MY ACCOUNT
Liverpool kept up their pursuit of Manchester City by seeing off Burnley after City had smashed Norwich 4-0 one day earlier.
Southampton battled hard for their 1-1 draw at Manchester United, Everton thrashed Leeds 3-0 to ease their relegation fears and Wolves won 2-0 at fellow European contenders Tottenham.
All of those teams have players featuring in LiveScore’s stars of the weekend after the latest round of fixtures.
Raheem Sterling
Perhaps talk of Raheem Sterling’s Manchester City career coming to an end was premature.
The England winger has now started 12 of the Citizens’ past 14 Premier League games and scored a fantastic hat-trick at Norwich.
Nine of his 10 league goals have come in that run since mid-November and Pep Guardiola was full of praise for the 27-year-old following his latest exploits.
Guardiola said: “It’s a brilliant first goal. The second one was there and you realise after the goal how confident he is, aggressive.
“In the last game he made an excellent action against Brentford to win the penalty. He is a guy that always creates something.”
Fabinho
Fabinho, Liverpool’s outstanding central midfielder, has found his scoring boots.
The Brazilian had netted four times in 142 games for the Reds prior to their FA Cup tie against Shrewsbury in early January.
He scored at Anfield that day and now has five goals in his past seven games in all competitions as the Reds continue to cling on to Manchester City’s coat tails.
His boss Jurgen Klopp said: “He would have probably scored more goals for Liverpool if I would have put him in the box around offensive set-pieces.
“Only recently we put him in and he scores a great goal.”
Armando Broja
He may not have got the equaliser at Old Trafford for Southampton, but Armando Broja did just about everything else.
The Chelsea loanee has fast become a star at St Mary’s and has everything a modern centre-forward needs to succeed.
At differing times he had Raphael Varane and Harry Maguire in all sorts of trouble as his movement, pace and physicality caused the Red Devils defence serious issues.
He drilled a brilliant ball across the face of goal in the first half, stung David de Gea’s palms at 1-1 and could maybe have even earned a penalty late on.
Arsenal have been tipped with an interest in the Albania international and Saints will have to cough up a large fee if they want to keep him permanently.
Max Kilman
Talk will soon turn to who might make Gareth Southgate’s next England squad in March — and Max Kilman will be slap bang in the middle of the conversation.
A former England futsal international, the 24-year-old was imperious again at centre-back as Wolves beat Spurs 2-0.
He has played virtually every minute of every game in all competitions, only coming off in stoppage time of the opening day defeat to Leicester.
There was one moment at Spurs where Kilman won the ball back in his own box, beat two men as he dribbled his way out of trouble before winning a free-kick to ease the pressure on his side.
Kilman has spoken previously about learning from the experienced players at Molineux and it is clearly paying off.
Donny van de Beek
Donny van de Beek has finally arrived in the Premier League — and he did so in style for Everton.
As the Toffees thrashed Leeds 3-0 on his full debut, Van de Beek pulled the strings at Goodison Park and reminded everyone why Manchester United spent £40million on him.
The Dutchman kept his council during 18 difficult months at Old Trafford and well and truly let his football do the talking on Saturday with a man-of-the-match display.
“I expected that,” new boss Frank Lampard said.
“I knew Donny as a player from the outside and I brought him here because of his talent in terms of his play, his intelligence and his work ethic.
“He’s a technical player but he matched the other players for work ethic. He gave us a sense of calm and he linked the play.”
