Manchester City are represented in the latest Premier League team of the week that has been selected by BBC pundit Garth Crooks.
Actually Garth is now down as a ‘Football Analyst’ these days, a posh term for a pundit then!
The performance by Gabriel Jesus in the two one victory over Swansea City at the weekend at the Etihad Stadium was enough to earn them a place in the side alongside the other, in the opinion of the former Spurs striker anyway, most impressive performers in the topflight over the latest weekend.
I think we’ll already know ourselves, and not just based on the latest performance, why Crooks, we’ll also not argue with it, selected Jesus as part of his team but explaining his choice he told the BBC.
‘I promised myself that I wasn’t going to mention words like miracles and redemption when talking about Gabriel Jesus, but it’s extremely difficult when those terms are somewhat relevant. The fact that Manchester City beat Swansea at all suggested there was something rather fortuitous about their victory. The young Brazilian certainly had big shoes to fill as he had replaced Sergio Aguero in City’s starting line-up. I don’t know what is going on at City but it doesn’t look like a happy camp to me. When Pep Guardiola continues to play around with team formations, (which is his prerogative), leaves his best striker out and substitutes Kevin de Bruyne (who looked far from happy), you start to question his motives. Is he losing patience with his stars and putting ‘faith’ in those more likely to do precisely what he says? Whatever the reason, and there will be one, Guardiola may have found a saviour in Jesus. Sorry but I couldn’t resist it!’
It’s always good to see the club represented in this way, and well played to Jesus for his recognition, but the most important thing about the weekend was of course the win.
Full Team:
Thibaut Courtois (Chelsea), Michail Antonio (West Ham), Andrea Ranocchia (Hull City), Lamine Kone (Sunderland), Marcos Alonso (Chelsea), Henrikh Mkhitaryan (Manchester United), N’Golo Kante (Chelsea), Juan Mata (Manchester United), Jermain Defoe (Sunderland), Romelu Lukaku (Everton), Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City).
