Weekend awards: Best celebration, goal and more!

Football writer Adrian Kajumba looks at the standout players and moments from Matchweek 24.

Best performance - Nottingham Forest 

“This football pitch has seen very few performances over 50 or 100 years that have matched what I have just seen out there today,” Nottingham Forest club legend Stuart Pearce said.

The praise for Nuno Espirito Santo's side after their stunning 7-0 win over Brighton & Hove Albion could hardly have been higher. 

On a memorable day at the City Ground, Forest responded to their 5-0 defeat at AFC Bournemouth with this season's biggest Premier League win and their largest in any division since beating Chelsea by the same scoreline in April 1991. 

Forest also became only the second side in Premier League history to follow a defeat by five or more goals with a win by five more goals, after Sheffield Wednesday achieved it in November 1997. 

A ruthless efficiency was key for Forest who had only 37 per cent possession and scored their seven goals from nine shots on target and an Expected Goals (xG) total of 3.41, comfortably their biggest xG overperformance of 2024/25. 

Forest had standout performers from back to front, but hat-trick heroes Chris Wood and his sidekick Anthony Elanga were the headline acts. 

Wood's hat-trick v Wolves

Wood - jokingly described as “the new R9 [Brazilian Ronaldo]” by team-mate Morgan Gibbs-White - reached 17 Premier League goals for the season with his hat-trick, making this his best Premier League scoring campaign. 

Elanga created three goals, including two for Wood, and the winger now has 10 assists for the striker since the start of last season. That is the most goals set up by one player for a specific team-mate during that period. 

Best starters - Everton 

What a start, for both Everton against Leicester City and David Moyes since his return to Goodison Park.

Everton flew out of the traps against the Foxes, with Abdoulaye Doucoure scoring the fourth-fastest goal in Premier League history after only 10.18 seconds and the quickest-ever netted by a home player.

Beto then added another after five minutes and 48 seconds, making it the earliest Everton have scored twice in a Premier League match too.

Further goals from Beto, after James Garner's sublime through-ball, and Iliman Ndiaye followed, continuing Everton’s impressive upturn since Moyes made his comeback.

Garner's pass to Beto v Leicester 

They have three wins out of four in the league under Moyes, matching the start from his first spell, and as many as they secured in their first 19 matches this season under previous manager Sean Dyche.

How Everton managers compare after four matches

The success of Moyes’ return is further highlighted by Everton getting better at both ends of the pitch.

Their eight goals in their last three matches under Moyes are as many as they scored in their final 12 Premier League fixtures overseen by Dyche.

Meanwhile, as the stats below confirm, they have improved as an attacking threat and in possession, and also in defence since the managerial change. 

Everton stats per match under Dyche and Moyes

Best travellers - Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace’s impressive away form should not be lost in the fallout of a fifth home defeat in six for Manchester United.

Palace extended their longest-ever unbeaten away run to eight matches with their 2-0 win at Old Trafford, keeping a fourth successive away clean sheet in the process.

Only leaders Liverpool have matched Palace’s tally of 18 points earned away from home in that time, while the Eagles’ record of five wins and a draw from the last six on the road is the best in the division.

Central to Palace's success has been striker Jean-Philippe Mateta. 

Mateta's second goal v Man Utd

Along with the winner at Ipswich Town in Palace’s first away league win this season in December, Mateta has scored five of Palace’s last six away goals, including their two at Old Trafford. 

After a slow start to the season, Mateta is the Premier League’s joint-top scorer in the 2025 calendar year, with six goals, and Palace head coach Oliver Glasner believes his persistence is now paying off.

“The second [goal] looks easy at the end but, I don’t know, it was his 20th run in behind,” Glasner said. “Most times he doesn’t get the ball but at the end he will get the rewards.” 

To underline Glasner’s point, Mateta is joint-fifth in the league for runs into the box, with 179, and fifth for targeted runs into the box (a deliberate move into the area to get a scoring opportunity), with 62.

Best celebration - Myles Lewis-Skelly (Arsenal)

During the feisty finish to the season's first meeting between Manchester City and Arsenal in September, Erling Haaland asked Myles Lewis-Skelly who he was when the Gunners youngster attempted to intervene in one flashpoint.

Haaland, who also told Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta to “stay humble” following the dramatic 2-2 draw at the Etihad Stadium, received the answer in the return fixture. 

Lewis-Skelly lit up Arsenal's 5-1 win on Sunday and rubbed Haaland's nose in it by reproducing the Norwegian’s meditation celebration after scoring his first Arsenal goal. 

Lewis-Skelly's goal and celebration v Man City

A midfielder coming through the ranks, Lewis-Skelly has shown maturity beyond his 18 years to adapt effortlessly to Arsenal’s left-back role at first-team level. 

But his imitation of Haaland’s zen pose had all the cheek and confidence of youth.

Lewis-Skelly followed team-mate Gabriel Magalhaes by taunting Haaland during Arsenal's goal celebrations in one of the sub-plots of their statement win.

On this occasion Arsenal had the last word, though Pep Guardiola’s reaction when alerted to Lewis-Skelly’s celebration suggested it will not be forgotten.

“So, he did Haaland's celebration? Ah … that’s good, that’s good,” Man City’s manager said, perhaps ominously.  

Best goal - Ethan Nwaneri (Arsenal)

Ethan Nwaneri’s goal to put the perfect seal on Arsenal’s win against Man City was the weekend’s standout strike, for what went before it as much as the finish itself.

Twenty-four hours after Mohamed Salah’s trademark sublime goal at Bournemouth, Nwaneri topped it with one former Man Utd defender Gary Neville described as “Salah-like”.

Salah’s curling shot to make it 2-0 at Bournemouth and the build-up - a counter attack that began on the edge of Liverpool’s box - deserve highlighting.

But Arsenal’s move for Nwaneri’s effort was even better. It lasted one minute and 54 seconds, involved every Arsenal outfield player and 36 uninterrupted passes.

It was the longest passing move leading to a Premier League goal since Phil Foden finished a 46-pass sequence for Man City against Nottingham Forest in September 2023, and Arsenal's longest pass sequence leading to a goal since such records began in 2016. 

The final pass came from Declan Rice, a brilliant, sweeping first-time switch of play from left flank to right.

“I don’t think a lot of people think I’ve got that [pass] in my locker but I saw that pass five seconds before and knew I was going to play that pass out to Ethan before Gabi [Gabriel] even set me the ball,” Rice said. 

Nwaneri then cut in from the right and bent the ball into the far corner left-footed, to provide the Salah-style finish the passage of play deserved.