Premier League scores, Week 1: Pep Guardiola dives right into being his unorthodox self

Did you expect to see Pep Guardiola start with some fairly normal tactics and team selection, then slowly implement his favored style? Well, he’s just gone right into it, playing half his team outside their preferred positions and dropping players everyone assumed would start. The result? His controversial selections made errors on a Sunderland goal, but City still did enough to get the win.

Here’s everything you need to know about what happened on the first Saturday of the Premier League season.

Saturday’s scores

Sunday’s scores

Monday’s scores

Given Manchester City’s limited preseason and the number of their players who got extended rests after international tournaments, no one quite knew what to expect from their first match. What they got was Willy Caballero picked over local favorite Joe Hart, while new signing John Stones and usual left back Aleksandar Kolarov started in the center of defense, despite Nicolas Otamendi being healthy. Fernandinho played as the team’s only real midfielder, with David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne playing very high up the pitch as usual, instead of adjusting to central midfield positions like City’s starting XI suggested one or both of them might.

Those controversial selections ended up hurting City. Willy’s positioning was poor on Jermain Defoe’s goal, and the communication between Kolarov, Stones and Fernandinho was way off, letting Defoe find plenty of space in a dangerous area. That’s not to say Pep wasn’t justified in his selections -- he’s thinking about his team long term, when they’ve had plenty of time to play and train together -- but criticism is part of the nature of Pep’s style. When he makes dramatic, unorthodox selections that don’t work out, fans and media are going to wonder why he didn’t just keep it simple instead of out-thinking himself.

City also won the match, though it was more due to Sunderland’s errors than anything they did. Both the penalty and own goal that Sunderland conceded were very poor. Though they generated two goals, the City attack didn’t ask Sunderland goalkeeper Vito Mannone to do anything during open play on shots by guys in blue shirts.

Say hello to Lynden Gooch.

The 20-year-old American moved to Sunderland when he was 16 and got rave reviews for his play with the Black Cats’ under-21 team last season. Clearly, playing away to City isn’t the easiest spot to make a debut, but he had some impressive moments down the left flank. And given the lack of true left wingers in the USMNT pool at the moment, Jurgen Klinsmann will be giving Gooch a good, hard look.

Hull City wasn’t expected to give Leicester City much of a game on Saturday. They won 2-1, and their opener was this goal -- an Abel Hernandez bicycle kick assist that Adama Diomande tapped into the net.

Hull is currently extremely shorthanded, with their owner refusing to buy players while he’s trying to sell the club. Even if they get a new owner and a transfer budget this week, they’re going to have a difficult season. These were three very important points for them.

There was no moment when Lloris clearly got hurt, but midway through the first half of Spurs’ draw with Everton, he walked off the pitch injured, with Michel Vorm replacing him. Spurs announced that he had a hamstring injury.

Vorm is one of the better backups in the Premier League, but there’s no replacing Lloris. The Frenchman was one of the most important players for any team in the league last season. If he’s out for any extended period of time, Vorm will need to be exceptional to keep Spurs close to their rivals for top four.

The Saints started slow in a draw against Watford but were the better team in the second half. New signings Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Nathan Redmond did well, with the former changing the game for the Saints when he came on as a sub and the latter scoring the equalizing goal. New boss Claude Puel is also getting some praise for picking a system that gets the most out of Dusan Tadic.

Read about Manchester United’s win over Bournemouth here and Liverpool’s victory away to Arsenal here. On Monday, Chelsea defeated West Ham United.