English Premier League Saturday: Chelsea Extends Lead At Wolves’ Expense

Nolan, left out last week by manager Chris Hughton, responded perfectly by scoring a hard fought goal away from home.

In the 28th minute, Jonas Gutierrez went down with what seemed to be a a serious shin injury. Although the Argentinian wide man was forced to leave the field, he’s since recovered to rejoin play. With fifteen minutes remaining in the first half, the match has slowed, if only slightly, as both sides seem to be biding their time before the half time interval.

1-0 until late on, Wolves did well in maintaining their shape, defending Chelsea’s three-pronged attack and pushing forward on the counter attack themselves in a positive manner. For Wolves, it was a familiar and proud performance, yet also familiar in that they lost and continue to remain in the bottom three.

All five 3 pm GMT kickoffs have concluded with Chelsea, Birmingham, West Brom, and Sunderland coming away with wins while Bolton and Wigan shared the points in their fixture.

It wasn’t the greatest of performances from Chelsea, but after a tough away fixture, at least travel-wise, against Spartak Moscow mid-week in the UEFA Champions League, they’ll take a win any way they can get it. Florent Malouda opened the scoring as part of yet another solid performance, and spandex-clad substitute Solomon Kalou added another on a brilliant team goal to give them a 2-0 win over Wolves.

After 58 minutes of scoreless if open soccer, a brilliantly executed counter attack from Wigan Athletic has the Latics in front at the DW. Hugo Rodallega, sat for last week’s match at Newcastle, beat Jussi Jasskelainen, giving Wigan the lead in their Greater Manchester derby.

Wigan burst out of their end through their right flank, with midfielder Jordi Gómez taking possession and cutting toward the center circle. Just past midfield, Gómez played a ball to the right for Franco di Santo, who was moving back across the defense. All the while, Rodallega was working behind the defense. When di Santo look the pass and touched toward the middle, Rodallega ducked onside in time to see a put through on goal. The whole movement took four to five seconds and ended with the Colombian scoring his third goal of the season.

Nikola Zigic has scored to put Birmingham 2-0 up on Blackpool in the 57th minute, though he never should have had an opportunity. Once again, Birmingham needed a corner kick and some questionable defending to find a goal.

Sebastian Larson swung in another corner that looked like it was going to be harmlessly cleared away. It first found Roger Johnson, who headed it towards the goal, but not on target. Liam Ridgewell kept it alive, heading it back across goal, but into the path of Charlie Adam. Adam looked like he was going to clear easily, but took an unnecessary extra touch, allowing time for Nikola Zigic to pounce, steal the ball, and blast it into the back of the net.

Mark Hughes would have wanted to avoid an open match against West Brom, particularly considering the Cottagers are missing Dickson Etuhu and Danny Murphy. As we approach halftime at The Hawthorns, those players are being sorely missed, particularly after West Bromwich Albion’s second goal.

The the 40th minute, a West Brom break ended with Jerome Thomas finding striker Marc-Antoine Fortuné, the Frenchman low shot beating Mark Schwarzer to give the Baggies a 2-1 lead. It was one of a number of chances the Baggies have created while passing through Fulham, the Cottagers apparently lacking the speed to deal with West Brom’s passing.

An entertaining and even first half between Birmingham and Blackpool at St. Andrews has finally produced a goal. Left back Liam Ridgewell applied the finishing touch, but it was an odd goal.

The opportunity came from a corner kick, taken by Sebastian Larsson. His corner floated towards Liam Ridgewell, who nodded it towards the back post, although it looked like he didn’t know much about where he was directing the ball. Lucky for Birmingham, Nikola Zigic was standing at the back post and hit it back across the face of goal towards Ridgewell. Blackpool’s defenders stood still and Ridgewell had an easy finish, tapping it in with his head from two yards out to give his team a 1-0 lead in the 37th minute.

Champions Chelsea found an early break through at home against struggling Wolves when a few nifty passes in and around the box found the keen and in form Florent Malouda.

In the 23rd minute, Nicolas Anelka’s through ball found a forward lurking Yuri Zhirkov who cut back his ball across the face of goal and found a wide open Malouda who did well enough with the finish to grab an early lead for Chelsea.

Unlike last week against Chelsea, today at the Stadium of Light, Aston Villa have been a mess in the back. They simply can’t cope with the continuous pressure by Sunderland, and are failing to neutralize the Black Cats in the midfield. Nigel Reo-Coker has been getting forward at the expense of his defensive duties, and Stiliyan Petrov has been anonymous—until now.

Steed Malbranque took the ball from the midfield down the right side, where Stephen Warnock was likely flat on his back nursing another injury, allowing Petrov the opportunity to defend. Petrov completely failed at the tackle and Malbranque kept possession, standing up and firing in a cross. The cross was met by, of all people, Richard Dunne, who sent the ball past James Collins and into his own net.

Even before the score, West Brom had immediately responded to Fulham’s opener. Play had shifted toward Schwarzer’s goal, with Brom able to quickly move through and behind Fulham’s line. In that regard, the nature of West Brom’s equalizer was not surprising: a deep-sitting player jumping into open space in the box.

The goal came eighth minutes in, with Fulham attacker Zoltan Gera taking a speculative shot from near 24-yards out. The shot beat a diving Carson but hit the `keeper’s right post. Unfortunately for Brom, the ball came off the woodwork, hit Carson and went into the net.

Though it will be credited as an own goal, Gera deserves the credit. Where Carson had little control over the rebound, the Hungarian deserves to have his name on the scoresheet. While it could be argued Carson should have done more to prevent the ball from going off the post (and being allowed to go in off him), it’s a scenario that would have happened to many a better `keeper. Gera, not Carson, put Fulham in front.

Spurs at times looked like the kind of team who played out a desperate midweek Champions League tie against the European Champions away. While Gareth Bale’s heroics against Inter Milan led to a hat-trick of goals, the eventual 3-4 defeat then put Harry Redknapp’s men in a scramble to ready themselves for the early Saturday lunchtime kickoff in England.

1-1 was ultimately a fair result in a match that saw the majority of the action play out in the first half, the second half resulting in a series of half chances and crosses into the box easily gobbled up by the respective keepers.

Spurs had controlled the match’s first 20 minutes, with Everton constantly pushed deep toward their own area. Leighton Baines’ goal came on Everton’s first chance and had temporarily led to a deceiving scoreline. While a 1-1 still fails to describe the extent to which Spurs have dictated play, it is a more accurate depiction than the score read a mere four minutes before.

Leighton Baines has put Everton up over Spurs in the 17th minute with a fantastic free kick. In the build-up play, Yakubu, who had contributed very little to this point, tried to turn with the ball from 20 yards away from goal when he was clumsily fouled by Younes Kaboul. Baines and Steven Pineear stood over the free kick, with Baines ultimately taking the left footed shot, scoring easily at the near post of Gomes, who didn’t even move.

Spurs controlled the majority of the play in the beginning of the game, only to fall behind due to a silly foul and brilliant free kick.

The Guardian’s Scott Murray just posted the teams:

Here at SB Nation Soccer, we’ll be providing updates throughout the day and, along the way, previewing tomorrow’s matches at the Britannia, Anfield, and Eastlands. It all starts a few minutes from now when Spurs-Everton kicks-off on ESPN2. Until then, check out our preview stream, breaking down all seven of Saturday’s matches.