Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Premier League Points : Week 8

Travis Lankford here again. It's that time.

This past weekend saw the three title contenders win but not in similar fashion. There were a few interesting results but there are quite a few stories developing over these past eight weeks.

First and foremost, Chelsea has 22 points out of a possible 24. Why is this a significant number?  Manchester City did the same thing last year...the year they won the Premier League. Also, Juan Mata. I am a Chelsea fan but it would be hard to argue against him being the best player in the Premier League right now and to think he can't get a sniff at the Spanish first team.

Sir Alex Ferguson seems to be ushering in a tactical revolution at Old Trafford. Manchester United has long been known to play a 4-4-2 with wingers. Ryan Giggs was, after all, a left midfielder. He is sticking with a 4-4-2 formation but with a diamond midfield. This may or may not prove to be a fruitful endeavor as Patrice Evra has been on a significant decline in the past few years and he will be relied upon to provide the attacking width on United's left flank. Van Persie, Rooney, and Welbeck are already showing that they are relishing the chance to play together and the former two are really showing their class.

Manchester City pulled off a champions style result against West Brom. They were a man down for the majority of the match due to James Milner's first ever red card for City. Dzeko proved that he still has goals in him and grabbed a brace and the vital three points for Manchester City. Those will prove to be a very important three points in May.

Liverpool won at home. Yes, you read that correctly. They now have one more point than games played. Okay, that's enough picking on the Scousers but what is still alarming, a plague carried over from last season, is their complete lack of killer edge in front of goal. Liverpool had 23 shots on goal against Reading and only managed to score on the break through new-boy and wonder-kid Raheem Sterling.

Mark Hughes's knickers must be on fire because he has to be in the hottest managerial seat in the league (Nigel Adkins has done too much for Southampton to be in too much trouble right now). QPR seem completely disjointed and out of sorts but that is the very real consequence when you buy a lot of new players and throw them into the starting eleven. I don't think Hughes will get the chance to see the team start to click and he will be looking for yet another position as manager in the not so distant future.

There are European games in the middle of this week so it will be exciting to see how the group stages develop in the Champions League today and tomorrow. The UCL fixtures are followed by Week 9 in the Premier League and the next round of the Capitol One Cup (formerly known as the Carling Cup).

No comments:

Post a Comment