Suggested URL: memorable-football-players-2018-2019-season
Premiership players can become memorable for several reasons. They can stress fans out, they cannot live up to their potentials, or they can become heroes of the season.
Pedro Obiang
In November 2016, West Ham announced Spanish-born Equatoguinean Pedro Obiang as their Player of the Month for October. In February 2017, he scored his first Premiership goal against Southampton when he scored from 25 yards away. So, Obiang was tipped to become a significant player, but after an ankle injury during a home defeat by Leicester in March, he was ruled out to play for the rest of the season. But he came back for the 2018/2019 season and soon became a memorable player. Not for his skill, though. Obiang was most memorable to footie fans for being the most stressful players to watch to watch that season. An analysis of 40,000 tweets by a new machine-learning tool discovered 93 out of every 1,000 West Ham fans tweeted anxiously about him. Hammers fans need not worry any more though, as Obiang signed to Sassuolo in July 2019.
Rachid Ghezzal
When Ghezzal joined Leicester City in August 2018 for a £12 million four-year deal, Leicester fans expected great things. He began well in his first match for the club, scoring a long-range strike from outside the box against Fleetwood Town. Leicester City won the game 4 – 0. Unfortunately, the rest of the season didn’t go as well. So, Ghezzal makes this list of memorable players not for being the hotshot that fans hoped he would be, but for his extremely disappointing performance throughout the rest of the 2018/2019 season. He was too quick to push off the ball and too wasteful when he had the opportunity to cross and dribble. By the end of the season, he was known for being almost absent from gameplay. So, Ghezzal became memorable to Leicester fans, but not for the reasons they had hoped for.
Raheem Sterling
Raheem Sterling plays as a winger and attacking midfielder for Manchester City and the England squad. He’s considered to be one of the greatest footballers in the world, and he lived up to his reputation during the 2018/2019 Premiership season. He scored the opening goal against Arsenal in Manchester City’s first match of the season, which they won 2 – 0. Sterling’s strike was his 50th goal since being in the Premier League. A string of other successes followed that memorable goal. In November 2018, Sterling scored twice and made two assists against Southampton in a 6 – 1 win. He continued his goal-scoring success into 2019, when he assisted Leroy Sané’s goal against Liverpool to win the match 2 – 1, and he ended the season scoring twice against Watford in a 6 – 0 win in the FA Cup Final. He won the PFA Young Player of the Year and the FWA Footballer of the year for the 2018/2019 season.
Virgil van Dijk
When Dutchman Virgil van Dijk signed to Liverpool in 2018 for £75 million, he held the world record transfer fee for a defender. Thankfully, every penny spent seems to have been more than worth it. Van Dijk was undoubtedly one of the most memorable players of the 2018/2019 season. He was integral to The Reds reaching the 2018 UEFA Champions League Final, in which he was named man of the match. And after his first full season, he was named the Premier League Player of the Season and the PFA Player of the Year. Virgil van Dijk is still going strong in the 2019/2020 season, so it looks like he will be a memorable player for a long time to come.
