Premier League Round-Up: Matchweek 5
Credit: The Independent
Matchweek 5:
Liverpool 3-1 Newcastle
Brighton 1-1 Burnley
Man United 1-0 Leicester
Sheffield United 0-1 Southampton
Tottenham 4-0 Crystal Palace
Wolves 2-5 Chelsea
Norwich 3-2 Man City
Bournemouth 3-1 Everton
Watford 2-2 Arsenal
Aston Villa 0-0 West Ham
Shocker of the Season
On Saturday afternoon, in a match that pretty much everybody including the most optimistic Norwich City fans thought would be a walk in the park for Manchester City, turned out to be the most surprising match of the season thus far. While the season is still young and there will be more upsets of this magnitude, I feel pretty confident when I say that this match will be a top 3 most shocking result in the Premier League this season. If you haven’t seen the result by now, Norwich City welcomed title favorites Manchester City to Carrow Road and proceeded to beat them 3-2. Give it up to Norwich City because putting up 3 goals against Manchester City is a great accomplishment. It’s something that I doubt happens more than once or twice the rest of the season and as a Chelsea fan, I’d be happy if we score 3 goals combined in both of our games vs City this season.
Norwich got the party started early with 2 goals in the first 30 mins of the game. It was Kenny McLean striking first with a brilliant header from a corner and then just 10 mins later Norwich doubled their lead with a great counter attack that saw Teemu Pukki lay a pass off for Todd Cantwell to tap into an open net. City would strike back right before half with a goal, courtesy of Sergio Aguero, for his 7th of the season. Instead of coming out of halftime and giving the game back up to Man City, Norwich restored their 2 goal lead after a horrible give away give away by Nicolas Otamendi, and Teemu Pukki finished off his 6th goal of the season. Man am I a huge fan of Teemu Pukki or what. He’s been the most exciting player of the season so far and oh how I hope this incredible run of form continues. Manchester City would add another goal in the 88th minute to make things interested, but in the end Norwich were able to hang on for the upset. Again, I can’t say it enough but a big congratulations to the newly promoted Norwich on the big win.
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David Luiz Apparently Still Plays For Chelsea
If you didn’t watch the Arsenal vs Watford game on Sunday, you missed out because it was comical for anybody other than Arsenal fans. Arsenal got off to a great start with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scoring 2 goals in the first 30 mins of the game. Aubameyang truly is the only good thing about this team. Surely Arsenal were on their way to picking up 3 easy points against 20th place Watford. But then you remember who the Arsenal defense consists of and you quickly realize that them blowing a 2 goal lead to the last place team in the table isn’t all that far fetched. It was Sokratis Papastathopoulos who made the first mistake when he carelessly turned the ball over in the Arsenal box for Tom Cleverley to blast home.
Then with the game at 2-1 with less 10 mins remaining, David Luiz gives away his second crucial penalty in the last 3 games. Luiz’s take down of Roberto Pereyra in the box and Pereyra finishing off the penalty, secured a dismal 2-2 draw against Watford. Again, this is now David Luiz’s second penalty that he has conceded in the last 3 Arsenal games. The first was 3 weeks ago when Arsenal played Liverpool, and while I believe that Liverpool goes on to win that game regardless of the penalty, Luiz’s penalty was what broke the stalemate in that game in the second half. Then you add on this where he essentially gives away 3 points to the last place team, and Chelsea fans are thrilled that Luiz is long gone, yet still contributing to the cause. Keep doing your thing David.
Credit: Metro
Other Notes:
This season has picked up exactly where last season left off for Tottenham, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea. All four of these clubs battled to the last few days of the season for the 3rd and 4th spots. As we all know Chelsea ended up 3rd, Tottenham 4th, Arsenal 5th and United 6th, with 3-5 finishing just 2 pts apart. Through 5 games this season, all 4 teams have 8 pts so far. These 4 teams have been dead even over the past year.
After a relatively solid run at the helm for Watford, their poor start to the season was enough for Watford to part ways with manager, Javi Garcia. Garcia’s replacement, Quique Sanchez-Flores, is somebody that Watford fans are familiar with as he was the club’s manager in their first season in the Premier League after being promoted in 2015-16. Despite having a win % of 31% in his only season at Watford and Javi Garcia having a 45% win %, the Watford ownership apparently think he’s the better man to have in charge. Good luck with that.
Tammy Abraham bagged a hat-trick in Chelsea 5-2 win over Wolves and now has 7 goals in his last 3 games. Abraham is on fire and that’s great to see, not only as a Chelsea fan but also after all the heat he received from his first two matches. If Chelsea could ever get this defense figured out, they could be dangerous.
Liverpool and Inter Milan are now the only 2 teams in Europe’s top 5 leagues to have not dropped points so far this season. Liverpool have an early 5pt gap over second place Manchester City.
Champions League group stage matches begin this week. Liverpool is away at Napoli and Chelsea are home against Valencia on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Tottenham are away at Olympiacos and Manchester City are away at Shaktar Donetsk.
Thanny