Starting with the early kick-off on Saturday, Everton should have been out of site by half-time in their game against Norwich , but a combination of bad luck and bad finishing ended up costing them two points.
Everything looked rosy when Romelu Lukaku gave them the lead and Norwich, at this stage, hadn’t really turned up. But, as is often the case when chances are missed, Norwich equalised through Wes Hoolahan and the result was a stalemate leaving Roberto Martinez frustrated and Alex Neil feeling like James Coburn in “The Great Escape”.
Next up was Manchester City who kicked off at the regulation time of 3:00 pm which is unusual in itself. City took the lead in the first half through Wilfried Bony but never really threatened again until they scored their second goal after 91 minutes. Before that Swansea had equalised and had also had a couple of chances to take the lead.
Annoyingly for the Welsh team, their equaliser came in the 89th minute and they were not able to hang on for what would have been a deserved point.
Then it was Manchester United’s turn to show us what they had learned from their defeat to Wolfsburg in midweek. The answer was, nothing! They again conceded sloppy goals, again replaced their best player with Nick Powell, again to no avail. they lost 2-1 and could have lost by more.
Louis van Gaal keeps moaning on about injuries, which have affected all the top teams, instead of wondering how his squad can be so threadbare when he has just spent £250 million or so. At this rate United will be lucky to finish in the top four.
Moving on to Sunday and it was the turn of Arsenal and Liverpool.
First up, the Gunners. A fairly routine win over Aston Villa rarely saw them need to get out of second gear. A 2-0 win was made up of a stonewall penalty converted by Olivier Giroud and then a fine move which ended with Ozil playing in Ramsey for a tap-in.
The only question arising from this game is what made Remi Garde think that taking over a Aston Villa would be a good job?
Then, later, Liverpool kicked off against West Brom at Anfield. In an attempt at a surprise result West Brom went into a 2-1 lead until Divock Origi equalised in the 96th minute. There had been nine minutes of injury time due to an injury to Dejan Lovren.
It had all started very well for Liverpool when Jordan Henderson put them in front but, before half time, West Brom levelled through Dawson. Then in the second half, Jonas Olsson gave them the lead and looked as though he may have won it for them, until the very late Origi effort.
So, of the six teams featured on this site, five of them played on either Saturday or Sunday and all six kicked off at different times of day. We now await the result from Monday night’s game between Leicester City and Chelsea, although the surprise this season is that it affects the top of the league for Leicester and the bottom for Chelsea.
Leicester will return to the top with a win whereas Chelsea will move up from 15th to 14th if they can win. Fascinating stuff!
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 