What an opening weekend - a kick start to a brand new season of Premier League football. For all English supporters this couldn't have come soon enough following the disappointment of the World Cup. For some, the day would be full of joy and hope and the feeling that this could be the dawn of something great for your club. For others, this day would end with them wishing that football could go away agin for another week.
The main story of the day was the absolutely brilliant display by Blackpool. At the start of the weekend the press was full of headlines about the worst team to ever play in the Premiership and boy were they made to eat those words by 5 O'Clock on Saturday. True, Blackpool did not have a team full of Premiership experience - in fact they had appeared to go backwards from last season where a number of the star players were on loan and had subsequently returned to their parent clubs. Though what Blackpool did have was a lot of passion and fight for the cause - something that Wigan could not say of their players.
So it turned out that one person who Blackpool did manage to bring in pre-season came up trumps in their first game. Marlon Harewood, becoming a bit of a journey man of late, is a player that will always give his all for any club he plays for and showed no sign of not doing the same for Blackpool when he weighed in with two well taken goals. Another couple of scrappy goals from a lot of defensive errors and the tangerines were winning their first Premier League game 4-0.
Now call me cynical, go on I know you want to, but this was so much more due to Wigan being appalling then Blackpool being great. I have said for so long that Wigan should not be in the Premier League and surely now is the time to actually boot them out for good. The team have the first game of the season at home against a newly promoted club and they don't even bother to turn up. What is worse no fans bothered to turn up either. This is a Premiership football team who have consistently performed well over a number of seasons and their gate for the first Premier League game this year was... 16,152...the DW Stadium holds 25,138 So So many unused seats - surely it is only the Premier League television money keeping this team afloat - So many other sides in the league below are much more deserving of a place in the Premier League.
Elsewhere, notable results saw West Brom and Newcastle get the rude awakening that a new club is usually accustomed to via heavy defeats from Chelsea and United respectively. Villa got off to a great start and looked promising, as did Wolves with a great win against Stoke to mark the intentions for the new season. Birmingham were lucky to snatch a draw in the end after coming back from two down against 10 man Sunderland.
The other major talking point for me this weekend was the biggest game between the heavyweights of Liverpool and Arsenal. The game was hardly going and approaching half time with the two teams seeming to have players weary from the World Cup. Then out of nowhere Liverpool's big signing of the summer - Joe Cole threw himself into a tackle to stop a ball being cleared out of defence, unfortunately the ex Chelsea man took out the Arsenal defender - Laurent Koscielny at the same time. It was perhaps an over enthusiastic lunge, but never a malicious one yet JC got his marching orders - perhaps suffering for the sins of other Premier League players who have used situations such as this to put in a reducer in the past.
The Arsenal fans looked visibly panicked that their already shaky defence would be up against it with their new man looking crocked, but he was fine to return after the interval. Amazingly 10 man Liverpool then took the lead and looked to be coasting home as Arsenal lacked ideas against an organised defence - Hodgson working his magic already?
Then out of nowhere right at the end of the game Pepe Reina the Liverpool keeper seemed to throw the ball into his own net. I'm not saying he did it on purpose, but maybe just maybe he fancies joining up with Rafa at Inter Milan - discuss.
The other major talking point for me this weekend was the biggest game between the heavyweights of Liverpool and Arsenal. The game was hardly going and approaching half time with the two teams seeming to have players weary from the World Cup. Then out of nowhere Liverpool's big signing of the summer - Joe Cole threw himself into a tackle to stop a ball being cleared out of defence, unfortunately the ex Chelsea man took out the Arsenal defender - Laurent Koscielny at the same time. It was perhaps an over enthusiastic lunge, but never a malicious one yet JC got his marching orders - perhaps suffering for the sins of other Premier League players who have used situations such as this to put in a reducer in the past.
The Arsenal fans looked visibly panicked that their already shaky defence would be up against it with their new man looking crocked, but he was fine to return after the interval. Amazingly 10 man Liverpool then took the lead and looked to be coasting home as Arsenal lacked ideas against an organised defence - Hodgson working his magic already?
Then out of nowhere right at the end of the game Pepe Reina the Liverpool keeper seemed to throw the ball into his own net. I'm not saying he did it on purpose, but maybe just maybe he fancies joining up with Rafa at Inter Milan - discuss.
Easy with your whispering campaign young Bourne, the mighty Pepe is going nowhere. He has done enough over his Liverpool career to excuse a howler, however painful it might have been.
ReplyDeleteOverall a decent start to the season. As you say special respect to Wolves and Blackpool. Must do better to Wigan, West Brom and West Ham.
The Joe Cole challege did deserve a red card. I still love him though.