3 Up, 3 Down: Featuring Manchester United and Arsenal stars

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Down: Alexis Sanchez

Arsenal are notoriously slow starters, and after following their 4-3 defeat to Liverpool with a dull draw at champions Leicester, they are struggling to shake that tag this season. Their big names are just not firing, and nobody is more guilty of this than Alexis Sanchez.

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This is not Sanchez’s fault entirely. The Chilean winger is being deployed as a central striker by Arsene Wenger, but his lack of height and comparative strength on the ball has made life very difficult for him without real support.

He doesn’t look in the best form either, and can hardly be blamed after three straight summers of summer international tournaments, but it just all looks a bit much for Sanchez at the moment. Time to rest and a change in position will help him no end, but the Chilean is really struggling to get going this season.

Down: Diego Costa

It is unusual for a player on the winning side to end up in the down category, especially after they have scored a crucial winning goal for their team, but Diego Costa has managed to earn this dubious honour thanks to another display of very disappointing behaviour.

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Lucky to stay on the field against West Ham United on Monday, before notching the winner, Costa managed to earn himself a second booking of the season for dissent, already showing a disregard for the new rules about abuse towards officials.

Costa then followed this cheap card with the possibility of another, inexplicably and obviously diving on the edge of the penalty area with the game tied at 1-1.

Costa has scored the winner in both opening games for Chelsea, but he shouldn’t have been on the pitch for either of them. He must curb his behaviour or he will start to become a real problem for Antonio Conte.

Down: David Moyes

Back in the Premier League to rebuild his reputation, former Everton and Manchester United manager fills out this week’s bottom three after a disappointing derby defeat to newly promoted Middlesbrough.

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Moyes team, which featured a number of ex-Manchester United youth products failed to gel as the team stuttered their way to a very poor defeat against a Boro side that played well but had to do very little to beat them.

It is not the end of the world that Moyes has lost his opening pair of games, and it is far too early to suggest that there is any pressure on his job, but this was a test which the Scot wouldn’t have wanted to fail. Not the best start to his Sunderland career.

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