Key thoughts and analysis from Saturday’s Premier League action
theScore examines the most important developments and biggest talking points from Saturday’s slate of action in England’s top flight.
City’s arrivals already paying off
Manchester City’s signings having teething problems is a regular theme under Pep Guardiola. In Jack Grealish’s first season at the club, he would consider taking on a player before turning away and playing the ball backward, and he took time to adjust to the rotating cast of left-backs behind him. John Stones had to learn from his errors, and Rodri becoming an authoritative force in midfield was a drawn-out process. There are many more examples throughout the squad.
Players hitting the ground running like Erling Haaland are quite rare.
But this season is different. Josko Gvardiol’s encountered few issues while playing almost exclusively at left-back and dealt well with Morgan Gibbs-White’s movement and physicality when he moved to center-b