Garth Crooks’ Team of the Week: Raheem Sterling, Mohamed Salah and Scott McTominay

At the end of every round of fixtures, BBC football pundit Garth Crooks is on hand to give you his Team of the Week.

Guglielmo Vicario (Tottenham): I have selected Guglielmo Vicario for the very first time, after he took over from Hugo Lloris.

Regular readers will know what I thought of the French goalkeeper and it wasn’t very much. However, since the arrival of Vicario the Italian has looked much more competent between the sticks.

With only 10 men against Luton it was imperative that Vicario kept a clean sheet. However, it was the one-handed save from Carlton Morris in the final throes of the match that was outstanding. The way Tottenham celebrated their victory away at Kenilworth Road and going top of the table was interesting. They looked like it was something they could get used to.

William Saliba (Arsenal): Once again the steadying influence of William Saliba in defence for the Gunners is proving invaluable.

The atmosphere at Emirates Stadium was as tense as I have known it against Manchester City and yet Saliba was as cool as ice and appeared to handle Erling Haaland without any trouble at all.

I rate Saliba as highly as I rated Sol Campbell. The France international has the same kind of presence in defence as the former England man and is just as quick.

What no-one can legislate for is whether Saliba can remain fit. It’s highly unlikely he can go an entire season without some sort of injury and if his fitness does falter can the Gunners survive without him? Should Saliba get injured and Arsenal find that they can survive without him, then they must really fancy their chances of lifting the title.

Cristian Romero (Tottenham): Spurs went top of the table, but they made hard work of it.

Son Heung-min and Richarlison were well off the pace and why Yves Bissouma thought it a good idea to dive having already been booked earlier in the game beggars belief. His second caution was totally justified and such recklessness needs to be addressed by Tottenham’s coaching staff immediately before a costlier moment comes against a much bigger club.

Nevertheless, Spurs came away with all the points because of Luton’s inability to take their chances even against 10 men, and thanks to defending from the likes of Romero. I’ve no doubt Luton are trying their best but I cannot see where they are going to get their goals from to stay in this league. By the time they do come to terms with the challenge facing them and adjust to the level required they will have been cut adrift.

Micky van de Ven (Tottenham): The newly appointed Tottenham manager has certainly put a lot of faith in Micky van de Ven.

The 22-year-old Dutch defender certainly looks very impressive at this level and took his goal brilliantly.

Tottenham should have been four goals up in the first half; instead, they found themselves a man down. At this point I could have imagined former manager Antonio Conte blowing a fuse or Jose Mourinho marching into the referee’s room and demanding an explanation.

Ange Postecoglou seems to trust his players to get the job done and it’s worked so far. The Australian seemed to be the coolest man in the ground. His calm demeanour is clearly having a positive effect on his players.

Jack Harrison (Everton): The goal by Jack Harrison was spectacular, but I can’t understand why Bournemouth’s goalkeeper Neto selected to punch the previous delivery into the box when it was infinitely easier to catch it.

By Neto keeping the ball alive it presented Harrison with the opportunity to score. Harrison is a good addition to the Everton squad, but having observed him when he played for Leeds I don’t think 10 goals a season is too much to ask for a player of his ability.

Harrison is now amongst players and an Everton crowd that might bring the best out of him. After the debacle against Luton, Everton, and in particular Sean Dyche, desperately needed the victory.

Bournemouth, however, look a shambles and face Wolves after the international break. Gary O’Neil, their former boss, I am sure would take some satisfaction in reminding Bournemouth that his departure from the club might have been not merely a little premature but a shocking error of judgement.

Scott McTominay (Manchester United): I don’t normally select a player for my team who has only been on the pitch for 10 minutes, but when you have such a significant impact on a game it would be rude not to.

Two goals scored and one disallowed by Scott McTominay turned what was rapidly turning into a nightmare for manager Erik ten Hag into something of a massive relief.

It’s hard enough trying to win matches when your goalkeeper is in good form, but when he’s making errors almost on a weekly basis it makes life very difficult for all concerned.

Especially when you’ve had Peter Schmeichel, Edwin van der Sar and David de Gea keeping goal for you during the past 20 years, it becomes very conspicuous when you have a goalkeeper who is not in their class.

In fact, Andre Onana is not even on their planet. Since the arrival of the Manchester United keeper, he’s been either smashing into centre-forwards, letting the ball slip through his fingers or, as was the case against Brentford, beaten by a shot a schoolboy would have been expected to save.

Declan Rice (Arsenal): Whatever your thoughts might be regarding whether Mateo Kovacic should have received his marching orders or not, it didn’t really matter in the end.

Arsenal were the better side on the day against Manchester City and deserved their victory. It might have come in a better fashion instead of from a deflected shot off Nathan Ake’s head, but I sense there will be similar twists and turns in a season where no clear favourite has emerged.

However, there can be no doubt in my mind that Arsenal’s purchase of Declan Rice once again demonstrates the Gunners’ determination to leave no stone unturned to bring the Premier League title to the red part of north London.

Tottenham might be sitting pretty at the top of the table on goal difference at the moment, but unless they venture into the transfer market, and send a message to the rest of the league of their intentions, I fear Arsenal are in a better position to achieve their objective than their neighbours.

Willian (Fulham): I saw this player play for Shakhtar Donetsk and destroy Chelsea in a Champions League fixture at Stamford Bridge. It wasn’t long after that outstanding individual performance the Brazilian signed for the Blues and played a major role in the continued success of the London club.

These days Willian is not as influential as he used to be, but at the age of 35 he still has plenty to offer. He was instrumental in making life very uncomfortable for Sheffield United who seem to suffer from a combination of bad luck and horrendous injuries.

Chris Basham is the latest United player to join that casualty list. It was a horrible ankle injury and we wish him well and a speedy recovery. In the meantime, manager Paul Heckingbottom is holding up under the circumstances.

He team are getting pummelled on a weekly basis but he seems to be hanging in there.

Mohamed Salah (Liverpool): Going back to play against your old team is never easy, as Alexis MacAllister quickly found out.

The former Brighton favourite failed to collect a pass Virgil van Dijk had no right to give to him in the first place, and was then glared at by the Liverpool captain for not doing more with an appalling pass.

Fortunately, Liverpool have Mohamed Salah who is looking lethal in front of goal again these days, and with no interference from VAR this week the Reds came away with a worthy point.

I find it extraordinary that the Premier League should use the best league in the world as a testing ground to pilot the latest technology and develop the system on the hoof.

VAR should have been tried, tested and proven well before being introduced to the best league in the world. Instead, we have one manager asking for replays in the event of errors by its operators and another insisting the system should be scrapped in its current form.

Alexander Isak (Newcastle): West Ham versus Newcastle was a terrific match considering both teams were embroiled in midweek European fixtures.

It was questionable whether Bruno Guimaraes should have been on the pitch after receiving an earlier yellow card but he survived and so did Newcastle.

This was a big test for the Magpies after their monumental victory over PSG in the Champions League, but they managed to come away with a point at the London Stadium.

Alexander Isak delivered the goods, while his second goal was produced with the most glorious cross from Kieran Trippier.

It also gave the visitors a glimmer of hope of taking all three points, but that’s all it was as West Ham struck back to equalise. This was an excellent match played in the right spirit by two emerging teams.

Raheem Sterling (Chelsea): He only had a walk-on part against Fulham, but he was certainly the star of the show against Burnley.

The way Raheem Sterling is playing at the moment I’m beginning to think that leaving him out of the recent England squads, and not having to mentally navigate international training, travel, selection and performance, has done him a monumental favour.

All he has to do now is concern himself with Chelsea. Sterling is playing with a freedom and confidence that made him the best player in the country two seasons ago.

In the meantime Gareth Southgate’s continued omission of Sterling is starting to reflect negatively more on the England manager than it is on the player. Two league wins in a row for the first time since March tells its own story.

Chelsea haven’t just found an element of consistency in their game; they are starting to look like a team where a top-four finish no longer looks completely out of the question.

The Crooks of the Matter

I completely understand why Jurgen Klopp suggested that a replay was somehow justified after the wrongly judged offside decision in the match featuring Tottenham and Liverpool.

He knows better than anybody that if Liverpool were to lose the title by one point, or miss out on any of the European competitions by the same margin, and had not challenged the verdict by the VAR operators responsible for the debacle – or indeed the released transcript confirming how the match officials actually arrived at their appalling decision – Liverpool supporters might have accused him of not acting in the best interests of the club.

After all, Klopp or Liverpool Football Club have nothing to lose by asking for a replay.

Should they get one? Absolutely not.

The reality is that to even consider replaying a Premier League fixture due to an error by a referee would have fans across the country up in arms.

Which football fan hasn’t seen their team suffer from a significant error of judgement by a referee? Referees make mistakes and we all accept closure once that fixture has come to an end.

Liverpool FC, however, seem to think that this long-held custom no longer applies to them.

The argument often presented in mitigation is that there is too much money at stake to allow such an error to go unchallenged. I have always maintained that money is more likely to ruin football than technology.

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