out which starting eleven is his most effective. While Phillippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino had chances aplenty, James Miner had a shocker of a game alongside Emre Can.
While some might say that this is a fair point given Norwich's run of form in the Premier League, fans continue to acknowledge the massive drop in quality of football ever since the departures of Luis Suarez and Steven Gerrard.
Tottenham's Son the new 'Our very own'?
Typical Tottenham Hotspur; they lose the ball in the opposition half, chase the ball back but then a few tackles here and a some good interceptions sees Christian Eriksen – back after a while – have the ball. The Dane then picks up a very smart Son run up front who then slots through the legs of Alex McCarthy's legs to score his first Premier League goal.
Manager Mauricio Pochettino was thrilled with the goal but was also thrilled about something else you don't usually hear in post-match press conferences.
“You can see that Son’s a very friendly boy and this week he brought some Korean food into the training ground. It’s very good – like Chinese or Japanese. I like a lot. I had a big dish,” he said.
Nevertheless, Tottenham move into the top half of the Premier League win this win and it represents a poor loss for Crystal Palace even though they were clearly the better team over the course of 90 minutes.
Final scores and goals:
Southampton 2 – 3 Manchester United
Liverpool 1 -1 Norwich City
Tottenham Hotspurs 1 – 0 Crystal Palace