English Premier League Round Up: Seasiders Shut Down, Kalou Impresses In Spandex

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.

Birmingham shut down Blackpool as they coasted to a 2-0 win. Neither of their goals were brilliant - both could have been prevented by Blackpool - but the Seasiders never really looked like scoring. Charlie Adam’s howler that gifted Nikola Zigic a goal was probably the game’s highlight.

West Brom looked very poor early against Fulham, going down 1-0, but they produced a superb fightback thanks to the intelligent play and gifted left foot of Chris Brunt. Fulham probably should have been 2-0 or 3-0 up early and will be disappointed that they didn’t take their opportunities. Fulham had injuries in midfield for this match, and it showed, especially in the second half. All in all, a good 2-1 win for West Brom.

Sunderland grinded out a 1-0 win at the Stadium of Light over Aston Villa in an odd match full of mistakes. Richard Dunne’s own goal, the eighth of his English Premier League career, proved to be the winner. Emile Heskey squandered multiple chances for Aston Villa. They probably deserved a point, but their mistakes proved too costly in the end.

Wigan and Bolton played to a 1-1 draw in a very even match where the points deserved to be split. Johan Elmander and Hugo Rodallega provided the goals.