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Premier League Team of the Week - Vincent Kompany, Eden Hazard, Marko Arnautovic

PL Team of the Week - Kompany, Hazard, Arnautovic
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Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for the penultimate gameweek of the season, including Vincent Kompany, Eden Hazard and four West Ham players.

The 2018-19 Premier League title race will go down to the final day of the season after both Manchester City and Liverpool continued their flawless form in their penultimate games of the campaign.

Both were given scares, but after Liverpool had scored late to beat Newcastle United 3-2 on Saturday night, Man City responded with a narrow 1-0 triumph over Leicester City on Monday to leave just one point in it with one game left.

The destination of the trophy is the only major thing to be decided on the final day after the top-four race was all but wrapped up, with Chelsea now guaranteed Champions League football next season courtesy of their win over Watford.

Tottenham Hotspur still have work to do after they had two men sent off en route to defeat against Bournemouth, but it would take results to go drastically against them - including a major swing in goal difference - if they were to be caught by Arsenal following the Gunners' draw at home to Brighton & Hove Albion.

Manchester United are mathematically out of contention, meanwhile, having become the first team to drop points to relegated Huddersfield Town since February.

At the other end, Cardiff City's relegation was confirmed with a home defeat to Crystal Palace, leaving Brighton safe in the top flight for at least another season.

Wolverhampton Wanderers are guaranteed 'best of the rest' status in seventh and must now wait for the FA Cup final to discover whether they will be in Europe next season, with Everton unable to catch them despite their win over Burnley.

West Ham United were one of the biggest winners of the weekend, meanwhile, cruising past Southampton to raise their hopes of a top-half finish.

Here, Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week from the penultimate gameweek of the season.



PL TOTW GW37

One Premier League appearance, one selection in the team of the week. Mark Travers became the youngest Premier League goalkeeper since October 2006 for Bournemouth on Saturday, and marked the occasion with a string of fine saves to keep Tottenham at bay. The story of the game went on to become Spurs' two red cards, but the 19-year-old made five stops and was named man of the match.

The match-winner in that game was Nathan Ake, who played in a more advanced midfield position but is chosen at centre-back for us this week ahead of the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Shane Duffy, Lewis Dunk, Kurt Zouma and David Luiz.

The story of the entire Premier League season may boil down to Vincent Kompany's unexpected rocket against Leicester, with the Man City skipper once again stepping up when their side needed a hero. Leicester were looking solid against Man City's attacks until Kompany fired his goal-of-a-lifetime in off the underside of the bar - one that will prove to be an iconic moment in the competition's history should City complete the job on Sunday.

West Ham's win over Southampton earns them four representatives in this XI, including both full-backs. Ryan Fredericks was particularly impressive - not only for his goal but also in making four tackles and winning and game-high 10 aerial duels - while Arthur Masuaku on the opposite flank was also an important presence both in attack and defence.

An honourable mention must go to Trent Alexander-Arnold - who made the most of a red card reprieve to add two more assists to his tally - while the likes of Matt Doherty, Seamus Coleman, Lucas Digne and Matt Ritchie were also under consideration for the full-back roles.

The Hammers duo are joined in the team by their skipper Mark Noble, who ran the show against Southampton and helped himself to an assist as well. There was once again plenty of competition for the midfield positions, including from Noble's clubmate Pedro Obiang, but it was the Englishman who made things tick in one of the more impressive team performances of the weekend.

Morgan Schneiderlin, Wilfred Ndidi and James McArthur were also in contention, but Ruben Loftus-Cheek joins Noble in this XI having made a big impact off the bench for Chelsea after replacing the injured N'Golo Kante. The England international carried the ball well and opened the scoring for the Blues as they broke clear in the second half.

As is often the case, Eden Hazard was the main star in that Chelsea win, marking what could be his final home league appearance for the club with a couple of assists to take him up to 15 for the season - more than any other player in Europe's top five leagues.

Hazard finds himself in the number 10 role for this XI, alongside Ryan Fraser and Andros Townsend. Fraser's scampering runs were instrumental in taking the fight to nine-man Spurs during Bournemouth's surprise win - not to mention delivering the corner which provided the winner - while Townsend helped himself to a goal and an assist in Crystal Palace's triumph over Cardiff.

Marko Arnautovic leads the line to complete the West Ham quartet having finally broken his scoring drought, netting twice for his first goals since January as he looked to be back to his best. The Austrian just about edges Salomon Rondon to a place in the team, while mentions should also go to Gonzalo Higuain, Wilfried Zaha and Pedro.

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Lucas Moura takes the match ball after netting a hat-trick for Spurs on April 13, 2019
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Tables
TeamPWDLFAGDPTS
CLiverpool33292272254789
2Manchester CityMan City33213981344766
3Chelsea341861063461760
4Leicester CityLeicester34178964323259
5Manchester UnitedMan Utd331510856332355
6Wolverhampton WanderersWolves33131374536952
7Arsenal34121485042850
8Tottenham HotspurSpurs33139115244848
9Sheffield UnitedSheff Utd33121293433148
10Burnley33137133746-946
11Everton33128134048-844
12Newcastle UnitedNewcastle331110123545-1043
13Southampton33134164255-1343
14Crystal Palace34119143043-1342
15Brighton & Hove AlbionBrighton33812133544-936
16West Ham UnitedWest Ham3387184058-1831
17Watford34710173153-2231
18Aston Villa3376203662-2627
19Bournemouth3376203259-2727
20Norwich CityNorwich3456232663-3721

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