Every Premier League club’s most overrated player features Saliba and Lammens | OneFootball

We are sick to the back teeth of Premier League footballers being given undeserved dues here at Football365 and aim to knock them down a peg or two; maybe even three in the case of the particularly overhyped.

Whether by fans, managers, sporting directors, pundits, us journos or even themselves, these are the most overrated players at each Premier League club.

Arsenal: William Saliba We may be about to see just how good Saliba really is as superior centre-back partner Gabriel faces up to a couple of months on the sidelines, but also probably not because Christhian Mosquera or Piero Hincapie will be the perfectly capable replacements now charged with making the champion coat-tail rider look a whole lot better than he actually is.

And if it’s not them successfully helping Saliba pull the wool over our eyes then it could be one of the dozen or so full-back-cum-centre-backs Mikel Arteta has to choose from. Facetiousness aside, Arsenal really should take £100m from Real Madrid. Any drop-off without Saliba, if indeed there was one, would be negligible.

Aston Villa: Ollie Watkins Always be wary of a striker praised for “stretching defences” as the subtext is almost always that they’re a bit sh*t at putting the ball in the back of the net. Watkins is very, very good at stretching defences.

Bournemouth: Justin Kluivert We can’t quite believe he didn’t join Tottenham before experiencing what would be seen as a dip in form from the high of last season, but on the basis of his six previous seasons of senior football, is much more likely the mediocre standard we can continue to expect from Kluivert.

Brentford: Jordan Henderson We concede that Henderson has been better than we expected (and hoped) on his return to the Premier League. But perhaps clouded by our great lily-livered lefty dislike of a man who moved to Saudi Arabia having been such a supposedly staunch supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, we don’t hold pointing, shouting and playing a couple of long balls in quite such high regard as those who worship at the altar of the midfielder with an entirely broken moral compass.

Brighton: Carlos Baleba Just imagine the fun we would currently be having if Baleba was putting in these almost comically poor performances compared to last season for a Manchester United side that had panicked into his £100m transfer.

The downturn could be down to his head being turned, but if he turned it a little more often he may not get caught in possession quite as much, amirite? Crikey Moses he’s no Moises [Caicedo].

Burnley: Marcus Edwards At one stage linked fairly heavily with a return to Tottenham or to Manchester United in one of the clearest examples of football clubs confusing ‘looking at who happens to be playing quite a lot for Sporting’ with actual scouting. Edwards has made three substitute appearances totalling 21 minutes this season.

Chelsea: Liam Delap Admittedly a very small sample size thanks to the injury and absurd red card, but on a scale from useless lump to world-class striker he’s currently closer to Chris Sutton than Didier Drogba.

Crystal Palace: Eddie Nketiah “I’m astounded they let Nketiah join Palace,” Teddy Sheringham said in February. “I think he is a young Ian Wright.”

Wright scored 113 Premier League goals in 213 games. Nketiah has scored 23 in 150.

Everton: Jack Grealish We were among those banging the Grealish for England drum, irked by his snub as the Premier League’s runaway assist leader with four by the time the September internationals rolled around. But two of those assists came against Wolves, and should thus be stricken from the record, and he hasn’t managed another in his seven games since, scoring just one goal.

In the cold light of day, having put down our ‘We heart Jack’ placards, we’ve come to accept that England are probably better off with a bit of speed on the left wing and our ‘top lads’ agenda may be clouding our view with regard to him playing in a No.10 position he’s taken up roughly thrice in the last five seasons.

Fulham: Emile Smith Rowe We can’t quite work out if he’s suffered or benefited from that 18 months or so when he was paired with Bukayo Saka as the future of Arsenal. The reputation built partly through that briefly inextricable link will have played a role in his move to Fulham, but also means we may always have expected too much.

While one Hale End pin-up is now widely regarded as one of the best footballers on the planet, the other tends to watch Harry Wilson play football from the bench.

Leeds: Dominic Calvert-Lewin 58 goals in 248 Premier League games raises one big question: How has a striker who’s only scored 58 goals in 248 Premier League games played 248 Premier League games? Take out a two-season glut and he’s scored 25 goals in 163.

If it’s anything like the stages of grief, and we suspect it is as Bundesliga voices have already had great difficulty accepting the reality of the loss of Wirtz in that initial period of denial, we can expect Alexander Isak and others to be put forward as bigger flops in a bargaining bid, before depression and finally acceptance that a) Wirtz was hugely overrated, and b) the Premier League is indeed, without question, The Best League In The World.

Manchester City: Tijjani Reijnders It turns out a game against Wolves on the opening day of the season, after which Reijnders was hailed as Manchester City’s answer to Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and David Silva in one neat little 82kg bundle, isn’t quite the harbinger of success many thought it was.

Manchester United: Senne Lammens We very much enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek “are you Schmeichel in disguise?” chants from Manchester United fans as Lammens claimed simple crosses that his recent predecessors often contrived to make a mess of on his debut against Sunderland.

But those tongues are now conspicuously absent from cheeks as genuine claims are being made about the 23-year-old being the undisputed answer to the Red Devils’ goalkeeping woes after literally five games of simple competency.

Newcastle: Sandro Tonali “I would probably choose Tonali at this point,” said Paul Scholes when asked who’s currently the Premier League’s best midfielder. Not even the best midfielder at his club, mate.

Nottingham Forest: Omari Hutchinson We wonder if the fourth manager Evangelos Marinakis picks to manage Forest this season might fancy the £37m club-record signing.

Sunderland: Simon Adingra Not easy – they’re fourth, FFS – but of the 13 players Sunderland signed in the summer we were perhaps most excited by what Adingra might do having impressed in fits and starts at Brighton; it’s not really happened for him.

Tottenham: Rodrigo Bentancur Never has a footballer been more highly regarded on the basis of having some poise in possession. Bentancur is frequently seen as a key cog in the Tottenham midfield, and we wholeheartedly agree, but only because the other members of said midfield have as much poise as someone three sheets to the wind attempting to fumble their key into a lock.

West Ham: Lucas Paqueta We are very intrigued by what might happen if Paqueta extricates himself from West Ham in 2026, as is suggested will be the case, because for every game in which he does something entirely out of keeping with the quality of the football club he currently plays for, there are half a dozen more where he looks as though he might have found his level.