Premier League Football

Last weeks fixtures have resulted in some bad news for 2 of England’s top teams. Paul Scholes will be missing from the Manchester United line up for at least 3 months after damaging knee ligaments during the warm up of Uniteds last Champions league game. Never mind heh, only got to play an in form Arsenal on Saturday!

Meanwhile Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso has broken another metatarsal meaning that he'll be out of action for several weeks. Add to that another injury to Torres and things are not looking to hot for Liverpool at the moment, shame! On the plus side it might mean that the Benetiz squad rotation policy gets a rest for a while so who knows it might actually be a blessing for the scousers.

What I do find strange though is just how often players manage to break bones in their feet these days. I'm not that old but even 10 years ago nobody knew what a metatarsal was. It seems that barely a week goes by that somebody doesn't break one. Are the new boots really that light or is it maybe something to do with blades? I reckon that a thin blade is more likely to snap a bone than a round stud. It seems all you have to do is stand on an opponents foot to break it these days, combine that with the horrible cuts that blades can cause and maybe it's time to start thinking about going back?

What a great weekend, lots of top quality action and plenty of goals, the whole reason why I love the Premier League!

Of all the games I watched my favourite had to be the Liverpool, Arsenal game. You can tell it's good when you look at the clock and see that half an hour has passed in no time. Got to say that I thought Arsenal were a little bit unlucky overall, they out played Liverpool for just about the whole game (although Liverpool’s long ball game was effective when the lanky streak of piss Crouch came on the pitch). Arsenal had more than enough chances to win the game and with Fabregas missing a couple of easy opportunities. Anyway a draw was a pretty good result for me so I'll have to be happy with that, looks like Torres and Alonso are going to be out for a while as well.

Man Utd continued in unstoppable form firing 4 past Middlesbrough at home, although Match Of The Day didn't quite do justice to how dominant United were in the game. Oh yeah, think Chelsea might have scored a few as well against some second rate team from the north but we don't like to talk about either of them. Jose who they say? Wait until the end of the season when you have an empty trophy cabinet and then ask again!

It was a great night for the two teams at the top of the Premier league last night as both managed convincing wins in the European Champions League.

First of all an Arsenal team on top form this season demolished Salvia Prague in a home game played at the Emirates Stadium. Arsenal scored after only 5 minutes through a driven shot by Cesc Fabregas and from there on never looked back. With the chances missed it could have quite realistically been an even greater score line than the 7-0 drubbing it was. Arsenal are playing great football this year, even from a neutral point of view and are well worth their lead in both the Premier League and their Champions League Group. Perhaps the only problem in the foreseeable future for them is with Jens Lehmann, the 37 year old ex number one keeper doesn't look too far away from spitting his dummy which could leave Arsenal with a few goalkeeping problems, then again if they carry on free scoring they'll not be worrying too much.

In the other game a Man Utd team hit with last minute injuries to Paul Scholes and Patrice Evra managed a great 4-2 away victory to Dynamo Kiev. This 3rd straight win put them on 9 points in the group and will surely see them through to the knock out stages. Goals from Ferdinand, Rooney and a couple for Ronaldo sealed the win despite some shoddy defending (perhaps understandable due to the last minute shake up at the back) which saw Kiev score a couple of slack goals. As far as Champions League games go this was a cracker, with plenty of pace and goal scoring opportunities, it was almost like watching the Premier League.

So a great night last night, lets hope that Chelsea and Liverpool can pull their fingers out and do the Premier League proud tonight.

I guess my one residing memory from the weekends fixtures was the Merseyside derby game and the blatant injustice that was going on. To be honest some of the reffing this year in the Premier League has been shocking but I thing that game on Saturday will go down as the most blatant case of cheating that's been seen yet. If it's not bad enough for a referee to send a player off on the word of one of the opposing players (even if it is Stevie "eeerrrrrr" Gerrard who can do no wrong, obviously) then to not give not only 1 but 2 clear penalties just seems to defy belief. No wonder David Moyes was doing his nut, and that's not even thinking about the Ninja assault launched at Phil Neville by Dirk Kuyt a clear red card if ever there was one. There is no way he should have been on the pitch to score Liverpool’s second penalty.

Rafa Benitez of course came out with exactly the sort of shit we expect from him at the end of the game mentioning things that happened in the corresponding fixture last year completely ignoring the fact that in this game his team were largely out performed and deserved nothing from the game only to be gifted the points by a referee that most generously be described as poor. I think the thing that scares me the most is that referees are now paid as professionals, with that tag comes not only a level of expectancy but also responsibility. If my performance was so poor in my chosen profession then without a shadow of a doubt I'd be shown the door and probably with a boot up my ass to go with it!

The Premier League as the name suggests is for most people the premier football league in the world. Based in England (the home of football) it contains many of the greatest names in world club football. Lets face it if you haven't heard of Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur then you either have no interest in football or are dead. Of course Chelsea play in the Premier League as well but when you're talking about great clubs you have to think about the club having a history as well as a present! :)

Ignoring my obvious bias for the league I watch and support the figures also speak for themselves. The Premier League is the most watched football league in the world with a huge following in the Middle East and Asia. In fact English Football as a whole has a huge following, the FA Cup is seen as the most prestigious domestic cup competition and even the League Cup and lower leagues (Coca Cola Championship) can attract crowds that most of the top leagues in Europe would be very proud off.

This blog is going to be my attempt to document the weekly goings on within the English premier League from a fans perspective. Whilst I love football and in particular the English fast paced style of game I'm also a huge fan of one team in particular. I'll do my best not to be too biased but feel free to pull me apart in the comments if you think I've over-stepped the line. I'll not be revealing which premier league team I support though, I'll leave it up to you to guess!