5 Talking Points from EPL Game Week 1
The pre-season games were just a teaser for the grand opening of the main show – the English Premier League. The trailer for most of the big teams seemed quite good – Arsenal seemed to emerge as major title challengers with the reliable Petr Cech manning the goal post now and a good pre-season under its belt; Manchester United and Liverpool, too, had not much to complain about; Chelsea, on the other hand, seemed to still be recovering from the case of holiday blues.Transfer activity for each of these clubs and others such Manchester City grabbed headlines with the signing of Cech by Arsenal being touted as the ‘signing of the season’ and the arrival of German warrior Bastian Schweinsteiger to Manchester United causing football fans across the globe, barring Bayern Munich loyalists, to sit up with glee.The bank-breaking signing of Raheem Sterling by Manchester City for £49 million, Radamel Falcao’s moving over to Chelsea from Manchester United, the curious case of Angel Di Maria – the months leading up to the start of the Premier League were nothing short of drama and excitement.And the Premier League began on quite the same note. There were surprises in store and how! We take a look at some of the talking points of the first Premier League game week that went by.
#5 Debutantes shine
The first game week of the new season of the Premier League definitely belonged to the debutants or new signings of each team. For Manchester United, from the four debutants they fielded in the starting line-up – Matteo Darmian, Sergio Romero, Memphis Depay and Morgan Schneiderlin – it was Darmian that really stood out with his all-round display, which even led Van Gaal to say that he was the best performer of the day for him.
The signing of Frenchman Yohan Cabaye for £13 million from PSG was an absolute masterstroke of a move by Crystal Palace that seems to be paying them rich dividends already with Cabaye scoring a stoppage minute goal in Palace’s 3-1 win over Norwich City.
The other new signings who made their presence felt during the first matches of the season were: Dimitri Payet of West Ham United who bamboozled the Gunners with his deft footwork; Dutchman Georginio Wijnaldum kicked off his run with Newcastle with a goal to boot while Ibrahim Afellay’s addition to Stoke City seems to have only boosted their goal-scoring options.