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Premier League Team of the Week - Sadio Mane, Romelu Lukaku, Mesut Ozil

Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek 28, including Romelu Lukaku, Mesut Ozil and four Liverpool players.

Just 10 gameweeks remain in the 2018-19 Premier League season, and Liverpool still lead the way at the top of the table courtesy of a 5-0 win over Watford on Wednesday evening.

Jurgen Klopp's side sent out a statement to title challengers Manchester City, but the defending champions remain just a point behind after they scraped past West Ham United at the Etihad Stadium.

Chelsea responded to their EFL Cup final defeat at the hands of City by beating Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 at Stamford Bridge, easing the pressure on under-fire manager Maurizio Sarri in the process.

Spurs may have now found themselves dragged back into the top-four race after Arsenal thrashed Bournemouth 5-1 and Manchester United beat Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park to close the gap on Mauricio Pochettino's faltering side.

Struggling Huddersfield Town gave themselves a glimmer of hope in their bid for a great escape by beating Wolverhampton Wanderers, but fellow strugglers Newcastle United and Southampton also won to limit the significance of that result.

Elsewhere, Everton returned to winning ways against Cardiff City, while Leicester City beat Brighton & Hove Albion with new boss Brendan Rodgers watching on from the stands.

Here, Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek 28.



PLTOTWGW28

Ederson had very little to do at the Etihad Stadium, but the one save he was forced to make was a brilliant one, and there is no telling how important it could prove to be after he denied Andy Carroll the chance to put West Ham ahead against the run of play.

Liverpool also kept a clean sheet in their match, but the presence of three of their defenders in this team is more down to their attacking prowess. The full-backs in particular were a constant threat down the wings, with Trent Alexander-Arnold becoming the youngest player in Premier League history to record three assists in a single game and Andrew Robertson also helping himself to two.

Virgil van Dijk was typically dominant at the back and, having scored just once for Liverpool before Wednesday night, netted twice in the space of three minutes to cap off their five-star showing against the Hornets.

Indeed, it is a defence full of goals this week, with Fabian Schar also getting on the scoresheet for Newcastle. The Magpies went on to keep a clean sheet as they ended Burnley's unbeaten run, which is enough to give Schar the nod ahead of Arsenal's Laurent Koscielny.

The theme of goalscorers continues in midfield, where Southampton's Oriol Romeu opened the scoring against Fulham to help the Saints out of the bottom three, narrowly edging Fabinho and Idrissa Gueye to a place in this XI.

Gueye's Everton teammate Gylfi Sigurdsson does make the cut, however, with his two-goal showing at Cardiff clinching a much-needed win for Everton ahead of this weekend's Merseyside derby with Liverpool.

James Ward-Prowse and Isaac Hayden also deserve mentions, but it is hard to look past Mesut Ozil for the final spot in the midfield trio after the German served a reminder of exactly what he can do with a goal and an assist against Bournemouth - and he probably should have had more having hit the post with a golden chance too.

Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan were the stars of the show at the Emirates, with the Armenian getting a goal and two assists in the 5-1 win over the Cherries to hold off some stiff competition from Liverpool duo Mohamed Salah and Divock Origi, who gave their respective full-backs a torrid time throughout at Anfield.

One Liverpool attacker does make the team from their rout of Watford, though, with Sadio Mane getting the opening two goals in that match. Playing through the middle, Mane broke the deadlock with an expert header before adding an audacious second by back-heeling the ball past Ben Foster.

Mane has to make do with a spot out on the left in this team, though, and that is down to the presence of another two-goal player in Romelu Lukaku, whose poacher's finishes fired United to a club-record eighth consecutive away win across all competitions and reminded Ole Gunnar Solskjaer exactly what he is capable of through the middle.

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Written by
Barney Corkhill
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Today's games header
Tables header RHS
TeamPWDLFAGDPTS
1Liverpool16123137162139
2Chelsea17105237191835
3Arsenal1796234161833
4Nottingham ForestNott'm Forest179442319431
5Bournemouth178452721628
6Aston Villa178452626028
7Manchester CityMan City178362925427
8Newcastle UnitedNewcastle177552721626
9Fulham176742422225
10Brighton & Hove AlbionBrighton176742726125
11Tottenham HotspurSpurs1772839251423
12Brentford177283232023
13Manchester UnitedMan Utd176472122-122
14West Ham UnitedWest Ham175572230-820
15Everton163761421-716
16Crystal Palace173771826-816
17Leicester CityLeicester173592137-1614
18Wolverhampton WanderersWolves1733112740-1312
19Ipswich TownIpswich172691632-1612
20Southampton1713131136-256


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