This weekend the “Big Four” as they came to be known, all registered victories, whilst both Spurs and Man City slumped to defeat against unheralded opposition.
In Sunday’s games, Liverpool claimed a 1–0 win at home to West Bromwich Albion, and Manchester City lost by the same margin away at Sunderland.
Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson remarked after the match at Anfield that his team can succeed due to the superiority of key players Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres, yet over-reliance on this pair has been Liverpool’s undoing of late.
That said, it was great to see Torres back on the score sheet, his first in the league since March, and the Spaniard looked sharp and hungry.
Manchester City’s No. 1 striker Carlos Tevez could not report such a good day at the office. Consistently one of City’s best players, and scorer of 23 Premier League goals last season, the Argentinean inexplicably blazed the ball over the bar when presented with the simplest of chances. It will surely go down as one of the worst misses of the season, if not longer.
Manchester City never really recovered from this setback, though at least looked to be heading for a fifth consecutive clean sheet, when in the fourth minute of injury time Micah Richards climbed on Darren Bent to prevent the Sunderland center forward from reaching an Ahmed Elmohamady cross.
Bent made no mistake from the resultant penalty kick, and Roberto Mancini’s expensively assembled team slumped to their first defeat of the season.
Saturday
Saturday’s matches saw a tightly fought contest between Arsenal and Blackburn, with the Gunners manager Arsene Wenger coming under criticism before the game not only from his Blackburn counterpart Sam Allardyce, but also from Sir Alex Ferguson, and Jose Mourinho.
With his “football purist” tactics under pressure, Wenger will have been delighted with his side’s 2–1 victory in this tough away fixture, and the sparkling performance of Theo Walcott, with another fine goal, will be further cause for celebration.
Over at Old Trafford, Wayne Rooney finally overcame the longest barren spell of his career, scoring Manchester United’s first from the penalty spot in a 3–0 victory over West Ham United. Adding to the tally was an acrobatic volley from Dimitar Berbatov, and a peach of a goal from Luis Nani.
“This was a very good team performance. Everyone wanted the ball, they were looking to pass, looking to move, a good collective performance,” said Sir Alex Ferguson.
Chelsea continued their 100 percent start to the season with a 2–0 win at home to Stoke City. Although not reaching the heights of their consecutive 6–0 victories in the last two weeks, there were still chances aplenty for the reigning champions. It is hard to see them slipping up against any of the weaker sides.
Opposing manager Tony Pulis was among their plaudits after the match, “We had our moments but overall Chelsea were the better team. They have some great players and had numerous opportunities.”
Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham team saw an early indicator of the difficulties of sustaining competitive domestic and European campaigns, their mid-week qualification for the Champions League group stages followed by a shock 1–0 home defeat to Wigan Athletic.
The Spurs manager remained stoical, “It was a rare bad day for us.”
