Last Sunday night saw one of the most spectacular performances in the history of the English Premier League. Manchester City, having started the season in exceptional form, moved up a gear at Old Trafford and left their cross city rivals in the dust – both on the pitch and in the league. City were so dominant that they could justifiably claim that United got off lightly with the 6-1 defeat, and they have now opened up a five point lead at the top of the table.
All signs point toward a dominant season from City – they changed their entire starting line-up for this week’s cup game at Wolves and won 5-2 – so they have no worries about any lack of depth in the squad!
On the same night that City were destroying United, third place Chelsea were slipping up at Queens Park Rangers and John Terry was enhancing his reputation as one of the least popular players in the game. Terry is alleged to have called Anton Ferdinand something very bad, something unprintable that would offend 99 per cent of people. Any lip-reader who has seen the video can confirm what it was (it’s on youtube if you are curious). The key word however, is “black.” Terry is accused of racism, but the irony is that the word that is causing the trouble is actually the only one I can put in this article.
Elsewhere in the EPL, Arsenal resumed ‘normal’ service with a 3-1 win over Stoke, Blackburn also continued normal service with a home defeat against Spurs, and Liverpool proved as unpredictable as ever by dropping two points at home against Norwich. Newcastle continued their amazing unbeaten start to the season with a home win against Wigan. The Magpies are now the only team other than City to be unbeaten in the EPL after 9 games.
This week’s match of the round is the early kick-off on Saturday, when a resurgent Arsenal travel across London to Chelsea for what promises to be an attacking showdown. Manchester United will meanwhile be trying to put the pieces back together at Everton, whilst City will annihilate Wolves for the second time in a week.