English Premier League Round-Up: Manchester Derby Scoreless, Chelsea Widen Gap Back To Manchester United

A full slate of Wednesday fixtures in the English Premier League was highlighted by a defensive Manchester Derby, a solid win for Chelsea, and Arsenal holding serve against Wolves.

The Manchester Derby was an interesting tactical battle, with both defenses playing to the absolute best of their abilities in a 0-0 draw. Vincent Kompany was spectacular for Manchester City while his counterpart, Nemanja Vidic, was equally great for Manchester United. City played relatively negative football the whole way and were successful in their endeavor, keeping United from challenging Joe Hart with anything terribly difficult to save.

City will be the happier of the two sides, getting the result they went out to get from the start, but Manchester United were the better side on the evening. Carlos Tevez and David Silva were both largely ineffective and what little creative attacking play came out of the match mostly came from United.

Chelsea were able to hold serve, winning 1-0 in the West London derby. Michael Essien scored the winner in the 30th minute, heading home a Florent Malouda cross. Chelsea is now a perfect 6-0-0 at home and four points clear at the top of the English Premier League.

At the DW Stadium, Liverpool picked up a point in disappointing fashion in a 1-1 draw with Wigan. Fernando Torres scored the opener in the seventh minute, but Wigan were the superior side for most of the rest of the match. They found a deserved equalizer from Hugo Rodallega in the 52nd minute and seemed like the more likely team to find a winner. Roy Hodgson has been complaining about his strength in depth and will need to find an answer to his team’s ails to get back to Europe. Currently, Liverpool sits in 9th place.

Arsenal got back on the right track with a win over Wolverhampton Wolves at Molineux thanks to some quality finishing from Marouane Chamakh. His opener came only 39 seconds into the match and his brace came at the death with a great piece of finishing. Wolves played a respectable match, but Arsenal were always in control and Wolves owe their keeper Marcus Hahnemann for keeping them in the match until the very end.

Across the rest of England, Newcastle fell to Blackburn Rovers 2-1 despite a good performance by Andy Carroll, Everton and Bolton drew 1-1 thanks to a 90th minute equalizer from Jermaine Beckford, and West Ham and West Bromwich Albion drew 2-2 in a match where the referee gave a penalty kick to each side.