It’s a topsy turvy kind of a week in the EPL. Arsenal and Manchester United are battling fiercely for the top spot in the table. The league sees the top two leader switch places twice in the week.
Wednesday’s result puts Manchester United on top of the table. They continued their superb performance to trounce Sunderland with four goals. Rooney, Saha (2), and Ronaldo scored for United. Portsmouth, in another match, brilliantly managed to prevent Arsenal from scoring for the first time in the league. The match ended in a 0 – 0 draw. Chelsea suffered another setback in their chase for the title. Their match against Aston Villa saw three red cards handed out to Ricardo Carvalho and Ashley Cole from the Blues and Zat Knight from Villa. Despite the cards, the game ended in a 4 – 4 draw. Tottenham dished out an outstanding performance against Fulham. They routed Fulham 5 – 1 at White Hart Lane. Keane, Huddlestone, and Defoe got on the scoring sheets for Tottenham. Keane and Huddlestone, both scoring a brace each.The rest of the Wednesday match results and reviews can be found at the EPL’s web site.
Saturday sprang about a surprise result to the fans of Manchester United. United suffered another loss, their third away from home. West Ham United, continues their charming run against Manchester United. The Hammers pulled off a sterling performance to humble United with a 2 – 1 win at home. They came back from a one goal deficit in the second half with goals from Ferdinand and Upson (his first ever goal for the Hammers). Ronaldo scored United’s first goal in the first half. He also, uncharacteristically, missed from the penalty spot.
Arsenal, had to come back from one goal down in the second half to bring down Everton with a sound 1 – 4 win. Tim Cahill put Everton ahead in the first half. Eduardo scored the equalizer and the go ahead goal after the breather. Adebayor and Rosicky also got into the score sheets late in the game. Everton’s Arteta and Gunners’ Bendtner was given the marching orders in two separate incidents.
Tottenham and Reading got into a scoring frenzy. Their match ended with 10 goals, Spurs taking full points with a spectacular 6 – 4 result. The first half ended 1 – 1. Spurs scoring early when Berbatov tapped in a pass from Keane. Reading equalized through Cisse later in the half. The second half saw both teams squaring off with each other. Spurs, trailing Reading for the most part of the half up till when they were tied at 4 – 4.
Ingimarsson put Reading ahead 1 – 2 from a corner set piece. Berbatov made it 2 -2 when Reading defense failed to clear a goal mouth confusion. Kitson, once again brought Reading one up off another corner set piece. Berbatov, then got his hatrick to level the score once again. Next, it was Kitson’s time to get his hatrick when he, again, scored to bring Reading in front. Malbrunque followed suit to level things back up once again with a superb curling shot that ended in the top right hand corner.Keane was then presented with a spot kick when he was brought down in the area. Reading’s Hahnemann saved the spot kick only to see Defoe head the rebound into the open net to bring Spurs one up to lead. Berbatov, then hammered in his fourth to ensure Tottenham’s win over Reading.
Sunday matches saw Liverpool and Manchester City sharing the spoils when they drew 0 – 0 at the City Stadium. Liverpool, controlling the match, failed to convert the numerous chances which were presented to them. For all the possession time they had during the game, Liverpool somehow could not find a way to get past the firm City defense.
Over at Derby, who faced Blackburn, a missed penalty kick by Steve Howard will certainly be the sore point for Derby. Matt Oakley scored early in the game for Derby to make it 1 – 0. It would have made the score 2 – 0 for Derby, should the penalty had gone in. However, minutes after the missed spot kick, Blackburn got their equalizer from Santa Cruz. Then, just before the half, Blackburn got the go ahead goal. David Bentley fired from 25 yards out straight into the bottom right corner of the Derby goal for Balckburn’s second goal to make it 1 – 2.
Catch up on the rest of the results and reviews of the weekend’s matches over at the EPL site. Here’s how the teams stack up in the table after the weekend matches.
It’s still pretty much a three way race for the title. Liverpool, at fourth, still have a decent chance of catching up. They’ll need the top three to falter, though. Tottenham, after the early season stutter, seems to have discovered their footing and is now beginning to move up the table. It’s now halfway through the season, plenty more games to go.
Go Spurs!!