Premier League

Premier League Team of the Week - Bruno Fernandes, Mohamed Salah, Scott McTominay

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 22 December 2020

Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek 14, including Bruno Fernandes, Mohamed Salah and Scott McTominay.

In a Christmas period like no other, some traditions still managed to survive as the festive fixture schedule served up a feast of goals in a remarkable gameweek 14.

Liverpool set the tone in the opening match of the round by recording their biggest ever away top-flight victory, hammering Crystal Palace 7-0 at Selhurst Park to extend their lead at the top of the table.

Manchester United were not far behind with a six-goal drubbing of bitter rivals Leeds United, who managed to get two back in a game which could have quite easily seen far more than the eight goals which were scored anyway.

Tottenham Hotspur slumped to defeat at home to Leicester City, sending them down to fifth place less than a week after they sat at the top of the table, while the Foxes will spend Christmas in second once again.

Under-pressure Arsenal lost again away to Everton, while there were victories for Chelsea, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Burnley too.

Here, Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek 14.

In such a high-scoring week, it is no surprise that contenders for the gloves in this team were relatively scarce. Alisson Becker and Ederson both deserve mentions, but we have gone for Leicester's Kasper Schmeichel, who may have been expecting to be called into action more times than the three saves he made to keep Spurs at bay.

Chelsea's Thiago Silva is the only other non-Liverpool or Manchester United player to make the cut in this week's XI, having produced another inspirational display to lead Chelsea past West Ham United, including scoring the opening goal.

Liverpool provide the rest of the back four, with Fabinho once again shining at centre-back and Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson providing constant threats down the flanks - both helping themselves to another assist in the process.

Our midfielders and attackers contributed to 15 goals between them this weekend, and perhaps none more surprisingly than Scott McTominay, who became the first player in Premier League history to score twice in the opening three minutes of a game as Man United blitzed Leeds at Old Trafford.

McTominay later added an assist as well to solidify himself as one of the first names on this week's teamsheet, alongside Liverpool skipper Jordan Henderson, who also got on the scoresheet in the rout of Palace.

In truth, any of the Liverpool players from that match could have made the cut in this team; Joel Matip, Naby Keita, Georginio Wijnaldum, Takumi Minamino and especially Sadio Mane are all very unfortunate to be excluded.

Mane probably would have helped himself to more than his one goal and one assist had he not been subbed off so early - much to his dismay - but as it is he just misses out to Anthony Martial in this XI, with the Frenchman having chalked up two assists and won the penalty against Leeds.

Martial may feel that he should have got his own name on the scoresheet at least once as well, missing two notable chances created by Bruno Fernandes, who did still manage to record yet another assist in addition to two goals.

Marcus Rashford also deserves a mention, and away from Liverpool and Manchester United there were also notable performances from Jack Grealish, Mason Mount, Anwar El Ghazi, Bertrand Traore, Jamie Vardy, Harvey Barnes and Tammy Abraham.

It speaks volumes, then, that Mohamed Salah was still able to make the cut despite only being on the field for a little over 30 minutes.

In that time, the Egyptian scored two and created another, matching the haul of his strike partner Roberto Firmino, who capped off a brilliant week with a man-of-the-match display.