England: In
the past few years, the Premier League has become a bit stale. Granted,
Liverpool winning the English title after 30 years was a sight to see but the
big six clubs continue to smother the mid-table clubs. Apart from Leicester and
Nuno led Wolves, the big six enjoyed pummelling the smaller and moderately
wealthy clubs. However, the fortunes of the big six changed drastically this
past weekend. The footballing world has been turned upside down as we knew it.
Old Trafford, the theatre of dreams, the fortress of the Manchester United
crumbled into debris when Tottenham unravelled the Manchurians beating them
1-6. The notion of defeating United by more than five goals at Old Trafford
would have been laughable if Sir Alex Ferguson was still present in the United’s
dug out. Not even the European giants such as Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus
or Real Madrid would have dared to dream it. On Sunday, the North Londoners,
Tottenham crushed United in a surreal and an unforgiving night. The best is yet
to come for the football fans.
In a late evening
fixture, the defending champions, Klopp’s Reds played Aston Villa. The final
score? 7-2 Liverpool boasts one of the finest if not the finest teams in Europe.
The impenetrable defense led by Virgil van Dijk and Robertson, the powerful
attack of Salah, Firmino and Mane made the opponents quiver in their shoes.
Mane was notably absent in the team that played Aston Villa after the outstanding
winger tested positive for the coronavirus. Regardless, the absence of Mane gave
no excuses for Liverpool to lose 7-2 to a club that narrowly avoided relegation
the last day of the league in the last season. In other news, Arsenal held onto
their one goal lead when they played against Sheffield United and Mikel Arteta
and the company knew that if another ten minutes were played, the Blades would
have equalled the score.
Manchester
City did not have any different fortunes when they played the freshly promoted
Leeds United on Saturday. Raheem Sterling scored in his usual fashion but the
Leeds belted out an equaliser and the game ended in 1-1. Pep Guardiola was devoid
of reason as to why the runners-up of the last season couldn’t have won
comfortably against a newly promoted. In a refreshing turn of events, Chelsea
managed to win against Crystal Palace with little to nothing resistance from
Palace. The optimism at the London Club returned to a degree after a punishing
couple of weeks. Lampard was once again smiling and punching the air, content
with how the Blues played. The Premier League will go on a brief break and will
return the Saturday after next and the bigger clubs might return to their
winning ways but it will never be the same again. a
