Saturday was a frenetic day in the Premier League as six penalties were awarded and Tottenham shared the spoils with Liverpool in a game in which the Reds dominated for large parts of the game, but had to come away from White Hart Lane with a single point.
Elsewhere, Manchester United and Chelsea made it nine points out of a possible nine with contrasting victories over Hull City and Burnley respectively.
Arsenal and Leicester City, the top two teams in last season’s Premier League, finally got their first wins as Arsenal put three goals past Watford in a blistering first-half display while Jamie Vardy opened his account for the champions.
Some talking points from Saturday’s action:
Return of the sweeper keeper
The last week passed by, and understandably so, with widely-felt sympathy for Manchester City’s long-serving keeper, Joe Hart. A lot was made about Pep Guardiola’s decision to buy Claudio Bravo and replace City’s long serving No. 1.
Against Liverpool, Michel Vorm, a replacement for the injured Hugo Lloris, showed exactly why sweeper keepers seem to be in fashion these days. Vorm had a busy first half, charging off his line several times and putting in outfield tackles to keep the score at 0-0.
It’s easy to see why sweeper keepers are preferred; they are more mobile, far more proactive, and effectively serve as an 11th outfield player. Spurs might have had a terrible opening 45 minutes, but their keeper on the day was their standout player in the first half.
Spurs look a bit jaded
Leggy. Tired. Careless. Poor. Spurs’ first-half display did not resemble a Mauricio Pochettino team which we’ve come to identify with. Gone was the incisive passing and the cutting edge that we saw last year.
The North Londoners were flat and were unable to string two passes together. The biggest culprits were Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen as all moves broke down in the final third.
Eric Dier was careless with the ball on more than one occasion and it was from one of those passes that Liverpool seized the initiative, Erik Lamela conceding a penalty and Milner stepping up to slot it home.
With too many players out of form and Harry Kane looking increasingly laboured, these are worrying times for Tottenham’s Argentine manager before the end of the transfer window. Mousa Dembele was a winner through absence, his anticipation and trickery in the middle of the park being sorely missed.
Liverpool are a yo-yo club
If we had to describe Liverpool over the course of the past season and the opening games of this season, yo-yo would be the perfect word. Jurgen Klopp’s men are infuriatingly inconsistent and look capable of taking the game by the scruff of the neck one moment and capitulating abjectly the other.
They had the better of the opening exchanges against opponents whose play looked increasingly laboured, yet failed to put the match beyond Spurs in the first half. Phillipe Coutinho’s shot straight at Vorm with the goal gaping at him from six yards out, and it set the tone for a half in which the visitors persevered but could not come up with the end product.
Their defending, not calamitous for a change, did however manage to concede the all-crucial goal with Dier’s burst of pace down the right feeding Danny Rose, who managed to squeeze the ball in at the near post. Liverpool are good, but not good enough to manage a clean sheet.
It is a well-known secret that clean sheets give assured returns. This Liverpool team will entertain and disappoint in equal measure, but don’t expect them to finish in the top four just yet.
Hazard and Chelsea get back to winning ways
One player who symbolised Chelsea’s difficult campaign last season was their Belgian talisman, Eden Hazard. The winger struggled to create chances, to keep hold of the ball, and to run with it, as has been his trademark for so many years.
After an Euro in which Belgium disappointed but Hazard looked sharp, Chelsea’s No. 10 continued his good start to the season as the hosts won consecutive home league games for the first time since May 2015.
The opening goal was a sumptuous, solo effort as Hazard collected Nemanja Matic’s pass within his own half and ran full steam towards the Burnley box ducking and weaving before unleashing a shot from 20 yards which found the inside of the far post and went in. The Belgian could have had a second before providing a superb curler of a pass at the far post for his side’s third.
Chelsea were utterly dominant, and didn’t let the opposition have a single shot on target during the 90 minutes. Antonio Conte seems to have injected winning belief into this lot, and their best player seems to have rediscovered his mojo.
Arsenal: who needs strikers?
New boy Lucas Perez may have to settle for a spot on the bench if Alexis Sanchez can pull off these virtuoso displays from the No. 9 spot more often. Shifted into leading the line with old pal Mesut Ozil returning and right behind him, the Chilean put Watford to the sword and rightly so.
Sanchez played a hand in all three goals as Arsenal finally showed the expansive football that we all know they are capable of playing, but often goes missing in big games. The Chilean won the penalty for the first goal, showed intelligent movement and scuffed the finish, but managed to score the second goal and put in a superb in-swinging cross for Ozil to ghost into the box and finish Watford off.
Yet, the second half was all Watford as the home team tried to mount a comeback with Roberto Pereyra handing the Hornets an unlikely lifeline. Arsenal held firm, though, and now Wenger must ponder: Perez, Olivier Giroud, Danny Welbeck or Sanchez up front?
Hull may yet survive
Hull City, written off by many at the start of the season, may yet survive on the basis of their Saturday showing against Manchester United. Curtis Davies and Jake Livermore, the Hull centre-backs, had the United forwards in their pocket as the away team created chances and did everything but score.
The Tigers, with only 15 fit first-team players, had picked up six points from their opening three games and could have earned one more if not for Marcus Rashford.
The 18-year old substituted for Juan Mata grabbed a stoppage time winner as United could not convert their nine shots on target into more goals. Captain Wayne Rooney looked slow and ponderous before he provided the assist for Rashford as Jose Mourinho went in with an unchanged squad.
Hull sat deep, soaked up the pressure, countered and pressed well as the 20-time champions were not at their clinical best but still managed to sneak a win. That, as we all know, is the hallmark of champions – win when you’re not playing at your 100% and you’re likely to be closer to the top come May.
The Results
- Tottenham Hotspur 1 (Danny Rose) draw with Liverpool 1 (James Milner penalty)
- Chelsea 3 (Eden Hazard, Willian, Victor Moses) beat Burnley 0
- Crystal Palace 1 (Scott Dann) draw with Bournemouth 1 (Joshua King)
- Everton 1 (Shay Given own goal) beat Stoke City 0
- Leicester City 2 (Jamie Vardy, Wes Morgan) beat Swansea City 1 (Leroy Fer)
- Southampton 1 (Jay Rodriguez) draw with Sunderland 1 (Jermain Defoe penalty)
- Watford 1 (Roberto Pereyra) lose to Arsenal 3 (Santiago Cazorla penalty, Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil)
- Hull City 0 lose to Manchester United 1 (Marcus Rashford)
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