Why Marcus Rashford is Ruben Amorim’s Cristiano Ronaldo, the dribble king blowing away his rivals and why the Myles Lewis-Skelly outrage masks a huge problem for Arsenal: PREMIER LEAGUE THINGS WE LEARNED

Days have passed and yet the performance of Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez away to Manchester City continues to puzzle.

The bamboozled display helped set City on their way to a much-needed win amid a fierce battle for the top four, knocking out Newcastle, who had beaten a woeful Southampton side earlier on.

Nottingham Forest were cut down to size to see their title hopes go up in smoke and attention turn to staying in the top four after they themselves were slain 5-0 by Bournemouth.

Goals were in short supply on Sunday with one fortuitous strike from Lisandro Martinez handing Manchester United the win at Fulham, while Aston Villa and West Ham played out a 1-1 draw at Villa Park.

Meanwhile, it was a 700th Premier League game as a manager to remember for David Moyes as Everton’s slender win at Brighton drastically boosted morale amid yet another relegation battle.

In the newest instalment of this weekly column, Mail Sport picks out five of the most interesting talking points to emerge from the Premier League’s latest round of matches.

CHERRIES STAR GOING UNDER THE RADAR

It does not get spoken about enough just how remarkable David Brooks is.

For the 27-year-old to bounce back from being diagnosed with cancer in 2021 to becoming a Premier League mainstay in a team chasing a top-four spot is one of the great stories in the modern game.

Brooks is Andoni Iraola’s go-to option on the right side and while he is not getting the goals or assists of a Justin Kluivert or Antoine Semenyo, Brooks is one of the under-appreciated stars of this Cherries side.

Most expected the Welshman to drop into a Championship loan last season and never get another shot at the top flight.

Others wrote off the chances of his body rebuilding the strength to go on and compete at the pinnacle of football in this country.

‘We him trust a lot,’ Iraola said of Brooks recently. ‘Everyone in the club trusts David.

‘He’s playing more minutes lately especially because we have the injuries of Tav [Marcus Tavernier], of Sini [Luis Sinisterra] in his position.

‘[Players] all want to play more minutes. And for me, sometimes, especially in the wingers that we have five, six options that are very good, it’s difficult for them, but as long as everyone is trying to take benefit of the minutes for the team is going to be good.’

Brooks has started the past four games in all competitions and for now the shirt is his.

Given what many feared when he was handed his Stage 2 Hodgkin lymphoma diagnosis in 2021, Brooks continues to defy all expectations placed upon him.

Truly one of the most heartwarming tales in the game today.

RASHFORD IS AMORIM’S RONALDO

Ruben Amorim is growing increasingly weary when questions are put to him about his continued exclusion of Marcus Rashford so he decided to make it crystal clear.

He would, he explained, rather play his 63-year-old goalkeeper coach than turn to ‘a player that doesn’t give the maximum.’

Rashford’s prospects of leaving the club this month have stopped and started and are now hanging in the balance with a week left of the January window.

But this has the feeling of Cristiano Ronaldo and Erik ten Hag.

Managers often want to mark their authority by drawing a firm line in the sand with one figure in the dressing room.

For Ten Hag that was Ronaldo and for Amorim it’s Rashford.

Things have escalated massively since Rashford was dropped from the Manchester derby squad for his training performance.

The English striker later took it a step further when he revealed during a bombshell interview in December that he was ‘ready for a new challenge’ away from his boyhood club after nine years in the first team.

Amorim insists he does not know if the forward will leave in January and Mail Sport understands that the players’ £315,000-a-week wages are proving to be a stumbling block in negotiations with the likes of Barcelona and Dortmund.

But when a Manchester United team  crying out for pace and guile in attack is leaving out one of its quickest strikers and the manager is going on the record to say there is more chance of him calling on his 63-year-old goalkeeping coach, it’s a wrap.

KUDUS THE DRIBBLE KING

It may have only been one point rather than three for West Ham and Graham Potter at Villa Park but there were plenty of positives to take, not least the form of Mohammed Kudus.

The Ghana international led the line in the Midlands and completed more dribbles than any other player and also was the most accurate passer (100%) to play 45 minutes or more.

It was his dribbling that is worth paying special attention to, though.

Since the start of last season, Kudus ranks No 1 of players to complete 5+ dribbles in a game most often in Europe’s big five leagues having done it 20 times. His nearest challenger is Man City’s Jeremy Doku, who has done it 14 times.

20 – Mohammed Kudus

14 – Jérémy Doku

11 – Jamal Musiala

11 – Florian Wirtz

11 – Khvicha Kvaratskhelia

‘I think definitely I want more. I set higher standards for myself,’ Kudus said last week.

‘I’m not there yet, but we keep working because individually and as a team, we all know the reality of the situation we are in.

‘Right now, the focus is not on whether I score or not, but finding ways to get the team the points, which is part of the game.

‘Most importantly, I’m fit and healthy and available to play a part in helping the team every single game. That is important for me. Definitely, I want to get higher numbers [of goals and assists] and, most importantly, get more points for the team. We keep working on that.

‘It can happen today, tomorrow, but I’m always ready and working every single week to get there.’

Potter has chosen to utilise him as the figurehead up top in a 3-4-2-1 system and while it is taking a bit of adjusting to, the new West Ham would be wise not to rid the Ghanaian’s game of his tricky dribbling.

Bring on the King of Dribbling.

ARSENAL CAN’T KEEP SEEING RED

As mind-boggling as the decision was to send off teenager Myles Lewis-Skelly at Wolves, it brought about a much bigger issue that the Gunners need to address.

Under Mikel Arteta they have become title contenders and play an attractive brand of football, no doubt.

But they have also received the most Premier League red cards of any team in the league since Arteta became Arsenal boss in December 2019.

Lewis-Skelly’s dismissal made it 19 red cards in the league under Arteta, four more than closest challenger to this award in Wolves (15) and then a further two red cards clear of third-placed Everton (13).

‘We cannot continue to play with 10 men, especially at this level and you see all the struggles teams have to win football matches,’ Arteta stressed back in October. ‘We need to eradicate that, it’s clear.’

Contentious call, not a contentious call, however you see it, the disciplinary issue persists and has cost Arsenal time and again.

It helped that they were up against an equally ill-disciplined Wolves team, who themselves helped Arsenal by going down to 10 men midway through the second half before Arsenal nicked the only goal they needed to win the game.

When you look at the 19 red cards Arsenal have had in the league under Arteta it makes you realise how avoidable so many of them were.

It is also noteworthy that 13 of those 19 red cards (68%) came away from home which brings into question discipline on the road.

Yes, the Lewis-Skelly decision so far from his own goal in what seemed a yellow card and nothing more, was highly contentious. But there is no dispute that Arsenal are giving opponents a one-up far too often, particularly away from home, in the Premier League.

Their escapology act at Wolves won’t be on hand to bail them out every time if they don’t sort it out.

PEREIRA NEEDS BACKING TO STOP THE ROT

Four straight defeats. One goal scored. Ten conceded. Yikes.

The new manager bounce that Vitor Pereira brought to Wolves has well and truly worn off after defeat by Arsenal marked the first time since 1982 that they have lost four consecutive games at the start of a calendar year.

‘The problem, we must say, [is] we need solutions for the midfield,’ Pereira mused after the 1-0 loss to Arsenal, sending a not-so-subtle message to his board with a week to go of the January transfer window.

‘We need solutions, we need to have more players with the skills to play with two in the middle. I think [in] the next days, we have to bring another midfielder because we need it.’

Wins for Everton and Leicester City would have been both unexpected and a kick in the gut particularly given Wolves (18th) have Aston Villa (8th), Liverpool (1st), Bournemouth (7th) and Fulham (10th) in their next four games.

Since two wins and a draw in his first three games, Wolves have been leaking goals for fun, conceding 3+ in three of the past four matches.

So it is paramount that if Pereira is going to turn this around and keep them up he simply has to get in some new players this month.

With Leicester City dithering in the market it really could be the difference between survival or relegation.

To the Wolves boardroom, your move…