1. Victor Moses (Chelsea)
His opportunity may have come about more through accident than design, but that doesn’t make Moses’s performances any less impressive
When Moses signed a four-year contract at Chelsea last September, it was to a soundtrack of knowing chuckles rather than cheers of jubilation. At that stage the Nigerian was on loan at West Ham and struggling to get a game in his third temporary spell away from Stamford Bridge in as many seasons, each more nondescript than the last. As he crept into his mid-20s, a promising youngster was threatening to become a forgettable journeyman; the consensus was that Chelsea’s offer of a new deal was little more than a ruse to maximise his sell-on value.
A little over a year later, Moses has established himself as a vital cog in the league's most smooth-running machine. His opportunity, as a wing-back in Antonio Conte’s 3-4-3 system, may have come about more through accident than design (a central reason for the Italian's reluctance to use the system in the first place was arguably the fact he was missing a right-wing-back), but that doesn’t make Moses’s performances any less impressive.
2. Idrissa Gueye (Everton)
Most onlookers were too stunned by the sheer abject misery of Villa to notice there was a midfielder in their ranks who wasn’t entirely disgracing himself
If you were an upwardly mobile Premier League club looking to improve your starting XI in the summer, it’s unlikely that Aston Villa would have been your first port of call. Or your second. Or any port of call at all. The Villans were little short of a disgrace last term, finishing an absurd 17 points adrift of their nearest rivals at the foot of the table after a campaign of such wretchedness that the top-level careers of players like Micah Richards and Joleon Lescott were damaged beyond repair.
Most onlookers were too stunned by the sheer abject misery of Villa to notice there was a midfielder in their ranks who wasn’t entirely disgracing himself and who, whisper it, was even playing quite well. Steve Walsh was one of the few people on whom this fact wasn’t lost; the recruitment guru’s first move after joining Everton from Leicester was to flip open his laptop, scour Gueye’s statistics and recommend a move for the Senegalese.
The comparisons with N’Golo Kanté may seem glib but, given how the pair were signed at a knock-down price by the same man in consecutive summers, it’s hard not to look at Gueye’s performances this year – indefatigable running, acutely intelligent positional play, consistently tidy use of the ball – and not at least see shades of last year’s standout midfielder. Perhaps those stats nerds do know something after all.
3. Victor Anichebe (Sunderland)
It’s little exaggeration to say that Sunderland’s acquisition of Anichebe in early September seemed more an act of wild-eyed desperation than transfer-market shrewdness. The striker, 28 and perennially injury-prone, had been without a club since parting company with West Brom earlier that summer. A quick glance at his goalscoring record in the top flight – 24 in 186 appearances over the years – provided ample explanation for his lack of suitors.
And as Sunderland quickly sunk to the foot of the table, with Anichebe struggling for fitness and nowhere to be seen, the suspicions about his Premier League pedigree – and that of his manager – seemed all but confirmed. And then came Bournemouth: Anichebe’s first start for his new club and a genuinely heroic centre-forward performance that garnered numerous bruises, one sumptuous goal and a hard-earned man-of-the-match award. Since then, his four starts have brought three wins, three goals and a comprehensive turnaround for a side that looked nailed-on for the drop a few weeks ago.
His display down on the south coast last month wasn’t just one of the individual performances of the season: given that it catalysed the pivotal game in Sunderland’s possible revival, it may prove the most important. All sports fans love an underdog story and Anichebe – built more like Rocky Balboa than Rocky Rocastle – could well be on his way to writing one.
4. David Luiz and 5. Marcos Alonso (Chelsea)
David Luiz’s commanding physicality and Alonso’s buzzard-like flank play have been equally vital to Chelsea’s revival
To bracket two high-pedigree players signed for a combined £57m as ‘unlikely heroes’ may seem a stretch, but Luiz and Alonso make this list because neither was anywhere near the top of Conte’s list of targets in the summer.
The former was a signing borne of exasperation, Conte only turning to the Brazilian once moves for Leonardo Bonucci, Kalidou Koulibaly and Alessio Romagnoli had hit the wall. Nikola Maksimovic and Aymen Abdennour were other centre-backs whose names had been doing the rounds in connection with Chelsea before the floppy-haired 29-year-old showed up at Cobham on deadline day. Alonso joined at the same time, that deal also coming amid whispers that ‘top targets’ had been missed out on.
That both now sit atop the table as key members of the league’s meanest defence – Luiz’s commanding physicality and Alonso’s buzzard-like flank play equally vital to Chelsea’s revival – is proof that football management is less a matter of putting together a precise, finely tuned plan and more a test of doing the best you can on the hoof with the tools that come your way. Or, as a wise man once said, “like trying to build an aircraft while it's in flight”. Conte and Chelsea are soaring.
Next page: Good old Jimmy...
6. Lee Grant (Stoke)
His nine games so far have yielded four clean sheets, five wins and taken Stoke from 20th in the league to ninth
On August 27, Derby County lost 1-0 away to Burton Albion as Grant, the Rams' reserve keeper for over a year, watched on from the bench. Four days later he was making a deadline-day loan switch to Stoke – although his surprise at moving up a division was mitigated by his status in the pecking order, firmly behind Jack Butland and Shay Given in the queue for the No.1 jersey.
But a month later, with Butland no closer to recovering from injury and Given having conceded 13 goals in four games, Grant was handed a shock start against West Brom. The Potters' losing streak came to an end and Grant largely impressed; he duly kept his place for the trip to Old Trafford, where a string of magnificent saves formed the platform for Stoke’s smash-and-grab draw.
Since then he wasn’t looked back, with his nine games so far having yielded four clean sheets, five wins and taken Stoke from 20th in the league to ninth. He also has the highest save success rate in the division – and this consistent, functional shot-shopping is a timely counterpoint to the newfangled and frankly dubious skill sets of some of his more illustrious peers.
7. Gareth McAuley (West Brom)
He's gone about doing exactly what he's done for the past six seasons: staying fit, retaining focus, and defending his penalty box with low-key, no-frills consistency
West Brom are not a side who attract a great deal of attention, so their recent transformation from relegation candidates to possible European contenders (they currently sit in seventh spot) has gone largely unnoticed. So too has their equally impressive stylistic shift from face-clawingly tedious to pretty watchable (sometimes).
It’s fair to say that McAuley hasn't been at the heart of this shift – he’s simply gone about doing exactly what he's done for the past six seasons: staying fit, retaining focus, and defending his penalty box with low-key, no-frills consistency.
But while little about McAuley’s performances has been revelatory, the fact remains that the Premier League is hard-pressed to find a more capable centre-back pairing than he and Jonny Evans. It’s an all-Northern Irish duo that radiates calm and has a firm, no-nonsense grasp of the fundamentals of defending that are often lost amid modern demands for mobility and technique.
McAuley, now 37, is yet to miss a minute of league football and has three goals to boot. All in all, he can look back on his decision to join Lincoln City and turn professional 13 years ago – having played his football as a part-timer in Northern Ireland’s amateur and semi-pro leagues until he was 24 – as one well worth taking.
8. James Milner (Liverpool)
Raise the subject of underappreciated members of Liverpool’s back four and the first name to come up will probably be Joel Matip, the quietly elegant centre-half whose absence sends a largely competent defence into screaming meltdown. But arguably the most impressive performer in Jurgen Klopp’s backline is the man who was signed a year ago as a central midfielder and began this season without a place in the first XI.
Milner was parachuted in at left-back for the second game of the campaign, after Alberto Moreno’s clownishness had cost the Reds a couple of goals against Arsenal the previous week. Any reservations about his inexperience in the position or lack of pace were quickly put to bed with a string of splendid performances, and their unruffled steadiness couldn’t have provided a greater discrepancy with the man he displaced.
As ever, it’s been Milner’s focused energy that has stood out, his reward coming with a series of manfully dispatched penalties. His link-up play with Roberto Firmino, who likes to drift into the inside-left channel, has helped fashion a number of Liverpool’s goals, while his two-footedness – best demonstrated in his consistently excellent crossing – has also offered a stark reminder of that ability's rarity in the supposedly luminary Premier League.
