EPL round-up – United stay top as Liverpool slip up again

So the Premier League title race and relegation struggle continue to provide great entertainment this season. The midweek games have been fascinating and haven’t really made anything much clearer although some teams will be feeling a lot more confident than others.

Goal difference

On Tuesday evening Manchester United went three points clear at the top and did their goal difference no harm with a convincing and comprehensive 5-0 win at West Brom. The home side were unlucky to have left back Paul Robinson sent off for a slightly reckless, but surely only bookable tackle when the score was only 1-0. Not like Rob Styles to make a controversial decision! 🙂

Ominously for the other teams chasing the title, United had Rio Ferdinand back in the side, Wes Brown on as a sub and Berbatov and Tevez both scored. Even more ominously, Cristiano Ronaldo found the net twice.

Remarkable

A new Premier League record was also made by Edwin Van der Sar, keeping his eleventh consecutive clean sheet. A remarkable performance.

Also on Tuesday, Aston Villa kept up their increasingly serious bid for a Champions League place with a far less convincing and comprehensive 1-0 win at beleaguered Portsmouth. They did not play well at all and Portsmouth were unlucky, but a debut goal by Emile Heskey was enough to give them yet another win, their seventh in the last eight games.

Rooted

At the other end, West Brom obviously stayed rooted to the bottom and they were joined in the drop zone by Stoke, who had a disappointing and worrying 3-1 defeat at Tottenham, who themselves clambered up a few places in the table. Portsmouth continued their downward slide under the increasingly bewildered looking Tony Adams and Sunderland drew level in mid-table with Fulham after beating them 1-0 with a goal by Kenwynne Jones who had committed his future to the club earlier in the day.

So Wednesday night arrived with some pressure on Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal who all needed results to stay in the race. At the other end of the table, Middlesbrough, Blackburn, Bolton and Newcastle, all knew that they couldn’t afford too many more slip ups.

With the table being so tight, the other teams involved on Wednesday, Everton, Hull, Manchester City, West Ham and Wigan were all also in need of points to either help them start to look upwards or to prevent them having to start to look nervously behind them.

Struggling

Former leaders Liverpool went to a Wigan side struggling to keep hold of their best players during this transfer window. With Heskey gone to Villa, Palacios gone to Tottenham and seemingly everyone in Europe wanting Valencia, things have not been easy for Steve Bruce.

In the game Liverpool dominated the first half and took a deserved lead through Benayoun. The second half was a different story and with Rafa Benitez seemingly looking to protect the 1-0 rather than play like champions, Wigan got back into the game and equalised with a Mido penalty after Lucas had fouled Koumas.

Straightforward

Chelsea, who had slipped to fourth following Villa’s win on Tuesday evening, welcomed back John Terry for the apparently straightforward task of taking on a Middlesbrough side who have failed to win in ten league games.

The 2-0 scoreline in Chelsea’s favour may suggest that it was easy for Scolari’s men. In reality, this was another poor Chelsea performance and for an hour a Chelsea win looked very unlikely indeed.

Fifth placed Arsenal had the currently unenviable task of going to Goodison Park to take on sixth placed Everton.

Everton took the lead with an inevitable trademark header from Tim Cahill and looked to be taking a really valuable three points in the race for fourth place. It remained 1-0 until the 92nd minute when a moment of brilliance from Van Persie rescued a point for the Gunners.

That all leaves United two points clear of Liverpool and Chelsea with a game in hand. Aston Villa are just a point further back with Arsenal five points behind them and five points ahead of Everton.

Desperate

At the other end of the table Blackburn and Bolton took each other on desperate for points and, perhaps predictably ended up with one apiece. Bolton raced into a two-nil lead but Blackburn under Sam Allardyce are a resilient unit and they came back to get a deserved point.

Newcastle went to money-bags Manchester City who lined up with new signings Craig Bellamy and Nigel De Jong. In the first half Newcastle were truly dreadful. City went 1-0 up through Shaun Wright-Phillips as they totally dominated.

Craig Bellamy added a debut goal in the second half but Newcastle showed a little fight to pull one back through Andy Carroll. City held on to win 2-1.

The only ‘dead rubber’ of the night was at Upton Park where Hull were the visitors to West Ham. West Ham won easily 2-0 with goals from Di Michele and Carlton Cole.

All that leaves Middlesbrough in the drop zone with West Brom and Stoke with Tottenham, Bolton, Portsmouth, Newcastle and Blackburn all within three points. Hull are still in tenth place, some six points above the relegation places, but they will now consider themselves to be in the fight.