Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action

Buendía the architect of City’s bad day, Arsenal were woeful in defence and Maguire deserved better from Leicester fans 1) w88 mobile Buendía delivers for biggest upset of the season. The way in which Norwich turned a negative into a positive was quite something. With nigh-on a full team of players out injured, the odds of stopping Manchester City looked insurmountable. Instead Daniel Farke’s men gave their best performance of the season by far, not only cutting the champions open but looking solid at the back for the first time. There was kudos for the debutants in defence.

Sam Byram and Ibrahim Amadou, but also for more seasoned Norwich players. Emi Buendía and Marco Stiepermann were central to a buccaneering style in the Championship yet had struggled to bring that form to the top flight. With the gauntlet down, however, they delivered. Buendía contributed two assists and regularly sprung the City press. Stiepermann sparked several counter attacks and crucially reestablished his understanding with Teemu Pukki. Paul MacInnes



2) Sokratis the latest to show Arsenal must wise up in defence
There is a fine line between repeating an experiment until you reach perfection, and continuing it out of stubborn stupidity when the ingredients are clearly wrong. Which camp do you sit in where Arsenal, whose insistence on playing from the back was calamitous against Watford, and Unai Emery are concerned? They had flirted with danger several times before, in a near-action replay of Manchester City’s ridiculous third concession against Norwich, Sokratis Papastathopoulos’s sloppiness allowed Tom Cleverley to hand Watford a lifeline. Bernd Leno could be seen booting the ball long from a goal-kick, to cheers from the away fans, shortly afterwards but Ainsley Maitland-Niles almost let the home team in again later on as Arsenal tried to play short again. The new rule that allows players to receive a goal-kick inside the area has been grasped enthusiastically by many managers but it is not heresy to remind them you do not have to take advantage of it – particularly if your players are not up to the job. Nick Ames w88

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• Match report: Watford 2-2 Arsenal

Watford look like their old selves now Quique Sánchez Flores is back
Nick Ames at Vicarage Road
Nick Ames
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3) Firmino reminiscent of Cantona
His collar is not popped like Eric Cantona and his character could not be more different from the philosophising Frenchman but Roberto Firmino reminded Steve Bruce of his former Manchester United colleague with his dismantling of Newcastle. Firmino emerged from the bench at Anfield to provide two glorious assists for Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah as Liverpool eventually broke a well‑organised Newcastle unit. “Cantona is as good a player as I’ve ever seen,” Bruce said. “I haven’t seen Firmino week in, week out but what he gives them is a perfect balance. Cantona gave us that. We had Giggs and Kanchelskis who had frightening pace and stretched sides so much like Liverpool’s two [Mané and Salah], and Cantona dropped into that hole and people couldn’t get anywhere near them. That’s what you see with Firmino.” Andy Hunter แทงบอล สูง ต่ํา w88

4) Maguire deserved more from upset Leicester fans
Ole Gunnar Solskjær said Harry Maguire would not be too unsettled by the rancour he encountered from the away end at Old Trafford. And there are so many precedents – to cite just one example, the Blackburn fans’ treatment of Alan Shearer after the player had left Ewood Park – nobody should have been wholly surprised by the reception for Maguire from the section of Leicester fans. All the same, it did feel perplexing that a player could serve a club with distinction, as Maguire did for Leicester, then leave for £80m, taking care to handle a delicate situation in the right manner and earning the respect of his colleagues in the process, then become public enemy No 1 with their supporters. Maguire can reflect on a satisfying day, making it a frustrating occasion for Jamie Vardy, but he would be entitled to wonder why his first game for United against his old club took place against that kind of ill feeling. Daniel Taylor