What a great first week of action right?! With the Gareth Bale-Real Madrid saga dominating the headlines this past few days you’d be forgiven for not remembering what went on last weekend but, just in time to remind us roughly of what happened, the second week’s action kicked off and we had our first rain-stricken clashes of the season – I know, rain in the summer, who’d have thought it?!
The weather wasn’t enough to stop Arsenal though as they got their season off to a, be it a little late, start former Premier League champions should be getting themselves off to as they won 3-1 away at rival Londoners, Fulham. The alarm bells were ringing defensively for Martin Jol’s Fulham as early as 10 minutes in as Adel Taarabt was caught napping at the back and played Arsenal’s star man, Theo Walcott, onside – no goals were scored but having started that sloppy it was only a matter of time before Arsenal took the lead. In fact, only four minutes later, Arsenal had the ball in the back of the net as Oliver Giroud scored his fifth goal in eight games; the perfect start for the man and the club amidst speculation that Karim Benzema could be on his way to the club. Arsenal’s slick passing, despite the best efforts of the soaking pitch to slow them down, was ruining the Fulham defence and they had numerous chances to double the lead, particularly a counter-attack with which Arsenal should definitely have scored, before Lukas Podolski – a somewhat forgotten man over the last few months for Arsenal – did double the lead for Arsenal. A Fulham fight back seemed to be on the cards as they seized the initiative having brought Darren Bent on but another Arsenal counter-attack killed the game off as Podolski scored again thanks to a great move started by Oliver Giroud. Some magic from Dimitar Berbatov allowed Fulham a consolation goal from Darren Bent but Arsenal were very good value for the victory.
Stoke and Crystal Palace faced each other, like Arsenal, looking for their first win of the season and ironically it was an ex-Arsenal man that opened the scoring as Marouane Chamakh produced a neat bit of ball control and dribbling to beat the usually stringent Stoke centre-backs to rifle a low drive past Asmir Begovic. Peter Crouch came close to equalising soon after as his header hit the bar before half time but there was no doubting so far that Crystal Palace were deserving of their lead. They’ll have been annoyed then to have conceded such a soft equaliser as Charlie Adam trickled a shot past Speroni who seemed a bit caught out by the stagnant defending that was going on in front of him. Ryan Shawcross gave Stoke the lead as he took advantage of yet more subpar defending from the newly promoted side. The game finished 2-1 with Palace lacking the cutting edge in key areas at key times; but better sides have gone to Stoke and come away with less flattering scorelines.
Aston Villa continued their gruelling start to the Premier League season as they entertained Liverpool at Villa Park. It took a superb solo effort, combined with some shaky defending, to settle the game though as Daniel Sturridge, one of the hottest commodities in the league over the last few months, literally danced his way around the Villa defence to slot past into an empty net after latching onto a pass from Jose Enrique that should never really have found it’s way through to Sturridge in the first place. From then on the game belonged to Villa but despite a few near misses and thanks to some stunning reflexes from Simon Mignolet, Liverpool closed out the game with their lead intact.
Elsewhere in the league, Hull City got their first win in the Premier League since 2010 as they came out on top after a battle with Norwich City at the KC Stadium. Hull were down to ten men for the majority of the game as new signing, Sagbo, was sent off for a tussle during a corner but Hull were up to the challenge and held on for a narrow win.
It took Sunderland three minutes to steal the lead in their clash with Southampton at St. Mary’s as my dark horse for bargain of the season, Emanuele giaccherini, headed Sunderland into the lead from a set play. Southampton thought they’d equalised minutes later as Ricky Lambert played in Jay Rodriguez to slot home but the assistant rightly judged him to be offside. Rodriguez and Lambert were particularly menacing throughout as they combined again soon after only for Lambert’s headed effort to be stopped by the Sunderland stopper. It fell to Jose Fonte to score a very late and thoroughly deserved equaliser for the Saints; with the firepower they have now they’re going to be a massive threat to teams over the coming weeks.
Everton and West Bromwich Albion played out a 0-0 draw at Goodison Park in Roberto Martinez’s first home game in charge and with Albion’s biggest attacking threat on compassionate leave and considering his future it was down to the Baggies’ defence to put on a performance to remember. They did not disappoint in the slightest as Everton were left frustrated by a very organised defence that neutralised Everton’s neat passing and restricted the Toffees to long-range efforts; Fellaini came close once as West Brom were caught napping and the Belgian hit the post but Everton had no significant efforts after that. West Brom will definitely have come away the happiest despite the substitution of goalkeeper Ben Foster as their defence was extremely solid throughout.
And finally, Sam Allardyce returned to the scene of his one nightmare managerial stint as West Ham travelled to Newcastle; and with the Toon army being trounced by Manchester City earlier in the week, West Ham will have bee confident going into the game. The game was very typical of the teams involved though; both teams very organised making occasional bursts forward but mainly utilising long-ball tactics – this led to a very dull game. Gouffran came closest to scoring in the game but he missed an absolute sitter which meant Newcastle would ultimately go through their opening two games without scoring.
Not many goals to tell you about then but plenty of drama across the country today! Check back in with us tomorrow as we bring you the news from Sunday’s Premier League action!
Results:-
Fulham 1 – 3 Arsenal
Stoke City 2 – 1 Crystal Palace
Aston Villa 0 – 1 Liverpool
Hull City 1 – 0 Norwich City
Southampton 1 – 1 Sunderland
Everton 0 – 0 West Bromwich Albion
Newcastle United 0 – 0 West Ham United