Premier League, Week 10: Sunderland surprise at Palace

There’s one fixture that sticks out as the clear highlight of this round of the Premier League, though the teams on both sides of the Manchester Derby probably thought they’d be doing a bit better by this point in the season.

Saturday, 8:45 a.m. ET. TV: NBCSN (U.S.), Sportsnet Regional (Canada), BT Sport 1 (U.K.)

Sunderland had a couple more chances before the break, but couldn’t extend their lead. Speroni made a pair of good saves, first on Fletcher in the 40th minute, then on an uncharacteristically good volley by Vergini in stoppage time.

But Sunderland were well on top from there, and were back ahead in the 79th minute through Jordi Gomez. Will Buckley beat his man down the right flank and picked a perfect pass into the center for Gomez, who wasn’t closed down and placed an impressive low shot to the back post, restoring his team’s lead.

Sunderland were 1-0 up when they pulled off a bit of brilliance, with an incredible save, backheel and finish for a sublime goal.

That is art. That is live drama. That is perfect.

However, that’s still a better tally than Gus Poyet’s Sunderland, whose eight-point total is only good enough for a spot in the bottom three. It’s a concerning start from a team that only just managed to escape the drop last season, and they will need to find an improvement over the coming weeks. This game could well be vital in kickstarting the seasons of both of these sides.

Crystal Palace injuries and suspensions

Tottenham Hotspur are back in the win column, though not under the most impressive of circumstances. Despite a very poor start and an early goal for Aston Villa, Spurs were able to pull off a 2-1 comeback win, aided by a fairly soft red card.

Aston Villa: Guzan, Cissokho (Bent 90’), Vlaar, Baker, Lowton, Westwood, Sanchez, Cleverley, Nzogbia (Agbonlahor 74’), Benteke (red 65’), Weimann (Richardson 86’)

The early signs were positive. Sort of. Manchester United were getting forward, although the offside rule kept tripping them up. Marouane Fellaini was looking like a cross between a ballet dancer and a decent footballer. City were flicking up backheels and forcing David De Gea to use his famed reflexes. The action was flying from one end of the pitch to the other.

And then things started to get a bit farcical. Joe Hart more or less headbutted Michael Oliver, but no punishment was given. Chris Smalling, however, was punished, for failing to get out of the way for Hart’s free-kick. That decision, already dumb, looked positively idiotic minutes later, when Smalling was sent off with a second yellow. He’d charged down James Milner on the edge of the area, despite Milner looking to have no way of threatening.

It’s possible that Fellaini didn’t intent to spit and the spit accidentally came out as he was bending over to say something to Aguero, or it could have been something else. But that does look like spit and Fellaini will have to answer questions over it.

It’s City that have claimed the higher place in the league, but it’s United that seem to have the momentum going into this clash of the Manchesters. Most of that is based off their triumphant point-snatch against Chelsea last week, with Robin van Persie bagging the equalizer in stoppage time. But with City having lost to West Ham last week, only for Newcastle to knock them out of the League Cup, well...well that title defense is looking mighty wobbly.

Van Persie gets the nod for the visitors, of course, alongside Wayne Rooney, who may be looking a bit out of sorts after his recent suspension (and injury). For City, Stevan Jovetic is favored over Edin Dzeko, joining Sergio Aguero up top.

A City win will be seen as nothing more than the hosts getting back on track, but victory could mean quite a bit more for United. Despite their shaky start, top four is still the expectation about Louis van Gaal, and he’ll feel a lot better about his teams’ prospects of achieving that goal if they can snag a huge win over his side’s biggest rivals.

Key player - Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

Two minutes later, Chambers did the scoring when he knocked home a rebound, but just to remind everyone who the star was on this night, Alexis added one more goal in the 90th minute. He was absolutely superb and deserved the two goals, as well as the three points.

Arsenal: Szczesny, Gibbs, Mertesacker, Monreal, Chambers, Arteta (Ramsey 63’), Oxlade-Chamberlain (Walcott 80’), Alexis, Cazorla, Flamini, Welbeck (Podolski 80’).

Unsurprisingly, the Blues dominated the game from the off, with QPR content to sit compact and soak up everything the hosts threw in their direction. It was a strategy that worked for the first half hour of the match, with Chelsea largely restricted to half-chances and optimistic long-range efforts.

José Mourinho responded to QPR’s equalizer by partnering Diego Costa with Didier Drogba, but they needed to be wary of neglecting their defensive duties. With just over 20 minutes left QPR midfielder Sandro lashed a volley towards the Chelsea goal, though it flashed agonizingly wide of Courtois’ far post.

When you’re running down the right and the ball gets played to you for a clear chance, you typically do one of two things: use your left foot to curl it far post or blast it with your right foot.

You do not curl it with your right foot. If you do that, you need to use the outside of your boot and that’s going to come off horribly. It probably won’t curl and, even if it does, it definitely won’t go where you aim it. It’s just too tough.

Keeper out or not, this is a pretty great goal. It takes some technique to step right into a ball and drill it to the perfect place first time like Wanyama did.

(h/t @Goalopedia)

It’s well known games that promise lots of goals very rarely deliver, yet us impressionable fans continue to get excited anyway. At least Newcastle vs. Loverpool gave us one goal, although it took quite some time to get there.

The first half of Liverpool’s visit to Newcastle was one of the most boring in recent memory. Liverpool, usually so willing to get forward, had but one shot during the first 45 minutes. Not one shot on target, but one shot. Period. Newcastle, for their part, managed a few decent attempts, but somehow the Reds’ backline was up to the challenge.

Newcastle may be sitting 14th in the Premier League, but it’s hard not to think that they have the edge going into their game against Liverpool. The hosts are coming off a midweek 2-0 victory over Manchester City, which came on the heels of a come-from-behind 2-1 win at Tottenham. That makes four games unbeaten in all competitions, a good look for a side that a month ago seemed like it would spend the season fighting the drop.

The Reds, meanwhile, certainly won’t be fighting relegation, but they don’t look to be challenging for the title either. Last week brought a dull goalless draw with Hull City, although Liverpool did manage to crank things up midweek by beating Swansea in the League Cup. And Mario Balotelli finally scored, so maybe that saga is drawing to a close.