Weekend Round Up
The weekend started at Goodison Park with yet another controversial Merseyside derby played out between Liverpool and Everton. Jack Rowell was the victim of some appalling refereeing when he was sent off for a hard but perfectly fair tackle on Luis Suarez by Martin Atkinson. That swung the game in The Reds favour and after Dirk Kuyt had a penalty magnificently saved by Tim Howard, it was left to the £58m strike force of Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez to grab a second half goal apiece to give Kenny Dalglish’s side the spoils. The occasion was soured late on when missiles where thrown from the home end in the direction of Luis Suarez and Craig Bellamy as they came across to take corners for Liverpool. David Moyes was incandescent in his post-match interview but Dalglish would have been delighted as his side reaffirmed their top four ambitions.
Rodwell was very harshly sent off in The Merseyside Derby
Saturday afternoon followed with a 2-0 win for Manchester United at home to Norwich, though the win was nowhere near as convincing as the scoreline suggested. Anthony Pilkington missed a glorious chance to put the unfancied visitors ahead before Anderson and Danny Wellbeck scored goals to secure a valuable win for The Red Devils. Roberto Mancini’s Manchester City kept the pace on United as they trounced Blackburn 4-0 at Ewood Park. Mario Balotelli gave a far more mature performance than normal as the away support rallied behind Mancini following his row with Carlos Tevez earlier in the week. Adam Johnson scored a wonderful curled effort and Balotelli himself added a second to send City on their way and Samir Nasri and Stefan Savic scored their first goals since their summer arrivals to add the gloss to a solid performance. The only negative for Mancini was the loss of Sergio Aguero to a muscular problem in the first half while his counterpart Steve Kean was the victim to angry protests from Rovers supporters at the final whistle.
At the other end of the table Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion played out an entertaining 2-2 draw at The Stadium of Light. WBA flew into a 2-0 goals through goals from James Morison and Shane Long’s third of the season inside six minutes but Sunderland roared back into it through Mohamed Elmohamady and Nicklas Bendter to earn a point that does little to help either side. In the other two of Saturday’s games Aston Villa and Newcastle held on to their unbeaten records against Wigan and Wolves respectively. Villa gave an assured home display in a 2-0 victory in which Gabriel Agbonlahor showed signs that he is back to his best form and Barry Bannan was industrious and inventive in midfield and, in truth, Villa could have won by more. Newcastle were no so convincing on the other hand, despite leading 2-0 at half time through a headed goal from Demba Ba and Jonas Gutierrez’ wonderful solo effort, they laboured to a 2-1 win. They were lucky to escape with that though as Kevin Doyle had a goal harshly ruled out in the dying moments and Tim Krul made a series of great saves throughout the match.
Barry Bannan was superb in Aston Villa's 2-0 win against Wigan
Sunday began with a vintage Chelsea performance as they powered past Bolton by winning 5-1 at The Reebok. Daniel Sturridge scored two and Frank Lampard showed his best form to grab a hat-trick and the only consolation for The Trotters was Dedryck Boyata’s goal just after the break. Later in the afternoon Swansea earned a surprise 2-0 win at home to a lacklustre Stoke side who looked to be suffering something of a European hangover. Scott Sinclair set The Swans on their way with a first half penalty and Danny Graham secured the win with an 85th minute strike.
The first of two London derbies took place at Craven Cottage where Fulham smashed six past a lacklustre QPR side. Andy Johnson did his claims for a new contract no harm by scoring a hat-trick, with Danny Murphy, Clint Dempsey and Bobby Zamora also getting on the scoresheet. Neil Warnock was left fuming and will need to amend his team’s defensive issues if they are to avoid being drawn into a relegation battle. The big game of the weekend took place at White Hart Lane between Tottenham and Arsenal and Spurs compounded Arsene Wenger’s problems with a 2-1 win. Rafael van der Vaart looked to handle as he controlled the ball before firing home the opener five minutes before half time. Arsenal flew out of the blocks at the start of the second half and Aaron Ramsey fired into the roof of the net following good work from Alex Song down the left. The Gunners rarely threatened after that though and lost momentum when Bacary Sagna went off with a broken leg, Kyle Walker’s low shot from 25 yards on 73 minutes turned out to be the winner as Spurs claimed the bragging rights once again in The North London derby.
Kyle Walker smashes home the winner in The North London Derby
SYS Team of the Weekend: Krul (Newcastle); Walker (Tottenham), Kolarov (Manchester City), Steven Taylor (Newcastle), Luiz (Chelsea); Dempsey (Fulham), Lampard (Chelsea), Parker (Tottenham); Balotelli (Manchester City), Johnson (Fulham), Agbonlahor (Aston Villa)
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