Weekend’s EPL Results

Arsenal again suffered great humiliation in surrendering a lead and a dominant position to a vastly less talented Blackburn and doing it in a way only Arsenal could. After a highly promising start through Gervinho, the gunners typical awful defense allowed Yakubu much past his prime to slide through unmarked and finish like a Yakubu much in his prime. Arteta regained Arsenal’s lead through some typical Arsenal flowing, beautiful football and they went into half time well and truly in command. Arsenal fans know well not to count their chickens before they hatch and they did well to remember it as the North Londoners allowed two own goals and an offside Yakubu tap in to finish the embarrassment. A late Chamakh goal meant nothing as Blackburn moved above Arsenal with a 4-3 win.

In the other games on Saturday Newcastle and Aston Villa drew 1-1, Norwich got their first win away to Bolton, Everton beat Wigan 3-1, Swansea too earned their first win beating West Brom 3-0 and QPR continued to justify their scoring beating Wolves 3-0.

Sunday featured the two most mouth watering games of the weekend, but only one really lived up to the hype. Liverpool headed to White Hart Lane to take on an unfamiliar Tottenham. You wouldn’t have known it was the home debuts of Adebayor and Scott Parker as they fitted in seamlessly and helped Spurs decapitate an eventual 9 man Liverpool to reduce the gap between the two top 4 hopefuls. Adebayor continued his incredible form in the early parts of his careers with new clubs (mouthful but you get what I’m going on about) as he put in two goals but the star was Luka Modric and his incredible shot from 25 yards that left Pepe Reina with no chance.

Everyone’s eyes were then turned to the game they had been waiting for all week, Chelsea away at Old Trafford facing the stampeding Manchester United. The Red Devil’s rookies have made the transition between two eras so unbelievably easy it makes you wonder why Arsene Wenger has been unable to do so. The kept it going as Chris Smalling, still playing out of place at fullback rather than his preferred centre half, started the scoring, despite appearing to be offside. Chelsea dominated possession and chances for a significant part of the half but found themselves 3-0 down at half time thanks to Rooney’s ninth goal in 5 games and a special goal from Nani who was probably the best on ground. Chelsea’s normal rock solid defense was in tatters and another cricket score appeared possible given the game was all but over at the half. Fernando Torres was struggling, as expected, but Villas Boas resisted the urge to replace him with Anelka and it paid dividends.

Torres received an inch perfect ball from Anelka, who surprisingly came on for Lampard, and Torres produced a sparkling finish not seen since his high profile and controversial move from Liverpool. It gave us a glimpse of the old Torres that was begging to come out, but had been caged inside a player a shadow of his former self. He began to get in one of those infamous moods that has seen him tear through teams all around the world. However that all came crashing down when he produced perhaps the biggest howler in the history of the Premier League as he rounded De Gea with real class and had an open goal from 3 yards. People have surely joked he couldn’t score with an open goal from less than 6 yards, but few thought it was actually true.

The game was of high intensity, high class, high drama and utter confusion. Rooney slipped on a penalty that looked like a combination of Terry’s miss in the Champions League final and Beckham’s infamous penalty in Russia. Ramires missed an open goal tap in only 2 minutes into the game. Rooney also hit the post with a mere tap in required and Chicarito was unable to finish from a tight but makable angle. The game could have finished 10-10 fairly comfortably.

Meanwhile Manchester City’s record signing Sergio Aguero continued his incredible form with a brace away to Fulham, the second coming less than two seconds after the half time interval. However City’s suspect defending again came under the spotlight and Fulham fought back to earn a point and give United a two point lead over their noisy neighbours.

Sunderland thumped a tired Stoke 4-0 in the overshadowed Sunday fixture.