The action was fascinating this weekend.
Good games, lots of great goals.
Most of Saturday’s Premier League games were entertaining.
Bring on the next 30 games! And the 60 after that.
The 0-0 draw at White Hart Lane was a competitive tactical battle which told us quite a lot.
Spurs and Liverpool will both be hard to beat this season. Both sides had notable absentees and Spurs lost Chadli to an ankle ligament injury early on.
Sakho made a lot of good blocks,tackles and interceptions.
Emre Can could score 6 or 7 Gerrard goals this season. When he buries the first one, more will follow.
Watford competed with Arsenal for an hour and then the superior skill of the visitors earned a 3-0 victory.
Whereas Oxlade and Walcott are fast and untidy, Bellerin is fast and precise. What a player he’s become. Let’s hope Bellerin stays at Arsenal till 2020 and beyond.
Alexis Sanchez, the bionic samurai, scored the first goal, of course.
Then sub Giroud and Ramsey wrapped it up.
Manchester City’s 5-1 thrashing of Bournemouth was impressive.
With wonderfully composed playmaker Kevin De Bruyne creating from the left flank and releasing Raheem Sterling with a magnificent pass from inside his own half.
Sterling’s form has been pitiful recently. But here his emotion-damaged face told us how much those three goals meant to him. They took a ton of pressure off the kid and we started to see the class that excited us in the World Cup.
Bony and Sterling played very well together.
Bony said, “We talked a lot through the week. I know Raheem is very fast, and I had to show myself for him. I told him, if I jump, you have to run, whether I win the ball or not.”
Doubt if Aguero and Sterling will ever combine as well as that.
Keeper Artur Boruc was injured in the warm-up and we’ll never know what the score would have been had Boruc played,
I reckon Aston Villa are the worst team in the league and their flop in the FA Cup Final suggests Tim Sherwood as a candidate for worst manager.
I knew that stuttering Chelsea would beat Villa and that was the only bet I had on Saturday.
Dismayed to see teenager Loftus-Cheek taken off at half-time.
Slaven Bilic’s West Ham went to Crystal Palace and won 3-1 after Howard Gayle sent himself off with two of the silliest yellow cards we’ve seen. Second one 11 minutes after the first.
Lanzini and Payet are a new double act.
I was about 22 when I first said that that best thing you can do for a footballer is to give him another good footballer to play with.
Lanzini is an on-loan Argentinian with an Italian passport. When he found Payet with a cute pass, the Frenchman’s shuffle deceived the keeper and he floated a cheeky shot in for 3-1.
Bilic likes the appetite of Palace: “They play as a team and fight hard.” But Slav was very happy: “So far, my proudest moment.”
Fourth in the table and unbeaten in their last six games, he should be. The Hammers have scored 20 goals in 9 games. Only Citeh have scored more.
At White Hart Lane, Klopp said, “I saw many, many good things.”
He’s banned wives and girlfriends from the training ground. Why would WAGs be there anyway?
Van Gaal, who dropped Depay, was delighted with United’s emphatic 3-0 win at Everton.
Ander Herrera had one of those games where he looked fast, balanced and lethal.