The
first weekend of the Barclays Premier League was one of surprises and
overreactions. After one game it looks
as though Chelsea and Manchester City will take part in a two horse race for
the title. Swansea, Fulham and West Brom
will battle it out for the remaining Champions League slots. Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal are
deep in a relegation battle and their respective managers will all be looking
for new jobs in the coming weeks.
This
is exactly what being a football fan is all about. Even the media got in on the act. I heard about Liverpool's disastrous start,
Arsenal will never recover from losing Robin Van Persie. I now can't wait to hear what will be said
about Manchester United losing to Everton. In no other business would such knee jerk reactions be so common.
I
had a look at a few stats from the weekend’s games and there were a few in
particular that stood out. Team A had 16
shots on goal and completed 465 of 523 passes (89%), Team B had 6 shots on goal
and completed 389 of 456 passes (85%), Team C had 14 shots and completed 381 of
433 passes (88%) and Team D had 23 shots on goal and completed 637 of 702
passes (91%). From those stats Team D
were the best, Team A, Team C and finally the very disappointing Team B. In reality, Team D (Arsenal) and Team A
(Liverpool) are clubs in crisis while Team C (Swansea) enjoyed a 5-0 victory
and the disappointing Team B were in fact Chelsea who can only be stopped by
Manchester City in the race for the title according to some sources.
I
listened to a radio show and for the hour it took me to drive home, they spent
the vast majority of it talking about how poor Liverpool had been and asking
were they a club in crisis? From what I
saw West Brom scored an excellent goal in the first half to take the lead, Liverpool
striker, Luis Suarez was extremely wasteful with several good opportunities,
Agger got sent off and from then on the team with 11 men on the field playing
against 10 were always going to look superior.
Credit
to West Brom, they took advantage of the extra man and scored two more goals to
give a flattering look to the scoreline. Had Luis Suarez taken one of his chances it could have been a totally
different game. The Uruguayan could have
scored five but instead had a day to forget. Suarez had a fantastic goalscoring record at Ajax, netting 111 goals in
159 games. People will say that the
standard is lower in Holland which is true but it's not as though he's not
getting the chances. Suarez has been
guilty in his Liverpool career of missing a lot of chances. The nets are the same size in England as they
were in Holland so I expect Suarez to rediscover his scoring form in the coming
weeks.
If
Suarez had taken his chances perhaps the headlines and discussions would of
been of a different nature. Another
striker who may be going through the same emotions is Arsenals, Olivier
Giroud. Giroud had a fantastic chance in
the last ten minutes of Saturdays game at the Emirates. He made a great run to get onto the end of
Santi Cazorla's through ball but seemed to snatch at the ball and struck the
shot wide. Had that gone in Giroud would
have been an instant hero, nobody would care about Robin Van Persie and Wenger
would be hailed as a genius for replacing RVP with the "new Thierry
Henry." As it was the chance was
missed and Arsenal are in crisis, Wenger is feeling the heat and it is
absolutely necessary that Arsenal sign a world class striker before the end of
the transfer window. These are the
margins we are dealing with.
In
last nights game between Everton and Manchester United everyone was talking
about RVP's debut but rather than it be the Dutch striker who made the
headlines it was Belgian star, Marouane Fellaini who grabbed the
limelight. United were suffering from
injuries in the centre of defence and had to line up with the unorthodox
pairing of Nemanja Vidic and Michael Carrick in the heart of their
defence. Everton took advantage of this
and got Fellaini to attack the area Carrick was defending. By the end of the game Fellaini had gone for
six headers in the Manchester United box and had won five of them including the
game winning goal. It was a magnificent
result for Everton who are normally slow starters in the league. If Everton can build on this result in their
upcoming fixtures then a top 6 finish wouldn't be out of the question.
No
review of the week’s Premier League action would be complete without mentioning
Premier League new boys, Mladen Petric of Fulham and Michu of Swansea. Both grabbed two debut goals to help their
new teams to 5-0 opening day victories. Both looked very impressive in their new surroundings and will be worth
keeping an eye on in the weeks to come.
Goal Of The Week
3)
Steve Davis (Southampton v Man City) - A smart finish from Davis to finish off
a fantastic break from Southampton.
2)
Michu (Swansea v QPR) - Michu's 2nd was a sublime finish, curling into the top
corner from the edge of the box after a superb run from Wayne Routledge.
1)
Zoltan Gera (West Brom v Liverpool) - A superb strike from the Hungarian who
blasted into the top corner from 25 yards.
Man Of The Week
Michu
(Swansea) - The new boy played a part in four of Swansea's five goals against
QPR. He scored two, set up Scott
Sinclair's goal and even blocked a cross which fell to Wayne Routledge who put
through Nathan Dyer for his first and Swansea's third goal of the game. It was the stuff dream debuts are made of.
Moan Of The Week
Santi
Cazorla (Arsenal) - Through no fault of his own Arsenal's new Spanish
midfielder was the cause of much of my annoyance in the first weekend of the
new season. Can someone please send out a memo to all commentators and football
fans to let them know his name is Cazorla and not Car-Zola?
By Gerry Johnston
Twitter: https://twitter.com/gjsportsblog
