Premier League Gameweek 7 - Before the internatio-lull break
“Oh! Written in the stars
A million miles away
A message to the main
Oh, Seasons come and go
But I will never change
And I’m on my way”
The Premier League
This is without a doubt the most interesting season in many years. Arsenal football club at the top, LFC winning games, Luis Suarez simply playing football on a football pitch, Man United battling out relegation; it’s all happening.
Getting to business, Saturday kicked off, and City and Chelsea were made to regret taking their eyes off Romelu Lukaku. Time and again he’s proving himself, and my word he’s just 20. It was another splendid beast-like surge inside the box by the Belgian, and City’s so far dented defence was made to pay again. But City quickly got back into it with Negredo. There were a couple of misses from Aguero, which is rare, he scored before missing a penalty, that is rare again and somehow they won, ending Everton’s unbeaten streak (it’s not easy you know.) I still feel City are going to be the team to beat at one point as the league progresses in spite of the fact that their defence is going amiss.
The Stadium of Light finally saw some of it as Mr. Penalty gave them the lead early in the first half. It clearly looked obvious that Sir David Moyes was desperate to get Adnan Januzaj sign that thing and stay with them next year by giving him his first start. According to Metro, Manchester City have told Adnan Januzaj they will triple his current salary at Manchester United if he accepts a controversial move to the Etihad. I for one pity Januzaj for not being fostered under Sir Alex Ferguson.
We saw the 18-year-old starting impressively. He was ‘smooth on the ball’, as described by Gary Neville 31 random times, who has not looked so charged up since Torres scored that goal against Barcelona. In my view he wasn’t so quick but loved to be on the ball a lot and was actually smooth. All that paid, he went home with a brace up his bag on his debut start to a PL game.
Later, he was tipped to be a mixture of Zinedine Zidane and van Basten by a deluded United fan on Twitter. And it was Adnan Januzaj all over my social networking news feeds for the next 5 hours. Despite the 3 points, it is going to be a hard long period of inter-lull break for United fans, who would be dying to see their team get back to where they belong on the table, or maybe wanting to seek refuge from watching their team play the kind of football they are currently playing.
Loic Remy scores, and that is surely the best loan deal of the summer. I feel the whole idea of going to QPR, getting relegated and then joining Newcastle was vain when he could have joined his France National Team countrymen at the same Newcastle a year ago.
It is a source of great surprise when you realise that since 2008, Darren Bent has scored 67 goals in the Premier League, and only RvP, Rooney and Lampard have scored more. 1-0 to Fulham. Stoke City lost another game with just a goal conceded. The commonsensical man says they need a player who can score goals.
Moving on to the team who on their day can beat a promoted side 5-0 or draw 0-0 at home. The lad in red hot form scored for the reds just after Luis Suarez did. Chelsea fans were made to regret again. Another adept fact from the game is that there is one player now other than Ryan Giggs who has scored and assisted at least once in each of the last 15 Premier League seasons. Steven Gerrad. The Powerhouse.
Southampton is one team I’m sure no PL fan would hate. Now they stand 4th in the table. Another clean sheet. Another win. They have become one of the very few teams who have conceded 3 goals in the opening 7 games in the League’s history. Some statement there. I would love to see them do well. And Swansea, err, well, passing well doesn’t always win you games.
Garet Tottenham Hotspur 0-3 West Ham United
Arsenal, after having made camouflage-dressed men look invisible in mid-week, knew they had a tough game away at the Hawthorns who beat Man United last week. WBA actually looked very well organized throughout the whole game, allowing Arsenal to keep possession but never allowing them to have a go at them in the first half. They got the reward for it with a smart header in the face of poor man-marking Arsenal defence.
Wilshere noticeably had a poor first half; many wanted him off at half time, which Wenger rarely does. Second half heroics from him got Arsenal level. That through ball from Mesut Ozil which eventually set up the goal proved again he’s worth every penny Arsene Wenger spent. The world wanted to see more from the Ramsey-Ozil-Giroud trio that brought football to a new level for a night but it didn’t quite happen a good deal against WBA. In the end, even a well fought, hard earned 1 point looked disappointing for the Gunners who made victories look so easy for them during that dream run.
We now wait till the 19th of October for the next round of matches. I realise no one likes the inter-lull break but we can do nothing about it other than praying for our pongos to return unharmed from their international duties.