Ten Things We Learned From The Premiership 08.26.07

By: Daryl | August 26th, 2007

Alan Wiley is not that sort of girl

It’s still too early to be taking the Premier League table too seriously, especially with Man City and Wigan in the top three and th likes of Liverpool and Arsenal having played 25% less games than other teams. But it is sort of starting to form, with Chelsea making the early running and Derby starting to see teams disappear over the horizon.

Here are Ten Things We Learned From The Premiership this weekend…

1. The Premier League work permit process is silly.
Yakubu couldn’t play for new club Everton this weekend because his initial appeal for a work permit was turned down. But he could have played for his old club Middlesbrough, had he stayed. The stupidest thing is that everyone – and I mean everyone – knows that his appeal will be successful, but we still have to go through the painstaking process anyway.

2. Mido’s got talent.
The way he held off Newcastle’s Steven Taylor before poking home today showed a bit of class, as opposed to his goal against Fulham last weekend which should have been credited to Tony Warner. And if ‘Boro give the big Egyptian the regular starting spot he never quite cemented at Spurs, he could turn out to be a great signing.

3. Gary Speed has still got it.
Not entirely sure what “it” is, but he’s performing in the Premier League at 37 years old, in center midfield no less. Speed scored yesterday to send Bolton on their way to a 3-0 win over Reading.

4. Nani is going to backflip.
Doesn’t matter what Sir Alex says, when you’ve been celebrating goals a certain way your entire life, and you score your first Premiership goal for your new club, you’re going to do the backflip. Which is all fine until you get injured and Manchester United have to ask Sunderland if they can have Kieran Richardson back.

5. Derby County are screwed.
There’s always one team that spends the season as a punch bag before finishing bottom. Despite pre-season optimism, and despite a half-decent first couple of games, it’s looking like Derby will be that team this year.

6. Chelsea are looking good again.
Churning out a 1-0 win over Portsmouth is no mean feat. Just ask Manchester United. Because they walked away with a 1-0 win despite an impressive Portsmouth performance, it’s looking like Chelsea are going to be setting the early season Premiership pace.

7. David James is hard done by.
Whenever the poor fella makes any tiny mistake it’s instantly branded a disaster. Maybe he should have saved Lampard’s shot yesterday, but it’s not as if he was doing some comical Fabien Barthez routine. He was just beaten by a decent strike.

8. Spurs luck is out.
They dominated the game against Manchester United, and had two appeals for a penalty turned down. But they still lost and the clock keeps ticking for Martin Jol.

9. Alan Wiley is not that sort of girl.
As Portsmouth’s Suli Muntari found out when he got a bit touchy feely with the referee and put his arm around his shoulder, only for Wiley (pictured above) to give him the brush off.

10. We were all wrong to laugh at Andriy Voronin.
The long Robbie Savage-esque hair, the fact that no one had ever heard of him, Liverpool signing him when everyone was waiting for a Torres or a Villa. For these reasons Voronin was greeted with some gentle mockery. But his long range goal for Liverpool in the Champions League qualifier against Toulouse, plus his first Premiership goal and an assist yesterday and suddenly we know he’s a proper player.