Rarely do football fans find themselves gearing up for a weekend of Premier League action without something to talk about; this week was no exception. With the ‘sack-race’ in full-swing now, the landscape of the Premier League had fully changed in the space of three days.
Good Week For: – West Bromwich Albion (Moved up to third place), Aston Villa (Moved Out of the Relegation Zone), Manchester United (Regained top-spot)
Bad Week For: – QPR (Remain winless), Newcastle (continued to plummet down the table), Chelsea (Fell to fourth place behind West Brom)
Manchester United had an opportunity this week to pile the pressure on league leaders, Manchester City. As the champions faced Chelsea in Sunday’s game, Manchester United faced a relatively simple hosting of perennial strugglers, Queens Park Rangers. This week also signified a milestone for Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson. 26 years in charge of one club is an outrageous achievement as Mark Hughes would testify. The Welshman was sacked as QPR manager the day before the clash at Old Trafford only to be replaced by Harry Redknapp. Nonetheless the London side laboured hard at Old Trafford but ultimately fell to Ferguson’s men 3-1 despite taking the lead through Jamie Mackie. A few cheap goals from United killed off QPR’s hopes but Redknapp will been encouraged by his new team’s performance.
Another Manager seeking a performance from his new side was Rafael Benitez at Chelsea. Never before have I seen a manager greeted with such disdain as the atmosphere inside Stamford Bridge made it clear that the fans didn’t want to see Rafa in charge. A good performance against City would have gone some way to proving his doubters wrong but Chelsea never really got going in attack but were relatively solid at the back which resulted in a 0-0 draw with Roberto Mancini’s side.
Steve Clarke’s high-fliers, West Brom, were in glittering form going into their away clash with Sunderland, occupying one of the Champions League spots. It didn’t take them long to go ahead thanks to a stunner from Zoltan Gera and a slip-up in the Sunderland goal to allow Shane Long to score. Neither goalkeeper had covered themselves in glory in this game but there was nothing Boaz Myhill could do about Craig Gardner’s deflected free-kick for Sunderland as the home side pulled on back. Romelu Lukaku and Marc-Antoine Fortune scored either side of Stephen Sessegnon late on to seal the game for West Brom and continue their superb form.
It was goals galore at the DW Stadium as Wigan outscored Reading to win 3-2 courtesy of a Jordi Gomez hat-trick. Another entertaining clash took place at White Hart lane as Tottenham beat a well-organised West Ham side 3-1 – AVB’s side now moved up to seventh in the table. However at Villa Park, Aston Villa and Arsenal played out ninety minutes of dreary football in abysmal conditions to finish the game 0-0. It was a similar story at the Liberty Stadium as Swansea and Liverpool’s styles seemed to cancel each other out.
Everton and Norwich made a truly entertaining spectacle of their clash at Goodison Park. Both keepers were tested to the limit however Everton were the first to break the deadlock and looked to have the game won before a late equalised from Sebastian Bassong saw the teams come away with a share of the spoils. Stoke created a lot of chances from set-pieces against Fulham with Peter Crouch playing a key role again as the Potters secured a 1-0 win over Martin Jol’s struggling Fulham side. Another side which continue to struggle are Alan Pardew’s Newcastle. They slumped to a 2-0 defeat away to Southampton and one has to wonder, despite Pardew’s massive contract, with the reputation of Premier League Chairmen these days, whether Pardew’s job will be thrown into question if results don’t improve.
What are your thoughts on this week’s action? I’m really looking forward to the Christmas period; the men will be separated from the boys at that point and with Chelsea away in the Club World Cup at that time, the Manchester sides will hope to pile on the pressure at the top.
Results:-
Sunderland 2 – 4 West Bromwich Albion
Manchester United 3 – 1 Queen’s Park Rangers
Wigan Athletic 3 – 2 Reading
Stoke City 1 – 0 Fulham
Everton 1 – 1 Norwich City
Aston Villa 0 – 0 Arsenal
Swansea City 0 – 0 Liverpool
Tottenham Hotspur 3 – 1 West Ham United
Southampton 2 – 0 Newcastle United
Chelsea 0 – 0 Manchester City