Premier League

Premier League Team of the Week - Eden Hazard, Xherdan Shaqiri, Gabriel Jesus

By Barney Corkhill, Editor | 17 December 2018

Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek 17, including Eden Hazard, Gabriel Jesus and super-sub Xherdan Shaqiri.

Liverpool still lead the way at the top of the Premier League by one point after 17 games courtesy of their 3-1 victory over bitter rivals Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday.

Champions Manchester City remain in hot pursuit too following their triumph by the same scoreline over Everton, while Tottenham Hotspur are by no means out of the running after leaving it late to beat Burnley.

Chelsea made it a clean sweep of wins for the top four by holding off Brighton & Hove Albion, but Arsenal are now three points adrift of the Champions League places as their 22-match unbeaten streak came to an end at struggling Southampton.

The Saints climbed out of the relegation zone as a result of that shock 3-2 win, with Fulham and Huddersfield Town joining Burnley in the bottom three following defeats to West Ham United and Newcastle United respectively.

There were also wins for Wolverhampton Wanderers, Watford and Crystal Palace on another action-packed weekend of Premier League football.

Here, Sports Mole selects its team of the week for gameweek 17.

Newcastle's 1-0 win at Huddersfield is enough to make them the best-represented club in this XI, with all three of their players coming in defence. Martin Dubravka is the first of those having made five saves to keep the clean sheet, narrowly beating competition from West Ham's Lukasz Fabianski.

Fabian Schar was also integral to that defensive effort from the Magpies with a team-high three tackles, while Javi Manquillo assisted the only goal of the game to earn his place at right-back above Pablo Zabaleta.

Jose Holebas went one better by getting on the scoresheet himself as Watford edged a thriller with Cardiff City to return to winning ways, and the back four is completed by Crystal Palace's Martin Kelly, who won a game-high seven aerial duels to help keep Leicester City at bay.

Luka Milivojevic scored the only goal of that game to join his clubmate in this team, while Robert Snodgrass was also on the scoresheet to continue his recent fine form for West Ham, earning him a place in the team ahead of Fabinho and Domingos Quina - albeit in a slightly different role to the one he has been playing in recent weeks.

Arguably the performance of the gameweek came from a player who only featured for 20 minutes, as Xherdan Shaqiri completely changed the game for Liverpool against United with two goals off the bench to end their long wait for a victory over their fiercest rivals.

Shaqiri also has to make do with a place in the midfield three as there was much more competition for the forward roles, with the likes of Gerard Deulofeu, Danny Ings and Salomon Rondon unfortunate to miss out.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Gabriel Jesus both responded to recent criticism with two goals apiece, though, while Eden Hazard was the difference in Chelsea's win over Brighton with a sublime assist and a good goal of his own.