Manchester United appeared to be somewhat vulnerable coming into the weekend, facing a tough fixture in Manchester City while their closest competitors in Arsenal looked forward to much easier competition in Wolves. The Red Devils were equal to the task, emerging from the fixture with all three points thanks to Wayne Rooney's now legendary goal. In spite of the ending, this wasn't a match that generated a great deal of talking points; for the majority of the time neither side looked particularly interested in scoring if any risk to their own goal was implicit.
English Premier League Weekend Review: Wayne Rooney’s Manchester Derby Wonder Goal Gives United Breathing Room At The Top
Nani opened the scoring on the end of a classic bit of Manchester United play, splitting the City defense and slotting home past Joe Hart after just two passes, the first coming from Edwin ven der Sar. City leveled after a largely uneventful twenty minutes, Edin Dzeko quite unwittingly picking out David Silva to put things back on even terms. It truly felt like things would end that way until Wayne Rooney, too that point having a largely anonymous game, produced a stunning moment of brilliance. Nani sent in a fairly poor cross that Rooney tracked brilliantly and twisted to meet with an overhead kick, Joe Hart having no idea that it was coming his way an no chance to stop it.
There seemed little doubt of the outcome at that point, and indeed that was the way things would end. Manchester United have somehow looked completely unconvincing on many occasions so far this season, yet they find themselves the odds-on favorites to win the league with twelve games yet to play. It’s likely too early to make such a definitive statement, but at this point the league seems to be a two horse race, as City were the last team outside of the top two in any real position to make a run and their defeat in this fixture has made such a push seem unlikely.
The other horse in that race kept pace with United as Arsenal sent Wolverhampton to the bottom of the table with an easy 2-0 victory. It was fairly vintage Arsenal, carving up Wolves back line fairly effortlessly and leaving the visitors feeling fortunate to leave the Emirates only having surrendered twice. Robin van Persie put Arsenal ahead early with a neat volleyed finish off of the cross from Cesc Fàbregas and grabbed a brace just before the hour mark to wrap up a neat bit of counter-attacking play created once again by Fàbregas with a crucial role also being played by Theo Walcott. It was a comfortable win for the Gunners, and though United must be considered the favorites to take the crown the schedule looks to set up quite nicely for Arsenal. The ease of their victory (as expeected as it was) against the only team to beat United in the league so far this season is likely to give them at least a bit of confidence ahead of their Champions League clash with Barcelona.
In the places outside of the race for the league, Tottenham Hotspur managed to cling to the crucial 4th position with a gutsy 2-1 victory over Sunderland at the Stadium of Light. Sunderland struck early, Asamoah Gyan once again helping his case for being the bargain signing of the season with his 9th goal of the season. The goal came under rather bizarre circumstances as Spurs were at the moment down a man due to William Gallas inexplicably electing to leave the pitch in order to change his boots. Spurs brought themselves back to level terms just before the half, the goal coming after a bit of human pinball after a corner with Michael Dawson the man that found himself on the end of the ball that found the back of the net. Less than twenty minutes into the second half Spurs went ahead for good, Niko Kranjcar putting the explanation mark on a fantastic performance and giving Spurs the goal that would prove the difference. An odd run of yellow cards marked the end of the game, with Spurs keeper Gomes booked for taunting the crowd, Roman Pavlyuchenko for kicking the ball away after being caught offside and Jermaine Jenas inexplicably shown yellow for a fairly minor aerial infraction after bumping Sulley Muntari in an effort to head away a cross from Boudewijn Zenden. In the end the bookings were nothing more than a footnote, and for the moment Spurs remain three points clear of Chelsea and eight points clear of Liverpoolfor the final Champions League spot.
Speaking of the Reds, there's no way to characterize their 1-1 draw with Wigan at Anfield as anything but a massive disappointment. Liverpool were largely the superior side but the killer instinct was absent and they looked very much a team trying to come to grips with some very significant changes. There were quite a few flashes of brilliance and Luis Suarez looks very much the type of player capable of helping to carry Liverpool back to glory, but that will be little consolation at the moment as recently resurgent hopes for Champions League football look to be slipping away. Not only are the Reds eight points out of 4th, they need to see two opponents falter before finding their way back towards the top as Chelsea could very well move level with Tottenham after their clash with Fulham this evening.
On the edge of the race for the European places, Bolton solidified their hold on 8th place with an absolute thrashing of Everton who now find themselves in the very uncomfortable position pf being just three points clear of the drop. Luckily for the Toffees there are three other teams with the exact same distance between themselves and 18th and another just below. Stoke meanwhile slipped a bit in their push for European competition, falling to Birmingham City in what might have been the most unappealing sounding matchup of the season coming into the weekend.
Amazingly Birmingham's 1-0 victory over Stoke was in fact not the most unpleasant game of the weekend, as Blackburn and Newcastle "fought" their way to a 0-0 draw. Even more amazingly the aforementioned games was actually less unappealing than Blackpool's 1-1 draw with Aston Villa, made all the more unfortunate seeing as how that particular game showed a fair amount of promise prior to kickoff. The most entertaining game of the weekend actually turned out to be the 3-3 draw between West Brom and West Ham, once again hammering home the point that teams don't have to be all that good in order to be entertaining.
And so, with twelve games to play for most teams, there’s a bit of distance starting to form towards the top of the table and a whole lot of confusion down below. 1-8 seem relatively safe while the rest are all in a position that must feel less than secure. Despite the fact that there seems to be a clear gulf in quality between the bottom four teams and the rest of those crammed into the middle, that gulf hasn’t manifested itself in terms of points yet and a few very decent teams are a key injury or a run of poor luck away from the unthinkable. We’ve all been expecting things to shake out for months now, but if they haven’t at this point, one wonders if they ever will.
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