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Premier League Team of the Week - Harry Kane, Diogo Jota, Dominic Calvert-Lewin

Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek nine, including Harry Kane, Diogo Jota and Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Tottenham Hotspur lead the way at the top of the Premier League table after gameweek nine courtesy of their impressive 2-0 victory over Manchester City on Saturday.

Reigning champions Liverpool are only behind them on goal difference, though, having made light of their injury crisis to sweep former leaders Leicester City aside on a record-breaking evening at Anfield.

There were also wins for Manchester United and Chelsea over West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle United respectively, but Arsenal dropped more points in a goalless draw with Leeds United.

Burnley finally claimed their first win of the season by beating Crystal Palace on Monday night, while Everton, West Ham United and Brighton & Hove Albion were the other teams to come away with victory.

Here, Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek nine.



PL TOTW GW9

There was a fair amount of competition for the gloves in this week's team - not something you could say for every position - with Hugo Lloris and Burnley's Nick Pope both unfortunate to miss out.

Southampton's Alex McCarthy is the man to get the nod for us, despite the Saints only managing a draw against Wolverhampton Wanderers in the final match of the gameweek. McCarthy could not do anything about Wolves' goal and made eight saves - including a couple of very important ones in the first half - to ensure that his side came away with something.

Considering Liverpool were without three of their first-choice back four, you would have got long odds on them providing three defenders in this team, but the manner in which they kept a dangerous Leicester attack quiet suggested that they might be able to cope with the long-term losses of Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez.

Fabinho once again excelled at centre-back, while James Milner was dependable as ever defensively when called upon to fill in at right-back.

Milner and Andrew Robertson both also had big impacts at the other end of the field, between them assisting all three goals and creating plenty more chances in a dominant display. Lucas Digne was also in very close contention at left-back.

Antonio Rudiger deserves an honourable mention, but Tottenham's Eric Dier completes our back four having made more blocks and the second-most clearances of any player in the entire league over the weekend to help keep Man City at bay.

Indeed, Spurs are unfortunate not to have more than two representatives in this team with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Son Heung-min among the ones unlucky to miss out.

Declan Rice and Abdoulaye Doucoure are chosen as our holding midfielders in a slightly unorthodox 4-3-3 formation, with Rice having largely run the show against Sheffield United and Doucoure scoring what proved to be the winning goal against Fulham.

Bruno Fernandes was also in contention for a midfield spot having once again proved to be Manchester United's penalty saviour, but he is pipped to a place by Diogo Jota, whose stunning start to life as a Liverpool player continued as he became the first person in the club's history to score in each of his first four home league games.

Sadio Mane and Solly March were pushing for a forward role, but there were three centre-forwards who could not be left out this week and so we have had to crowbar them all in alongside each other.

Of those, Dominic Calvert-Lewin was arguably the first name on the teamsheet courtesy of another two goals to stretch his brilliant start to the season.

For a long time it looked as though Sunday would not be Roberto Firmino's day as he hit the woodwork twice and somehow failed to score before finally notching with a firm header to secure all three points for his side.

Harry Kane was also impossible to leave out after another all-action display against Man City, popping up in all areas of the pitch and capping off another superb performance with his ninth assist of the season already.

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Written by
Barney Corkhill
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Tables header RHS
TeamPWDLFAGDPTS
1Liverpool1311112681834
2Arsenal1374226141225
3Chelsea1374226141225
4Brighton & Hove AlbionBrighton136522217523
5Manchester CityMan City137242219323
6Nottingham ForestNott'm Forest136431613322
7Tottenham HotspurSpurs1362528141420
8Brentford136252623320
9Manchester UnitedMan Utd135441713419
10Fulham135441818019
11Newcastle UnitedNewcastle135441414019
12Aston Villa135441922-319
13Bournemouth135352019118
14West Ham UnitedWest Ham134361724-715
15Everton132561021-1111
16Leicester CityLeicester132471627-1110
17Crystal Palace131661118-79
18Wolverhampton WanderersWolves132382232-109
19Ipswich TownIpswich131661324-119
20Southampton1312101025-155


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