Premier League Round-Up: Matchweek 12
Credit: AP
Matchweek 12:
Norwich 0-2 Watford
Chelsea 2-0 Crystal Palace
Burnley 3-0 West Ham
Newcastle 2-1 Bournemouth
Southampton 1-2 Everton
Tottenham 1-1 Sheffield United
Leicester 2-0 Arsenal
Man United 3-1 Brighton
Wolves 2-1 Aston Villa
Liverpool 3-1 Man City
Liverpool Open Up Huge Gap In Title Race
On Sunday we had the biggest match so far this season with first place Liverpool taking on then second place Manchester City. A win would open up a 9 pt advantage for Liverpool over Manchester City and a loss would have brought Manchester City within 3 pts of first place. Liverpool ended up on the winning of this fixture but to much surprise they cruised to a 3-1 win over Manchester City. Of course the match had its fair share of controversy. In just the 5th minute of the game Liverpool got away with a blatant handball, and instead of Manchester City being awarded their rightly deserved penalty, Liverpool counter attacked and score the first goal of the match. Man City’s Bernardo Silva attempted to cross the ball inside the box to a wide open and unmarked Raheem Sterling, which would have been a for sure goal, but Trent Alexander-Arnold stuck his right arm out in what was definitely a deliberate attempt to stop the ball, which he did. Despite all the cries from City players, the penalty was not awarded and Liverpool scored less than a minute later. No excuse for Manchester City to allow Liverpool to go score on the counter but they 100% should have been up 1-0 and Liverpool arguably should have been down to 10 men. Just 7 minutes later Liverpool double their lead on the counter attack again with a world class cross from Andrew Robertson to Mo Salah. Despite of a slew of opportunities by Manchester City they would only convert on 1 of those in the second half, once they were down 3 goals. The game would finish 3-1 and it was a huge blow to Man City’s 3-peat and a big boost to Liverpool winning the title.
Liverpool played great today, so I’m not taking that away from them, but they were incredibly lucky. As we’ve already discussed, the non-penalty and subsequent red card, would have flipped this game on it’s head and anybody would have a hard time seeing Liverpool go on to win this game being down a goal and down a man. But, as things have seemed to be this season, everything continues to go Liverpool’s way. Again, not a knock on Liverpool because you need some luck to win a title, and I would rather be lucky any day of the week. Liverpool have an 8 pt advantage over Leicester City and Chelsea as we head into the last international break of 2019.
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Pep Guardiola letting the officiating team have it
Other Notes:
Who gets the boot first, will it be Pochettino from Tottenham, Solskjaer from Man United or Emery from Arsenal? My money is on Emery. Despite Arsenal being higher in the table than both United and Tottenham, Arsenal fans seem to despise Emery already. And given their current run of form of 2 losses and 2 draws in their last 4 games against not he best competition other than Leicester, I could see Emery getting the ax any day now.
Leicester City continue on with their winning ways with a 2-0 win over Arsenal. Leicester are now on to their best start in club history, even better than 2015-16 when they won the Premier League title.
Chelsea also continue their winning ways, picking up their 6th consecutive Premier League victory this past Saturday with a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace. Like Jose Mourinho said, I’m still worried about this team against the top competition, but hey they are doing what they’re supposed to and that’s winning games against teams they should beat.
Got to give a shoutout to Sheffield United, who currently sit in 5th place in the Premier League table. Unbelievable that this team has 17 pts through just 12 games. That’s nearly the total I thought they would get all season. They’re also coming off a 1-1 tie against Tottenham and that’s a game they could have easily won. Not only did they have a shot go off the post but they also had a goal overturned due to offsides. In my opinion the player looked dead even with the Tottenham defender so it was incredibly harsh to overrule the goal. But nonetheless, if the season ended today, Sheffield United would be in a Europa League spot.
We head into the last international break for 2019. After that, we pretty much have multiple games per week all the way through January.
Thanny