10 Things We Learned in the Premier League

1. We’re going to need more free alcohol
Bolton gave away 1,000 pints of pre-match beer to try and encourage some more vocal home support against Blackburn. Nice idea, but it takes more alcohol than that to make a drab goalless draw look entertaining. Unless one lucky fan got their hands on all one thousand pints of course.

2. Alan Hutton doesn’t want Danny Higginbotham to reproduce
The Spurs fullback belted the ball hard into Higginbotham’s babymaking area, and it looked like he did some damage.

3. You can’t wear a hair grip and expect to get away with it
Spurs’ Gareth Bale was sent off against Stoke, supposedly for bringing down Tom Soares in the box. But a close up reveals Bale was wearing a hair grip (or “bobby pin,” if you’re reading this in the US) to keep his fringe out of his eyes, and I like to think he was red carded for crimes against fashion.

4. Ignore my predictions
On Friday I looked into my (presumably malfunctioning) crystal ball and foresaw a Boro win over Chelsea:

“Chelsea are dominant right now. But Middlesbrough are just the sort of unpredictable team to upset the expensive applecart…”

Then Chelsea went and won 5-0. Think we can safely say I’m not to be trusted.

5. Liverpool can win without El Nino
I’m all in favour of a Liverpool title challenge, just to stop the Man U/Chelsea monotony, but I was a little worried that losing Torres to injury would be the thing to derail Rafa’s title train. It wasn’t, because Dirk Kuyt and Albert Rierra stepped up with the goals in an entertaining 3-2 win over Wigan.

6. C-Ron to West Brom?
For some reason Cristiano Ronaldo refused to celebrate his goal for Man Utd against West Bromwich Albion. The only realistic conclusion is that come January 1st C-Ron will be leaving Old Trafford and joining Tony Mowbray’s Hawthorns revolution, making Robinho’s move to Man City look mundane by comparison.

7. Doubling your manager’s money doesn’t improve results
David Moyes new Everton contract took his weekly wage from from £30,000 to £65,000 recently, making him (I believe) the club’s top earner. It improved Everton’s performance, but not their results as Arsenal won 3-1.

8. Some days it’s just not meant to be
Kieran Richardson struck a nice free kick for Sunderland that hit one post, then the other, then bounced off Fulham keeper Mark Schwarzer and onto the post again. Later on, Richardson struck another free kick into the roof of the net and celebrated, only to see it ruled out because Pascal Chimbonda was pushing Fulham’s defensive wall around. Maybe next week Kieran.

9. The credit crunch hasn’t hit Birmingham yet
During Villa 0-0 Portsmouth, linemsan Phil Sharp was knocked to the floor when someone from the crowd struck him in the head with a 50p coin. Whoever threw the coin is obviously a moron. But to Sharp’s credit, he carried on with flag duties after a bit of treatment.

10. It might not be the most exciting league in the world after all
Nine games played over the weekend, and three of them finished 0-0. Fulham vs Sunderland was pretty entertaining, but Bolton vs Blackburn and Villa vs Portsmouth less so. Does Richard Scudamore really want to inflict Bolton 0-0 Blackburn on the rest of the world?

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Category: English Premier League, World Football