Magpies flying, Arsenal self-destruct yet again: 12 things we learnt this weekend
We’re not sure why, but it felt like a particularly significant weekend in the Barclays Premier League.
As we fling ourselves into another International Break with 11 league games under our belts, it seems as good time as any to take stock and make some utterly unsubstantiated well-informed observations about England’s top tier.
And so, in no particular order:
Arsenal’s defending is criminally bad, and they’re not too keen on holding on to a lead, either. A quick zip around their fan blogs this morning showed one consistent element: a link to this classic Simpsons scene.
Swansea can, most definitely, do it on a cold wet night in Swansea. Well, Gylfi Sigurdsson can, anyway:
Burnley are up and running…at last. They’re the last team in the top four tiers of English football to register a win this campaign. It couldn’t come soon enough for Dyche’s men.
Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea proved us right with a narrow but deserved win at Anfield. Are Chelsea games, dare we say it, becoming predictable?
Harry Kane, however, proved us wrong when he celebrated his first Premier League start of the season by missing an absolute sitter in the first half against Stoke.
An entirely unremarkable Spurs went on to lose (that’s three defeats in four league games), despite this quite marvellous strike from everyone’s favourite Y-front exhibitionist, Nacer Chadli.
The BBC cameramen love panning to Daniel Levy when Spurs are a goal or two down. Like he’s suddenly going to turn red and emit steam from his ears. Needless to say, he never does.
QPR are starting to look like something resembling a football team again. They held stumbling Man City to a draw but really could have had all three points on the basis of their first-half performance.
Charlie Austin, by the way, is one of the few fairytale heroes of English football. In 2009 he was playing for semi-pro side Poole Town and part-timing as a bricklayer to make ends meet. Five years later, he’s in the Premiership and scoring against the Champions.
They say strikers win you games, but Sergio Aguero is working hard merely to save City’s blushes at the moment. The little Argentine now has 12 goals in 11 Premier League games, a scoring record only bettered by Les Ferdinand (13) in 1995.
Mug-turned-Messiah Alan Pardew and his Newcastle side are absolutely flying. Their 2-0 win at West Brom means they have taken 13 points from the last available 15.
It was a third goal in as many games for striker Ayoze Pérez, and this was certainly the pick of his most recent bunch. Seriously impudent from the 21-year-old Spaniard:
Seriously though, it’s hard to put into words just how impressive Newcastle’s recent turnaround has been. A decent 30% of Predikta players backed them for three points this weekend, too, which shows renewed faith in the Toon.
Elsewhere, staggeringly, 46% of players were spot-on in guessing the 2-1 final score at Anfield. Which begs the question: is 2-1 the most predictable score of all time? Give us a year (or two) and we’ll tell you. Right here on this blog.
Only 18% foresaw Burnley securing their first win of the season this weekend, but of those, just over half got the score exactly correct. Well done you.
Jason Parker and Ruth Perryman led the pack this week with 17 points.
James McCreath still leads for the season overall, as a solid week’s work saw him hit 150 points. The full table will be up on our Facebook page shortly, as usual.
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