From an Irish point of view, the opening weekend of the Premier League held plenty of intrigue.
Of course, last season was one in which players from these shores endured a low point in terms of collective minutes at their various clubs.
But on Saturday, Ireland goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu and defender Nathan Collins both made notable debuts for their new clubs, although both ended up on the losing side as Southampton and Wolves lost to Tottenham and Leeds respectively.
Mark Travers kept a clean sheet as Bournemouth claimed a 2-0 win over Aston Villa while Shane Duffy also featured late on as his loan club Fulham tried to hold onto the eventual 2-2 draw against Liverpool earlier that day and U21 international Conor Coventry was brought on for West Ham against Manchester City.
While Spurs thrashed the Saints 4-1, Bazunu still managed to perform creditably in difficult circumstances behind a porous Southampton rearguard according to ex-St Patrick’s Athletic midfielder Conan Byrne who watched that match closely.
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“I was very impressed with Bazunu, even though he conceded the four goals,” he told the RTÉ Soccer Podcast of the former Shamrock Rovers keeper who immediately took the starting spot at St Mary’s ahead of the more experienced Alex McCarthy.
“He looked very assured, again communicated with his back four and you could see him pointing and shouting at various times and could do nothing about the goals.
“When you’re coming up against (Dejan) Kulusevksi, Son (Heung-min), (Harry) Kane, you’re not going to come up against harder opposition and attacking players than that.
“So I think we’ll judge him over the next couple of weeks when perhaps he makes a couple of world class saves.
“I don’t think you can fault him and I don’t think (Ralph) Hasenhuttl will fault him over the performance on Saturday because he could do nothing about the goals.”
Ireland right back Doherty, who missed the latter end of last season and the June internationals through injury, made a late cameo for Tottenham in that game with Emerson Royal starting at wing-back instead.
But Byrne is confident that the Dubliner will earn the spot back from the Brazilian in the long run once he’s back up to speed.
“If you’re going to compare the two players, I think Matt Doherty will be head and shoulders above Emerson Royal,” he said.
“I didn’t think (Emerson) had a great game even though they won 4-1 and with (Antonio) Conte playing Matt Doherty last year and doing really well in that team and they went on that fantastic run towards the end of the last year, I’d suspect Doherty will be getting a lot of game-time.
“That’s unless Djed Spence does particularly well in training and in some of his cameo roles, but I’d expect Doherty to nail down that right wing-back position for Spurs going forward.”
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