Seasons Already in Need of a Kickstart, it's only week 3 of the Premier League!

When all is said and done it was a very compact weekend at the end of August as players were about to head off on International Duty for the first couple of Euro 2012 qualifiers. The Premiership featured six games on Saturday and then four on Sunday given the excitement and disappointment of certain teams midweek European adventures.

Tottenham demonstrated that they'll certainly struggle to balance the thrill of Champions League football with the demands of the league season, coming off handing out a thrashing to Young Boys to lose at home to the Worst Team in the Division, Wigan Athletic. In truth it was a decent measure of revenge for the 9-1 pasting they received in the corresponding fixture last year although in no way does it therefore follow that they are a massively improved unit or that Spurs have fallen drastically. Indeed it's just the beautiful nature of football. Sometimes a team who looks so awful you wonder where their next point is coming from travels to a team considered by some poor fools an outside bet for the title. What follows is a rather miraculous smash n' grab raid and the world is turned on its head. To be fair the Lactics defence did look more organised than they had previously and the Tottenham players lacked the imaginative streak that had carried them into the promised land last season.

Of the ten games played four finished 1-0, a pretty goaless weekend after the free scoring we'd gotten used to in the first couple of weeks. Man Utd stepped up to the attacking plate although their 3-0 win had as much to do with West Ham continuing to be rubbish as their own skills. Clearly the Gollivan monster in change at Upton Park need to do more than change the manager to arrest their slide, there are a smattering of good players in the claret and blue but they lack self belief. At least Wayne Rooney managed to end his five month goal drought, albeit with a penalty. Fingers crossed he gets better with England as I fear the Bulgarians and Swiss have the potential to spring some nasty surprises.

Elsewhere on the domestic front even Arsenal and Chelsea toned it down a bit, like they were embarrassed about all the 6-0s which had been demonstrating the gulf in class in the Best League in the World. Liverpool were definitely subdued and even a little lucky to sneak the victory over West Brom, the lack of creativity was all too apparent but the silver lining is a sharper Torres, although one hopes that Spain will leave him at home for a nice rest this coming week. Looks like there are some more signings arriving at Anfield before Transfer Deadline Day on Tuesday, Raul Meireles isn't as good as Javier Mascherano but such are the times we live in, having Konchesky as cover would be a reasonable state of affairs it's just a shame Aquilani has shuffled off to Juventus, if only because of his lovely WAG...

Mr. Bourne was in actual attendance of the Wolves v Newcastle game so will no doubt offer a more incisive and interesting commentary than me in due course. Suffice to say it looked a tricky proposition given their status as a newly promoted side in transition set against the fact that they won 6-0 a week ago. Still a point is a point is a point and the tough tackling that Joey Barton found himself on the end of was an added bonus, hearty thanks to the Molineux Men.

The other important fact to arise from the Week 3 action is that I was stupidly premature in being so effusive in my praise of Manchester City, those words came when the wounds of defeat were still raw. They are not yet the awesome footballing machine ready to sweep all before them as evidenced by the distinct lack of chances they created against a Sunderland who had made a pretty horrendous start to their own campaign. A last minute penalty from Bent, who'll never make it as an England player, wrapped up a match both teams deserved to lose. Always with the snatching, such is football.