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The Premier League season is well underway and we are at Matchday 8. With the league shaping up nicely following a hectic summer which featured the FIFA World Cup and a number of summer signings also slotting in almost seamlessly to their teams, right now would be a good time to analyse the performances of the teams and players and make a case for them.
The top half of the table is more or less as expected with Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea sitting pretty at the top 3 spots. Tottenham and Arsenal are in close pursuit with the early season surprise package Watford sitting at 6th place. Former Champions Manchester United are languishing at 10th place, with Bournemouth, Leicester, and Wolves sitting above them in the table as things stand.
Here, let us now take a look at 3 players of high pedigree who have disappointed us massively in the early phase of the League and have been performing at a level much lesser than what is expected of them.
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#3. Henrikh Mkhitaryan
It's been a weird spell for Henrikh Mkhitaryan at England. The former Bundesliga player of the year arrived at England to much fanfare but hasn't been able to replicate the consistent creative form he displayed in German soil in the colors of Borussia Dortmund.
Formerly of Manchester United, where he was deemed surplus to requirements by Jose Mourinho following a lackluster couple of months, he was shipped to Arsenal as a direct swap for Alexis Sanchez (who also features in this list for obvious reasons), and was expected to do much better in a more attacking system especially considering the fact that he was set to link up with former attack partner, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who had also just made the move to the Emirates.
But, while Aubameyang has hit the ground running at Arsenal and has continued this season where he left off at the last, Mkhitaryan has failed to reproduce consistent performances and as a result, has seen him clock lesser minutes in game time than expected. His hattrick of assists early in his Arsenal career has been his highlight so far, and his displays of flair and brilliance in creating chances have been few and far apart.
This season so far, he has clocked around 300 minutes for the club, but has only a goal and assist to show, both of which came in one game, the 3-2 defeat to Chelsea (where he also missed an absolute sitter that could have won Arsenal the game). Apart from that, while Arsenal has made a strong recovery from their early season stutter, Mkhitaryan has failed to live up to the talent that we all know he possesses and looks like a shadow of his own self.
Arsenal fans and Unai Emery would be desperate to see Mkhitaryan raise the bar with his performances and would be hoping that the Armenian gets himself back to his best, for otherwise, time is running out for Mkhi at England and Emery might just start looking for other alternatives to strengthen the creative firepower at his Arsenal.
#2. Willian
With Mauricio Sarri taking over Chelsea, one would have expected Willian to be one of the most important cogs in his Sarriball system of vertical tiki-taka, and it most definitely looked like it, but after a summer of insecurity regarding his future with Barcelona and Manchester United supposedly interested in him, it looks like Willian is having a difficult spell starting this season off, following what was his best season in the famous blue jersey of Chelsea, last time around.
Willian has only 1 goal and 2 assists so far in the Premier League, out of which the goal and one of his assists came against Cardiff City, one of the newly promoted teams to the Premier League. He did show his caliber when he started for Chelsea in their Europa League fixture where he scored Chelsea's only goal in their win over PAOK in Greece, but his form in the Premier League has been much below par, compared to what we have seen of the Brazilian wing wizard.
One of the best set piece takers in the Premier League and packed with a bag of tricks, Willian is a fullbacks nightmare on his day, but we haven't seen many of those performances under Sarri, and as a result, we've seen Pedro pip Willian to the starting spot in Sarri's 4-3-3 at the right and it seems like it will stay that way once Pedro is back in the team following his short-term injury, until Willian picks up his game and shows us once again what he is capable of and what made him such a hot property in Europe over the summer.
#1. Alexis Sanchez
Oh boy, how did it come to this? Once, the talisman for Arsenal and one of the most feared players in the Premier League, Alexis Sanchez is clearly not the great attacker he was and his fall from grace is something no football fan saw coming.
A diminutive winger with very good feet and strength to hold an opponent off, the Chilean was a pocket dynamo who did everything for Arsenal and his form and desire to win trophies and his frustration with Arsenal led to him switching allegiance to Jose Mourinho's United in a swap deal with Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Mourinho was a huge fan of Alexis and this move established him as the highest-earning footballer in Premier League history.
He started life at United slow, but everyone expected him to walk past it and come strong this season following an extended break over the summer as Chile failed to qualify for the World Cup at Russia. So, well rested and coveted by his manager, Alexis came back and made a huge impression at pre-season with United and got everyone excited. But, what happened after that has been a very dismal tale for United fans and Alexis himself.
The latest victim of the "Number 7 curse" at United, Alexis has gone from being the first name in the team sheet to being excluded from the squad. With no goals to his name this season, and with only 3 goals since he joined in January, Sanchez has cut a sorry figure for himself at Old Trafford.
His frustration has been made very evident on the field whenever he is given a chance to redeem himself, as he makes an attempt to overcompensate and this has resulted in him losing the ball 347 times in his time at Manchester United so far, with only 4 players having lost the ball more in the Premier League than him in this period.
Arsenal fans all around would be having a hearty laugh at how their talisman who went rogue and pushed for a move away has turned out for one of their most hated rivals. But all neutral football fans are eagerly waiting to see Sanchez back at his best, and it's still not too late to hope for the same.
