Three things we learnt from the weekend, feat. Chelsea and Manchester United

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Another week of Premier League football has passed. It was an entertaining one for sure with a blockbuster derby at Old Trafford between Manchester United and Liverpool, local derby between West Ham United and Crystal Palace, a sizeable upset at Goodison Park with Everton thrashing Manchester City, and another twist in Diego Costa’s unpredictable mind.

Now, it is time to reflect on the weekend’s football.

Claudio Bravo was the worst signing of the summer

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Pep Guardiola saw the worst defeat of his managerial career after his City side capitulated, in embarrassing fashion, on Merseyside with a 4-0 loss against Everton. While today there were no glaring mistakes today, Manchester City’s Claudio Bravo played a very poor match.

Bravo came to City for £17 million from Barcelona. His signing carried high expectations that left fans profusely disappointed. In his last 14 matches, Bravo has only made 16 saves and conceded 19 goals. For a keeper, formerly of Barcelona and worth £17 million, letting in more shots than saves is unacceptable. While Joe Hart was often criticized for his cyclical spells of bad form and often costly mistakes at pivotal points in the season, Claudio Bravo has made a hash of things on far too many instances and has been anonymous in making the saves that gave him a reputation and are expected of an elite goalkeeper.

Losing to Everton can hardly be blamed on Bravo alone, but his attempts to save Everton’s four goals were weak. His footwork and his dynamic movements were slow on the first two goals; Bravo struggled to adjust his positioning and was slow at getting down to the ground to make saves. His charge for Davies’ goal was late and his attempt to save the resultant chip shot was very insuffivient, allowing the ball to just graze past his head as he turned his face away from the shot. He was then further humiliated by teenage debutant Ademola Lookman who nutmegged the Chilean late in stoppage time.

It took David De Gea time to find his feet in England when he was brought in to succeed Edwin Van der Sar in goal but despite the several mistakes he made that year, Claudio Bravo’s performances have been far more abysmal.