United Still A Big Work In Progress,
Long Season For Leicester,
Stoke Courting Trouble,
Kane, Ighalo End Goal Drought,
Lucky Costa, Lucky Chelsea.
The excitement of the Premier League returned to our screens
with a whole lot of drama as we could always wish for. The 172nd
Manchester derby was played out at Old Trafford on Saturday with the red side
of Manchester biting the dust. Leicester City were soundly beaten at Anfield by
rampaging Liverpool, while Arsenal got a late win at home to Southampton. Tottenham completed another emphatic rout of
Stoke City while Westham United tasted
defeat for the first time in their new abode, the London Stadium.
I give my thoughts on what we saw this week;
United Still A Big Work In Progress
Manchester United, or more accurately, Jose Mourinho was
told so acutely that there are still plenty of steps to take before the Red devils are passed fixed. The
Mancunian derby turned out to be one to forget for the Old Trafford outfit as
Pep Guardiola’s men struck an early
blow to their title chances. Jose duly collected his 8th defeat at
the hands of his rival, Pep, in their 17th meeting and in the
process, he records his first home loss in his United era. It took him over 70
games to taste defeat at home while in charge of Chelsea, but, he did not last that
long at the Theatre of Dreams as Pep quickly took the driving seat in the title
picture.
It is fair to say that United were left in no man’s lands
for most parts of the first half. City applied pace and intensity and in the
process, exposed the lack of it so glaringly for Manchester United. For 42 good
minutes, it was all City and you could have feared the worst of it only that
Claudio Bravo, making his debut in goal for the visitors gave the host a
shoo-in after dropping a cross for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to volley home. The
response from United was better after the break but City refused to break and
were still rampant.
I call it an early jilt into reality for Manchester United
and the Special one himself. Of course, they had a good summer and Mourinho has
brought back some fear factor to Old Trafford. However, United are not going to
win the title over night as Mourinho has been suggesting. It would be good for
United to have a go but, City made them understand that their still some areas
to be fixed. City tore at the Red devil’s defence and could have left Mou
wandering if indeed he was incharge of this team. The area needs to be sorted. Daley
Blind was largely exposed. His suitability as centre half was called into
question. One could only imagine what might have been especially in the first
half if Aguero were to be on show. It is early days but, this result would
surely have an effect on the plot of the title race and how both teams would
think going forwards. However, what is obvious is that United are still a big
work in progress.
Long Season For Leicester
The foxes were well pulverized in a 4-1 drubbing at the
hands of Liverpool. Claudio Ranieri’s men did not start their title defence on
a good note and were handed more misery on Saturday as the reds totally bashed
the defending champions who were roundly outclassed. It was a worrying sight
for the Leicester faithfuls as the staunch defence they were accustomed to on
the way to their unprecedented title triumph, was left in absolute tatters at
Merseyside.
Liverpool were celebrating a return to a refurbished Anfield Stadium, where 54,000 souls were
reverberating behind them. Perhaps, the atmosphere was too hot to handle for
Leicester as they imploded. It was not a good audition for the Foxes Champions
League debut coming up in the week as Ranieri has been sent thinking on what
formula to come up with for the season.
On the evidence of what we have seen, Leicester are in for a tougher campaign. We saw Chelsea
struggle last season after winning the title. Nobody expected Leicester’s
triumph last term and the big boys are back. Leicester would have it tough and
do not even seem ready. Ranieri has a lot to do.
Stoke City Courting Trouble.
The Bet365 Stadium does not look a happy place at the moment
as Stoke City has started the season in a scary manner. The Pottries have only
one hard earned point from their opening four games and are currently on a long
winless run from last season. However, what would be more disturbing for the
fans is the seeming loss of identity from the Britannia outfit.
Stoke has been reputed for giving top sides the headache
especially at their home ground. However, they have recorded two resounding
defeats there already and have lost by four goals against top sides from the
tail end of last term. Mancity enjoyed a 4-1 win earlier and Tottenham recorded yet another 4-0 win as
they did last term . It would be a cause of concern for manager Mark Hughes ,
who has received a lot of plaudits for transforming the Stoke into a ball
playing side. With this kind of terrible start if not nipped, they can begin to
fear relegation and Mark Hughes’ position may be reconsidered.
Kane, Ighalo End Goal Droughts
Two of the most influential talents of last season finally
traced their route back to goal after a long and worrying goal drought apiece. The
Tottenham striker, Harry Kane has racked up over 20 goals in each of the last two seasons for Spurs and has
emerged a very important player for them and England as a whole. He was one
of the players the English faithfuls expected to light up the Three Lions’ Euros
campaign but was largely anonymous. His return to goal scoring would be of
important news to Pochettino whose side are looking to go again for the title. He
scored the fourth goal against Stoke to cap off a solid performance for the North
Londoners as they moved into the top four.
Nigerian forward, Odion Ighalo rose to limelight in the
topflight last term after scoring for fun to emerge Watford’s top scorer last season. His partnership with Troy Deeny caused so many havoc for teams but towards the end of last season,
they began to wane as Ighalo in particular became frustratingly wasteful in
front of goal. His poor form has also rubbed off on his national team, having
failed to score in the last few matches. He however was on target as Watford
recorded their first three points of the campaign, coming from two goals down
to defeat West Ham 4-2 away.
Lucky Costa, Lucky Chelsea
The blues also saw their 100% start to the campaign, halted at the Liberty Stadium as Swansea City worked out a 2-2 draw. Antonio Conte was left frustrated by Andre Marriner's decision to award Swansea their second goal after Leroy Fer appeared to have fouled Gary Cahill in the build up as the blues spurned a lot of chances to kill off the game. However, Diego Costa scored a late overhead kick to rescue a point for the London side.
The question is whether Costa himself should still have been
on the pitch. Irrespective of the fact that Chelsea has witnessed a marked improvement
since Conte walked in, they have been lucky bar the home match against Burnley,
to finish with 11 men on the field as Costa should have been sent off for
dissent. In the opening match against Westham, it was the case and
infuriatingly for the visitors, he ended up scoring the winner. That was the
case at Watford a week later and on Sunday, Swansea witnessed the same fate. We
know Costa to be an effervescent character on the pitch and he is getting away
with most of it. He has been important for the blues but Conte might want to
talk to the boy to mellow down as his suspension may cause some problems . However, The
blues would continue to benefit from the officials’ error.
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