Premier League round-up: each game in a sentence

Another interesting weekend of Premier League and FA Cup action which saw teams at the bottom claiming valuable points highlighted by Sunderland crushing Newcastle under the management of a certain controversial Italian. This segment will offer some quick fire analysis of each game.

Arsenal 3-1 Norwich - The Emirates boo birds were warming up with 5 minutes left to go in this one before Arsenal found their shooting boots. But a brave performance by Norwich masks the fact that this really should have been an even heavier win for Arsenal and the Canaries are right in the relegation scrap.

Aston Villa 1-1 Fulham - This was two points dropped for Villa against a Fulham side with nothing to play for and they will be looking with regret, thinking that they would be 14th in the table if they hadn’t gifted Fulham, who were once again Berbatov and ten others, a poor own goal.

Everton 2-0 QPR - A decent first half from QPR but they gave up in the second, which allowed Everton to coast to an easy win, which was once again lit up by the mesmeric Kevin Mirallas.

Reading 0-0 Liverpool - Liverpool dominated the entire game and should have scored seven or eight, but an inspired performance by Reading goalkeeper Alex McCarthy, combined with their own truly abysmally wasteful finishing, means they will finish below Everton again this season.

Southampton 1-1 West Ham - This was a brilliantly entertaining game which showcased the two sides to Premier League football as the passing of Southampton mixed well with the directness of West Ham to produce an end to end game with plenty of chances for two teams that look good value for Premier League survival at the first attempt.

Newcastle United 0-3 Sunderland - As predicted here, Paolo Di Canio had an immediately positive influence on Sunderland, who pressed very high and played with a quick and direct tempo, which made things uncomfortable for Newcastle all game and they topped it off with three excellent goals to complete a critical win.

Stoke City 0-2 Manchester United - Stoke’s slide towards relegation continued as they meekly allowed United to pass the ball in front of them and didn’t register any attacking threat to challenge the supposedly vulnerable De Gea, who has now kept 7 clean sheets in his last 8 games.

Wigan 2-0 Millwall - Wigan made their first cup final with a very easy win over Millwall with the main question marks relating to whether it will negatively affect their survival hopes, and yet more crowd turbulence from Millwall.

Man City 2-1 Chelsea - By far the best game of the weekend as both teams’ attacking players showed up wanting to put on a show, which led to an open and thrilling game that had good goals, poor tackling and total commitment with Man City in sight of a third consecutive trophy winning season.