This week’s European Team of the Week is a good example of why the opponent and the game state matter.
Brighton scored five against winless Coventry and Real Madrid put four past Rayo Vallecano, producing several obvious statistical standouts. But some of the best performances came in much more difficult circumstances.
Manchester City spent more than an hour of the Manchester derby playing with ten men and still won at Old Trafford. Real Betis survived heavy pressure to win at Villarreal. Arsenal needed a halftime substitute to break open a difficult trip to Sunderland. Fulham went to Anfield and shut out Liverpool.
Those performances get a little extra credit here.
The formation is a 3-4-2-1, with Pascal Groß filling the right wingback role he has played at various points in his career and Alejandro Grimaldo pushed higher on the left. It may not be the team you would actually send out to protect a 1-0 lead, but we have seen much worse tactical experiments in real games.
Goalkeeper: Álvaro Valles, Real Betis
Valles may have the strongest argument of anyone in the starting XI.
Betis went to Villarreal and won 2-1 despite spending much of the second half protecting a narrow lead. Villarreal consistently found its way into dangerous positions, but Valles stopped nearly everything that reached him.
He finished with seven saves, all from shots inside the penalty area, and Sofascore estimated that he prevented 1.98 goals beyond what an average goalkeeper would have been expected to concede.
That is not a goalkeeper collecting an easy clean sheet behind a dominant team. Without Valles, Betis almost certainly does not leave Villarreal with three points.
Center Back: Joško Gvardiol, Manchester City
Gvardiol’s contribution to City’s Manchester derby victory went beyond the assist.
Phil Foden’s red card in the 23rd minute forced City into a compact 4-4-1 for most of the game, leaving their defenders with very little margin for error. United had the numerical advantage for nearly 70 minutes but managed only two shots on target after the dismissal.
Gvardiol defended his side of the box well and then provided the cross for Erling Haaland’s winner on the hour. City-focused coverage gave him a 7.5 and specifically praised both parts of his performance.
There were defenders with bigger statistical games elsewhere. Very few produced in a more difficult situation.
Center Back: Lewis Dunk, Brighton
The opponent strength caveat applies here.
Coventry has had a miserable start to its return to the Premier League and was reduced to ten men early in the second half, so Brighton’s eventual 5-0 victory needs to be viewed in that context.
But Dunk still deserves his place.
He anchored the back line for another Brighton win and then produced one of the goals of the weekend, smashing a shot from roughly 30 yards into the top corner. Brighton’s own media review called it the finest strike of his career.
Center backs do not get many chances to make Team of the Week for their shooting.
Dunk took his.
Center Back: Calvin Bassey, Fulham
Bassey’s performance was almost the opposite of Dunk’s.
No goal. No assist. No viral highlight.
Just an excellent defensive performance at Anfield.
Fulham held Liverpool to a 0-0 draw and limited one of the league’s most expensive attacks to about 1.0 expected goals. The visitors stayed compact, defended the central spaces and prevented Liverpool from turning territorial control into the steady stream of clear chances usually associated with playing at Anfield.
Fulham’s defense deserves the credit collectively, and David Affengruber was named the club’s player of the match, but Bassey was a major part of a back line that accomplished one of the more difficult defensive assignments in England.
Right Wingback: Pascal Groß, Brighton
Groß gets moved slightly out of position for our purposes, although playing him as an attacking wingback is hardly a wild departure from the many roles he has filled during his Brighton career.
He scored Brighton’s third from the penalty spot against Coventry and later created Yasin Ayari’s stoppage-time goal, which was the 50th Premier League assist of Groß’s career.
The quality of the opposition keeps him out of the Player of the Week discussion. Coventry went down to ten men with Brighton already leading 2-0, and the final half hour became increasingly comfortable.
Still, Groß continues to provide a ridiculous amount of useful production for a midfielder in his mid-30s. He can control possession, deliver set pieces, play the final pass and apparently keep finding new lives at Brighton indefinitely.
Central Midfield: Nicolò Barella, Inter
Inter spent the opening 16 minutes against Udinese apparently trying to make the game unnecessarily difficult.
They succeeded.
Udinese raced into a 2-0 lead before Inter responded with five goals on the way to a 5-3 victory. Barella was central to the comeback. He scored the equalizer in the 35th minute, then continued driving the attack as Inter completely overwhelmed Udinese after the poor start.
Barella finished with six chances created and received a 7 from Sky Italia and 7.5 from Corriere. Sofascore had him at 8.6, tied for the highest rating in the match.
The major takeaway is not the rating. It is that when Inter needed someone to turn frantic possession into useful possession, Barella repeatedly found the next pass.
Inter had 27 shots and 49 touches in the Udinese penalty area by the end. Barella helped create the wave that eventually became impossible to stop.
Central Midfield: Bruno Guimarães, Arsenal
Bruno only played 45 minutes, but that was enough to deliver an outsized impact.
Arsenal was locked in a difficult game at Sunderland when Mikel Arteta introduced Guimarães at halftime. Sunderland then had a golden opportunity to take the lead from the penalty spot, only for David Raya to make an outstanding save.
Two minutes later, Guimarães picked up the ball outside the box and curled a beautiful shot into the top corner for his first Arsenal goal.
That sequence changed the game.
Sunderland had spent much of the afternoon testing Arsenal, and a converted penalty could have turned the Stadium of Light into a very difficult place for the defending champions. Instead, Raya kept it level and Guimarães immediately punished them at the other end.
Arsenal eventually won 2-0 to maintain its perfect start.
Attacking Midfield: Elliot Anderson, Manchester City
Anderson’s performance requires some tactical context.
Before Foden’s red card, he occasionally looked exposed as the deepest midfielder in City’s shape. Manchester United could drop Matheus Cunha into midfield and force Anderson to choose between tracking him and staying connected to Bruno Fernandes.
The red card strangely simplified the assignment. City dropped into a compact 4-4-1, Anderson received more support around him and suddenly United could not find nearly the same space through the center.
From there, Anderson was excellent, competing for everything, protecting the back four and working as City absorbed pressure for more than an hour. City-focused ratings gave him an 8.5 and singled out his ball-winning and work rate.
This was not a game where the midfielder needed to control 70 percent possession.
He just needed to help ten men survive at Old Trafford.
Attacking Midfield: Alejandro Grimaldo, Atlético Madrid
Grimaldo essentially broke open a game that appeared headed nowhere.
Atlético Madrid had struggled to create much against Real Sociedad and entered the final ten minutes still tied 0-0. Grimaldo converted a penalty to finally put Atlético ahead, then created Jonathan David’s goal only a few minutes later. Atlético eventually added a third to produce a flattering 3-0 final score.
The scoreline makes this look like a dominant Atlético performance, but it was far from that. Local Atlético coverage described the first hour as disorganized and noted that the game only improved after Diego Simeone changed the structure.
Left Wingback: Álvaro Carreras, Real Madrid
Carreras might have been Real Madrid’s best player despite Kylian Mbappé scoring twice.
He immediately gave Madrid more attacking aggression from left back against Rayo Vallecano, winning the penalty that Mbappé converted for the opener and then scoring himself three minutes later after combining through the defense.
AS gave Carreras a 9/10 and called him the standout performer, praising the fact that all of his attacking activity did not come at the expense of his defensive responsibilities.
Rayo eventually caused Madrid some problems after halftime, so the 4-1 scoreline was more comfortable than the entire performance.
Carreras was one of the major reasons Madrid built enough of an early cushion that it did not matter.
Striker: Kylian Mbappé, Real Madrid
Another week, another multi-goal performance from Mbappé.
He converted Carreras’ early penalty against Rayo and then finished the match with a curling stoppage-time goal to complete his brace. He was also credited with an assist as Madrid won 4-1.
The opponent keeps him from taking Player of the Week.
Rayo is not Manchester United at Old Trafford, but there is also a point where production becomes impossible to ignore.
Mbappé has started this La Liga season looking increasingly comfortable as the center of José Mourinho’s attack. Madrid can find him running behind a defense, isolate him from the left or simply let him wait for the game to stretch.
When the opportunity appears, the finish increasingly feels inevitable.
Player of the Week: Erling Haaland, Manchester City
Haaland only scored once, but it was the crucial goal of the weekend.
Manchester City went to Old Trafford for the Manchester derby and lost Phil Foden to a red card in the 23rd minute. City then spent the remaining 67 minutes playing with ten men against its biggest rival.
On the hour, Haaland found the one opening City needed.
Gvardiol sent a deflected cross through the box and Haaland stretched to steer it home. City protected the lead and left Old Trafford with a 1-0 victory.
The performance was not merely about the goal. Haaland was isolated for long stretches after the red card and had to provide an outlet whenever City escaped United’s pressure. Local City coverage praised his work rate in addition to the finish.
There is one unavoidable caveat. The goal was initially disallowed, and the referees’ body subsequently acknowledged that VAR should have recommended an on-field review because of Enzo Fernández’s involvement from an offside position.
That complicates the winning goal itself, but it does not erase the difficulty of Haaland’s overall assignment or City’s performance with ten men.
He also moved to nine Premier League Manchester derby goals, passing Sergio Agüero and Wayne Rooney for the most in the fixture.
Team of the Week
GK: Álvaro Valles, Real Betis
CB: Joško Gvardiol, Manchester City
CB: Lewis Dunk, Brighton
CB: Calvin Bassey, Fulham
RWB: Pascal Groß, Brighton
CM: Nicolò Barella, Inter
CM: Bruno Guimarães, Arsenal
LWB: Álvaro Carreras, Real Madrid
AM: Elliot Anderson, Manchester City
AM: Alejandro Grimaldo, Atlético Madrid
ST: Kylian Mbappé, Real Madrid
Player of the Week: Erling Haaland, Manchester City