Premier League round-up – United pile pressure on Chelsea and Liverpool

Manchester United have piled the pressure on to Liverpool and Chelsea after their 1-0 win against Everton at Old Trafford.

Dominated

Let’s be honest, United were a long way from their best but they dominated the game and always seemed likely to pick up the three points. They had a majority of the possession and never looked likely to do anything other than win the game.

In the end it took a late first half penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo to win the points. It was a penalty as Michael Carrick was tripped in the area by Mikel Arteta, Indeed, Carrick was fouled in the area again in the second half and United should have had a second penalty.

Record

Edwin Van der Sar broke the record for the longest period without conceding a goal ever. In this game, he never looked likely to lose that possibility.

The other title contenders playing yesterday were Arsenal and Aston Villa. Arsenal blew their chances with a 0-0 draw at home to the resurgent West Ham who defended expertly to gain a well deserved point.

Ended

Aston Villa met a determined Wigan side who were pretty keen to ensure that their former striker Emile Heskey wasn’t going to score against them. The 0-0 draw that entailed probably ended Aston Villa’s hopes of challenging for top spot.

So with United winning and Arsenal and Villa drawing at home, it is over to Liverpool and Chelsea today to make some sort of statement. A draw between the two would be ideal for United and seems the most likely outcome as these two teams always manage to cancel each other out.

Delighted

At the wrong end of the table, West Brom and Hull did themselves no favours with a 2-2 draw at the KC Stadium. They will both be delighted not to lose, but at this stage of the season, one point is simply not enough.

Joining West Brom in the bottom three are two more teams who managed to avoid defeat but failed to pick up the three points they needed. Middlesbrough and Blackburn played out a predictably dull 0-0 draw which did neither side any real favours.

Inconsistent

The big winners at the bottom were Stoke who beat the incredibly inconsistent Manchester City 1-0 with a James Beattie first half injury time goal. The result looks even better for Stoke and even worse for Manchester City when you know that Stoke’s Rory Delap was rightly sent off in the thirty-eighth minute.

The two other games yesterday saw two of the more surprisingly struggling sides losing again and leaving them in serious trouble. Portsmouth were comprehensively beaten 3-1 at Fulham for whom Eric Nevland scored two late goals to add to Andrew Johnson’s early strike.

Not enough

Tottenham went down 3-2 at Bolton. After Puygrenier and Kevin Davies had put Bolton 2-0 up, substitute Darren Bent struck twice to even things up and make Harry Redknapp eat his recent words about his ‘missus’ being able to take chances that Bent missed. It proved not to be enough though as Kevin Davies struck again three minutes from time to give Bolton the three points.

Today’s games see struggling Newcastle play their near neighbours Sunderland. A defeat by two goals or more would see Newcastle drop into the bottom three. The game is likely to be as close and hard fought as any local derby and it is hard to imagine a two goal win for either side. Having said that, if one team is going to win comfortably, it is hard to look beyond Sunderland.

Winners

The other game sees the small matter of Liverpool taking on Chelsea.The teams in second and third find themselves five points behind a United team that will have a game in hand on both after this one. A draw seems the most likely result and the only winners if that is the case will be Sir Alex Ferguson and his team.

There are two fascinating games today and whilst neither is likely to be a great spectacle, they will definitely both have tension, whole hearted effort and no doubt their fair share of controversy.

I can’t wait!

Check in here tomorrow to see who’s hot and who’s not in this weekend’s Premier League games.