09-13-2016, 04:58 AM
X 16+ Purechaos white The Premier League is back! Less than a month after it was last back, it was back again this weekend after the interminable week-long international break.
And what a return it was for the world's most… something league. Shock results. High-scoring thrillers. Debutant foreign keepers exposed by balls into the mixer. You just don't get this kind of action anywhere else.
The tone was set for a fantastic weekend of Premier League action by Saturday lunchtime's Manchester derby, as the sort of game that absolutely never lives up to the hype absolutely did.
While the soap-opera rivalry between Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola is an overplayed melodrama, there's little doubt that coaches make the matches these days. The Premier League boasts few genuine megastars on the pitch, but the presence of these two ubermanagers - and the global media that set course for Manchester - means the Manchester derby is now the biggest game in English football. All it needs is a name, like El Mancico or something less lame.
superfly v black Judging by the build-up, the new name for this century-old rival is, in any case, Mourinho v Guardiola. With Pep having enjoyed the better of the skirmishes against his former friend in Spain, and with the first El Mancico of the season taking place at Old Trafford, this always felt like a more significant game for Mourinho and United than for Guardiola and City. Mourinho is the man who appears determined to forge his career in opposition to Guardiola's, and Mourinho was the man who needed to break the pattern of results from their previous encounters.
He failed. Although things improved after his half-time rejig, that really only served to highlight the extent to which the gamble on starting Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard had backfired. The damage had ultimately been done in a rampant first 45 minutes from the visitors. That City's opening goal was a route one move finished off by the superb Kevin De Bruyne only added further salt in the wound for the new Manchester United boss.
ACE 16+ PureControl black A brilliantly instinctive Zlatan Ibrahimovic finish aside, the biggest bright spot for United was, once again, Marcus Rashford. It is now literally impossible to avoid getting giddy about a player who threatens to make even Harry Kane's implausible comic-book career seem staid.
Hypervenom Phantom II black Even Zlatan is firmly aboard the Rashford bus. "Time by time, he will take over everything," said the Swede with an unshakable certainty out of kilter with his usual diffident manner. A glance around Great Britain in 2016 suggests this is not the worst idea.
After a quiet set of 3pm games in which nothing much happened apart from Spurs carelessly repeating the exact result that precipitated their late-season collapse last season, Arsenal winning in dramatic style after the softest of late penalty decisions and West Ham imploding after trying to "mug off" Watford while their fans fought among themselves having decided they didn't much like the look of the dental work on this horse the hard-working British taxpayer gifted them, it was on to the late game as Liverpool looked to give credence to the idea that this year could be their year against a team that showed last year just how tantalisingly plausible such a thing can actually be.
A camera angle from space and a Lucas Leiva brainfart aside, it was just about the perfect evening for Liverpool at the genuinely impressive Anfield 2.0 as a side inspired by the effervescent movement, skill and workrate of Adam Lallana and Roberto Firmino put Leicester to the sword.
It's not just Liverpool fans who'll be forgiven for idly wondering whether, after 26 years of waiting, this year could finally be their year. They probably need to cut out the 2-0 defeats at Burnley, but after the opening-day success at Arsenal this was another stunning statement of intent. Whatever happens, for better or worse, they appear certain to be this year's great entertainers.
superfly mercurial v black For Leicester, it's hard to know what happens next. It always was hard to know what happened next, because there is no precedent in modern English football for what they are attempting to follow. Were these early-season struggles predictable? Probably yes, in as much as absolutely anything that Leicester achieved in their first four games this season could be reasonably deemed to be as likely as any other possibility. While winning the title again or getting relegated are clearly the two funniest and therefore best options for Ranieri's miracle men, a solidly unspectacular season of mid-table solidity sadly looks the likeliest outcome. For now.
To Sunday, and the third genuine TV cracker of the Premier League weekend as Diego Costa Diego Costad his way to a brace but couldn't prevent Chelsea's one hundred per cent record coming to an end in South Wales as Chelsea blew a lead in two bizarre second-half minutes before Costa rescued a point with a close-range overhead kick that happily suggests the unwelcome trend for spoilsport disallowing of such goals by joy-hating jobsworth officials is at an end.
A breathless weekend. And it all means that after the first month of this most unpredictable of all Premier League seasons, the top six comprises Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham, Liverpool and Arsenal, with Sunderland in the bottom three.
And what a return it was for the world's most… something league. Shock results. High-scoring thrillers. Debutant foreign keepers exposed by balls into the mixer. You just don't get this kind of action anywhere else.
The tone was set for a fantastic weekend of Premier League action by Saturday lunchtime's Manchester derby, as the sort of game that absolutely never lives up to the hype absolutely did.
While the soap-opera rivalry between Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola is an overplayed melodrama, there's little doubt that coaches make the matches these days. The Premier League boasts few genuine megastars on the pitch, but the presence of these two ubermanagers - and the global media that set course for Manchester - means the Manchester derby is now the biggest game in English football. All it needs is a name, like El Mancico or something less lame.
superfly v black Judging by the build-up, the new name for this century-old rival is, in any case, Mourinho v Guardiola. With Pep having enjoyed the better of the skirmishes against his former friend in Spain, and with the first El Mancico of the season taking place at Old Trafford, this always felt like a more significant game for Mourinho and United than for Guardiola and City. Mourinho is the man who appears determined to forge his career in opposition to Guardiola's, and Mourinho was the man who needed to break the pattern of results from their previous encounters.
He failed. Although things improved after his half-time rejig, that really only served to highlight the extent to which the gamble on starting Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Jesse Lingard had backfired. The damage had ultimately been done in a rampant first 45 minutes from the visitors. That City's opening goal was a route one move finished off by the superb Kevin De Bruyne only added further salt in the wound for the new Manchester United boss.
ACE 16+ PureControl black A brilliantly instinctive Zlatan Ibrahimovic finish aside, the biggest bright spot for United was, once again, Marcus Rashford. It is now literally impossible to avoid getting giddy about a player who threatens to make even Harry Kane's implausible comic-book career seem staid.
Hypervenom Phantom II black Even Zlatan is firmly aboard the Rashford bus. "Time by time, he will take over everything," said the Swede with an unshakable certainty out of kilter with his usual diffident manner. A glance around Great Britain in 2016 suggests this is not the worst idea.
After a quiet set of 3pm games in which nothing much happened apart from Spurs carelessly repeating the exact result that precipitated their late-season collapse last season, Arsenal winning in dramatic style after the softest of late penalty decisions and West Ham imploding after trying to "mug off" Watford while their fans fought among themselves having decided they didn't much like the look of the dental work on this horse the hard-working British taxpayer gifted them, it was on to the late game as Liverpool looked to give credence to the idea that this year could be their year against a team that showed last year just how tantalisingly plausible such a thing can actually be.
A camera angle from space and a Lucas Leiva brainfart aside, it was just about the perfect evening for Liverpool at the genuinely impressive Anfield 2.0 as a side inspired by the effervescent movement, skill and workrate of Adam Lallana and Roberto Firmino put Leicester to the sword.
It's not just Liverpool fans who'll be forgiven for idly wondering whether, after 26 years of waiting, this year could finally be their year. They probably need to cut out the 2-0 defeats at Burnley, but after the opening-day success at Arsenal this was another stunning statement of intent. Whatever happens, for better or worse, they appear certain to be this year's great entertainers.
superfly mercurial v black For Leicester, it's hard to know what happens next. It always was hard to know what happened next, because there is no precedent in modern English football for what they are attempting to follow. Were these early-season struggles predictable? Probably yes, in as much as absolutely anything that Leicester achieved in their first four games this season could be reasonably deemed to be as likely as any other possibility. While winning the title again or getting relegated are clearly the two funniest and therefore best options for Ranieri's miracle men, a solidly unspectacular season of mid-table solidity sadly looks the likeliest outcome. For now.
To Sunday, and the third genuine TV cracker of the Premier League weekend as Diego Costa Diego Costad his way to a brace but couldn't prevent Chelsea's one hundred per cent record coming to an end in South Wales as Chelsea blew a lead in two bizarre second-half minutes before Costa rescued a point with a close-range overhead kick that happily suggests the unwelcome trend for spoilsport disallowing of such goals by joy-hating jobsworth officials is at an end.
A breathless weekend. And it all means that after the first month of this most unpredictable of all Premier League seasons, the top six comprises Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham, Liverpool and Arsenal, with Sunderland in the bottom three.