Premier League Round-Up: Matchweek 26
Matchweek 26:
Fulham 0-3 Man United
Huddersfield 1-2 Arsenal
Liverpool 3-0 Bournemouth
Crystal Palace 1-1 West Ham
Southampton 1-2 Cardiff
Watford 1-0 Everton
Brighton 1-3 Burnley
Tottenham 3-1 Leicester
Man City 6-0 Chelsea
Wolves 1-1 Newcastle
Manchester City are in first place……
For now at least. Man City rescheduled their match with Everton to this past Wednesday due to their upcoming EFL Final match with Chelsea(LOL) in 2 weeks. Man City beat Everton 2-0 and as a result are now leading the way in the Premier League due to goal differential, as City and Liverpool are both even with 65 pts. Now while this really doesn’t mean anything unless Liverpool loses as they now have a game in hand on City(City have played 27 games to Liverpool’s 26), it just puts an enormous amount of pressure on Liverpool. It just gives them that nice little thought in the back of their head that if they slip up just once, they will no longer be in first. Nevermind the fact that you would have a 3 pt lead over City if you won. A loss sends you to 2nd due to good ol’ goal differential, which City only increased this past Sunday with their 6-0 shellacking of Chelsea. Which brings me to my next point.
Sarri has to be on his last leg
First season or not, it just continues to get worse for Maurizio Sarri and Chelsea. Chelsea have now experienced their two worse losses in the Premier League in the last 23 years in a two week span. Just think about that 23 years and we topped it twice. First it was a shocking 4-0 disaster to 11th place Bournemouth two weeks ago, which at the time was their largest PL defeat in 23 years. Chelsea followed that up with a 5-0 win over Huddersfield which sounds impressive and would be if it was against any other team than Huddersfield. Huddersfield have scored a whopping 14 goals in 26 games and only have 11 pts so far, by the way. So after a few up and down weeks, Chelsea go into the Etihad this past Sunday and show up for all of 3 mins. Let’s be honest here, Chelsea looked threatening for those first 3 mins and I’m just sure that City fans were panicking over their title hopes. Well Marcos Alonso had maybe his worst game to date(right after I defended him last week, of course) and Antonio Rudiger forgot that marking Sergio Aguero might be a good idea. This was an absolute bloodbath and is arguably the ugliest game in recent history for Chelsea. As a Chelsea fan it was disgusting and begs the question, are the Chelsea board backing Sarri for the long haul or is he on his last leg? My guess is he’s one more bad game from being sacked. Also can we talk about where in the hell is Roman Abramovich and how he’s seemed to have abandoned the club because I don’t feel that nearly enough is being made about this.
Here’s some of the many goals from that game for City fans out there
Other Notes:
We got another FA Cup weekend coming up this week, so Premier League games will resume in 2 weeks.
Aaron Ramsey officially signed a pre-contract with Juventus to join them over the summer and good lord is he getting PAID. But let’s talk about how dumb Arsenal are to not sell Ramsey and get some value out of him before he just walks free this summer. Not only did they lose out on some money, now they also have a player in the team that the whole world knows is leaving and can’t be good for team chemistry but is too good to leave on the bench.
Jose Mourinho was 100% right to sit Paul Pogba. Mourinho’s biggest gripe with Pogba was his inconsistency along with him just not giving 100% on the pitch. Pogba clearly had a dislike for Mourinho which we saw turned into him not trying and Pogba getting benched. Surprise in the 10 games since Mourinho being fired, Pogba has 8 goals and 5 assists. Mourinho knew this is the type of player he could be so when he put in bad performance after bad performance, you get benched. Simple as that.
Arsenal barely scrap by Hudderfield 2-1. Despite being one of the few teams to allow Huddersfield to score a goal, no surprise with how bad their defense is, Arsenal now sit ahead of Chelsea in 5th place and what a big turn around for Man United in such a quick time frame to be sitting in 4th place.
We officially now have 2 locks for relegation. Huddersfield obviously as they’ve been a lock since around December but Fulham look to have joined them. Fulham are now 8 pts out of 17th place and it’s a real shame because they actually went out and tried to improve their squad with some big signings after being promoted last year, but their defense is just too much of a disaster.
Big match in two weeks when Premier League returns with red hot Manchester United taking on Liverpool.