EPL wrap: Ozil and Townsend shine again as Reds struggle

London: After another sparkling performance by Andros Townsend, the 22-year-old winger who England and Tottenham fans can’t get enough of, it was interesting to reflect back on Saturday morning’s newspapers. One claimed Townsend could “yet become a target for rival clubs after Tottenham’s reward for his England heroics was a new four-year deal worth just £16,000 a week”. Another trumpeted breathlessly: “His £40,000-a-week salary remains a fraction of the earnings enjoyed by his international colleagues, some of whom are on six times as much.” Quite apart from the fact that one of those reporters got his facts wildly wrong, frankly, who cares about how much the lad’s being paid? It’s wildly beyond what he could possibly need, and what we must really hope is that his meteoric rise doesn’t suddenly fizzle out. In the two World Cup qualifiers against Montenegro and Poland that interrupted the Premier League programme, he scored a fabulous goal and played with real verve, worrying opponents with his blistering pace. Then he found himself involved in a bizarre pseudo race-row also involving England boss Roy Hodgson, which was thankfully brushed to one side by all concerned before the weekend’s action got under way. [caption id=“attachment_1183517” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Ozil rose to head Arsenal’s second goal. Reuters[/caption] So what would he do in Sunday’s away match against Villa? Simple. He was his team’s most effective attacking player, scoring with a cross that floated untouched into the net to record his first league goal for Spurs, and making plenty of exciting runs in the second half in a 2-0 win. Keep your eyes on this kid. When most of his squad is fit, as they are now with the notable and damaging exception of Philippe Coutinho, Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers has plenty of options, almost too many. I think the manager himself is somewhat unsure of who is best 11 players are, but he needs to work it out quickly as the Reds are dropping points and losing ground after making an unexpectedly strong start to the season. Stats: All the Premier League numbers from this weekend Southampton snatch late draw at Manchester United Liverpool, Newcastle in a thriller Playing three centre backs is often unsatisfactory, as roles get confused, and this appeared to be what happened on Saturday. Nobody went to press Johan Cabaye when the Newcastle midfielder strolled forward and unleashed a venomous strike into the far corner that Simon Mignolet couldn’t get a finger to. Newcastle’s second goal, scored when they were a man down in the second half, was even more avoidable as Liverpool’s defenders allowed substitute defender Paul Dummett to ghost into space at the far post to score unchallenged from a free kick. It would probably serve Rodgers better to go back to basics, bring Daniel Agger back alongside the rejuvenated Martin Skrtel in a four-man defence with two conventional full-backs. After all, they know each other well. Kolo Toure and Mamadou Sakho don’t seem to quite know what their respective jobs are a lot of the time. What Liverpool simply don’t need to is to keep experimenting, and they certainly don’t need to rest players with no European commitments. Given the potency of their attacking options and the injury problems that Newcastle, who did very well to salvage a draw, this was a disappointing result for Liverpool, and it felt very hollow when Rodgers remarked: “We are on the right path and this point could be important at the end of the season.” Manchester United fans should also feel decidedly flat after watching the progressive Southampton side grab a late equaliser at Old Trafford. This was a strange match, because Southampton had 54% of the possession, a stat that would have been unthinkable when midfield enforcers like Paul Scholes and Roy Keane were running the United midfield. What they lacked was much of an end product, but Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama had plenty of time to plot Southampton’s moves in midfield, while on the other side Marouane Fellaini once again looked slightly uncomfortable. Alongside him, Michael Carrick was a fraction too passive. He did not look like the player who had been so impressive for England last Tuesday in ensuring their World Cup qualification against Poland. It may be harsh to criticise Fellaini and Carrick. United can count themselves a little unfortunate that, having opened the scoring with an early Robin van Persie goal, they didn’t score further goals: Van Persie and Wayne Rooney both hit the crossbar. One of the main positives for United was the continuing emergence of Adnan Januzaj as a potential superstar. Once again, he attracted some uncompromising tackles, but brushed them off to prove an incisive outlet on the left flank. It was a move instigated by the 18-year-old that culminated in United’s goal. This was a good weekend for Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. With a number of influential players injured, Arsenal played at a very high level. They welcomed back Santi Cazorla (who didn’t look entirely match-fit, but soon will be). Importantly, an injury picked up by Mesut Ozil on international duty appeared to be something of a false alarm, and he sparkled with two goals alongside Olivier Giroud and Jack Wilshere against Norwich. Like Arsenal, Chelsea also won 4-1 at home, though they did it with less conviction. David Luiz was so, so casual as they fell behind to an odd goal, and equalised with an even stranger one. Only 24 minutes remained when they finally moved in front against Cardiff through Samuel Eto’o. West Ham manager Sam Allardyce was forced to conceded that Manchester City were “very, very good” as they put aside some concerning form away from home to produce a dominant 3-1 win. There were some very good individual performances from City, but Sergio Aguero, who scored twice, was exceptional.