Who’s creaking under the pressure of carrying an entire team this season?
It’s nearly Christmas and a handful of players could do with a helping hand after their solo, one-man efforts so far.
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But which Premier League clubs are truly the one-man team to end all one-man teams?
Firstly, we reckon 15 of the 20 sides ARE IN NO WAY reliant on just one man, but here are the five that ARE…
5 Man United – Anthony Martial
Martial FC will tell you they should be even higher up this list.
Yes the bamboozling young Frenchman has come in from the cold this season to shoulder most of the goalscoring burden.
Martial has seven Premier League goals, including five in as many games at one point, and has been their one bright spark in what is on course to be their worst ever season.
4 Brighton – Glenn Murray
England always seems to produce a decent cart horse; think the Grant Holt, Rickie Lambert school of thought.
But that term plays down just what Murray is doing down on the south coast.
Not only has Murray scored 40% of their Premier League goals this season, he’s also single-handedly earned 10 of their 21 points.
When Murray finds the net, Brighton don’t lose. That’s a fact.
3 Bournemouth – Callum Wilson
The cherry on top of the Cherries’ cake.
Only Wilson is probably the casting sugar, flour and icing rolled into one given how much he offers to this team.
The recent England call up has either scored or assisted 52% of Bournemouth’s league goals this season and hasn’t slowed down despite their recent slump.
Wilson missed the 4-0 defeat to Liverpool the other weekend and they looked utterly bereft of direction without their focal point.
2 Chelsea – Eden Hazard
Chelsea’s prime goalscorer, creator and spark all rolled into one.
With neither Olivier Giroud nor Alvaro Morata nailing down the number nine shirt for good, Hazard has stepped into the breech even though he’s made it patently clear he hates it.
He’s been involved in 49% of Chelsea’s league goals and either scored or set up each of their last six.
Only two players in Europe’s top five leagues have hit eight for goals AND assists so far this season… and the other is Lionel Messi.
1 Crystal Palace – Wilfried Zaha
This would have been even more pertinent had we published this before Palace beat Leicester on Saturday. Sorry about that.
That’s because that 1-0 win was the first time the Eagles have managed not just a victory, but a single point when Zaha has been missing for 14 whole games. 14!
Palace’s previous win without Wilf came over two-and-a-half years ago… when the likes of Steven Pienaar and Adnan Januzaj started for Sunderland.
Not only are they too reliant on him, their players simply look for him too often too. Give the ball to Wilf. Rinse and repeat.
Watching Palace at times this season can seem like an Under 11s game at school when it’s obvious one player is probably having trials at QPR.
READ MORE:
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