The Barclays Premier League is well under way and the soccer table’s finally starting to take shape.
The biggest surprise of them all must be Liverpool, which looks like a serious title challenger for the first time since the inception of the Premier League. Impressive wins over Manchester United, Everton, Chelsea and Manchester City have seen them muster an extremely exciting start to their season. Not to mention the fact that their $40 Irish striker has finally found his scoring boots. With the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal struggling to catch up, Rafa Benitez and the Scousers will be praying that their strong, albeit somewhat lucky, string of results can continue.
Refusing to back down, and ahead of Liverpool merely on goals difference, Chelsea has been the team to beat this season. Big Phil Scolari has not only continued Jose Mourinho’s winning ways, but has gone one better and brought samba football to the Bridge. The results speak for themselves, with incredible 5-0 wins over Sunderland and Middlesborough. Nicolas Anelka leads the league in goals with 10 in 11 games. If Chelsea keeps its big wins coming, they won’t have to worry about losing on goal difference as they almost did last year.
It was said by many that Arsenal’s season was over with the likes of Emmanuel Adebayor, Tomas Rosicky and Robin van Persie, to name a few, all injured. No one could see them coming back, and even Cesc Fabregas stated that anything less than a win when Manchester United Football Club came to town and they would be down and out. And then, to everyone’s surprise, they did win, and win big at that. Samir Nasri brought the points and the respect that Arsenal deserve, keeping them in the race and in the top three. Nasri looked to be the buy of the season as he scored in the fourth minute of the first game and has played extremely well in Rosicky’s absence. Arsene Wenger has asked his critics to wait until May to judge his season, and people are beginning to see his point.
Manchester United, statistically the most successful team in the history of the Premier League, has continued its trend of starting the season off slowly, but unlike in seasons past, the results have continued to fail to come as consistently as Sir Alex would have liked. Losses to Liverpool and Arsenal have seen both of those sides push ahead of them in the table, and a fight back from newly promoted Hull have shown the holes in defense that the loss of assistant manager Carlos Queiroz to Portugal has left in his wake. New striker Dimitar Berbatov has failed to impress in the league, even though he’s managed four goals in two games in the Champions League.
Meanwhile, Hull City has been the surprise of the season. After gaining promotion through the playoff system rather than winning the championship, most were writing them off and dooming them to immediate relegation. Instead they managed win after win, even beating Arsenal, and giving Manchester the fight of their lives. Three successive defeats, however, have seen them drop from third to fifth, but who knows how this fairy tale will end.
Meanwhile, with Harry Redknapp’s revival of Tottenham and the newest members of the billionaire’s club, Manchester City, buried in 13th, this season looks topsy-turvy.