Premier League Round 17: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The Bad

Missed Opportunities

Stoke City, West Ham, Swansea City, Aston Villa and Newcastle all missed out on great opportunities to close the gap on whichever segment of the Premier League table they are attempting to climb into or out of.

Stoke City lost 2-1 to Crystal Palace due to a late winner by Lee Chung-yong. The impact on the table was bigger than you might think.

With the Eagles picking up the victory it pulled them even with Tottenham and Manchester United in fourth place on 29 points.

The Potters, on the other hand, missed out on a chance to pull within three points of the top four if they had won this match.

Taking a look at the statistics, Stoke City will probably wonder how they lost the match. They held 59% of the possession while out-shooting Crystal Palace 26-12 (5-3 shots on goal). They even held the corner kick advantage 7-3. The Crystal Palace counter-attack is firing on all cylinders at the moment.

West Ham and Swansea City both missed out on opportunities, but on different ends of the table. The Swans and the Hammers played out a scoreless draw to the benefit of neither club.

West Ham missed out on a a chance to to pull within two points of the top four by not picking up the win against a Swansea City side which has struggled to beat anyone for almost four months now.

As for Swansea City, the move to sack Garry Monk has yet to pay any sort of dividend for the struggling Welsh side. They are 1-4-8 since beating Manchester United on 30 August. Since sacking Monk, the Swans are 0-1-1 and still have not named a permanent manager.

You would have thought they had someone in place already when they sacked Monk, but I guess not.

The Swans are still in the bottom three because they could not take advantage of a West Ham side playing without Dimitri Payet.

Newcastle played host to Aston Villa in a matchup of historic English sides who are currently struggling through dark periods.

Though Newcastle had caught a bit of good form recently, they still represented a decent opportunity for Aston Villa to snap their 16-match winless streak in the Premier League.

Neither side claimed three points, thus helping neither. Aston Villa need to win matches. They sit dead last on just seven points and are ten points outside of safety. That precious position is currently held by Newcastle, the side they failed to beat.

Newcastle, meanwhile, need to win matches at home against the likes of Aston Villa if they want to still be in the Premier League next season. A further two points earned from a victory would have seen Newcastle create a four-point gap to Swansea City, the first team sitting in the relegation zone.

Holding an advantage of more than one game would have been nice for Newcastle, but they hardly ever receive nice things.

Next: The Bad