Wednesday’s EPL Results

Here’s a brief rundown of yesterday’s EPL action where there was a shock defeat of Chelsea away to Wolves & Liverpool sinks again in Blackburn.  Both matches cast doubts over the futures of managers Carlo Ancelotti & Roy Hodgson, respectively.  An Aston Villa home defeat has also brought up the question of Gérard Houllier’s future at Villa Park as Villa were booed at the end of their match.

Arsenal 0-0 Manchester City
Arsenal didn’t take advantage of several early chances to get a goal & missed an opportunity to leapfrog their opponents in Manchester City and into second place.  City can likely count themselves lucky not to have gone behind on a couple of occasions in the first half as both Robin Van Persie and Cesc Fabregas rattled the post with the best chances of the match.  In the second half the match could be summed up as City defending resolutely and Arsenal stubbornly trying to work their little, intricate passing game but to no avail.

Aston Villa 0-1 Sunderland
A late goal from fullback Phillip Bardsley gave the visitors a hard fought win at Villa Park.  It was the former Man U player’s first goal since a loan spell at Glasgow Rangers almost four years ago.  The loss puts Villa into the last relegation spot and square into the relegation fight.

Newcastle United 5-0 West Ham United
Seldom used Leon Best scored a hat-trick in only his second appearance of the season leading Toon to a fantastic result for recently appointed manager, Alan Pardew.  Kevin Nolan and Peter Lovenkrands netted the other goals for the Geordies.  The defeat sinks West Ham to the foot of the table and their manager, Avram Grant joins the fast-growing list of managers whose jobs are possibly in jeopardy.

Wolverhampton Wanderers (Wolves) 1-0 Chelsea
Arguably the shock result of the week, anti-football side Wolves knocked off reigning champions Chelsea with an early own goal that deflected in off of José Bosingwa from a Stephen Hunt corner.  The defeat consigns the champions to their sixth defeat of the season, one more already than all of last year.  Carlo Ancelotti’s future as the Blues manager will be cast into even further doubt following the result as Chelsea have now won just two out of their last ten matches.

Blackburn Rovers 3-1 Liverpool
Rovers delivered the other shock result of the week as they defeated a yet again underwhelming and lackluster Liverpool side.  Goals from Swede Martin Olsson and two from veteran Benjani were too much for ‘Pool as they were only able to muster a late consolation goal from their captain, Steven Gerrard.  Liverpool slump to twelfth place and are only four points above relegation at the moment.  A situation that has portions of the Reds faithful calling for the axe to drop on manager Roy Hodgson.

Bolton Wanderers 1-1 Wigan Athletic
Home side Bolton squandered multiple opportunities to bag all three points over a Wigan side who find themselves in second to last place following the draw.  Brazilian-born Spaniard, Rodrigo Moreno, netted his first Premier League goal for the home side before Dutchman, Ronnie Stam, grabbed a late equalizer for the Latics.

Everton 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur
The Toffees played much better than their recent results have indicated and did some pretty good defending late on to hold off a Spursside that had been playing superbly as of late.  Louis Saha & Séamus Coleman notched the goals for the Merseysiders and Rafael Van Der Vaart, one of the early candidates for Player of the Year, scored for the Londoners.  Despite the defeat, Spurs remain above Chelsea at the moment in the last Champions’ League qualification spot. 

FA Cup action takes the place of Premier League action this coming weekend and as my colleague stated in the previous post, league action resumes next Wednesday.  This year’s league is even more fascinating than usual as there are dogfights up and down the table and several sides can find themselves going from contending for European spots to being involved in a relegation battle with just a couple losses or a string of bad results (only eight points separate eighth place from rock bottom!).