Premier League, Week 3: Arsenal draws against Leicester City

This should have been more comfortable for Aston Villa, who completely dominated most of the game and would have been surprised to only emerge from their clash with Hull City with a one-goal win. But the late blip that let the visitors back in won’t matter too much to Paul Lambert: his team put in perhaps their best performance of the young season, and they claimed a vital three points to boot.

Villa started strong and refused to let up, holding possession with ease against the visitors and causing them serious problems whenever they went forward. Fabian Delph nearly opened the scoring inside two minutes, squeezing his way through the defence and then blasting off the near post from a narrow angle, but Hull’s let-off was only temporary. 10 minutes later, the hosts were ahead.

10 minutes later, Liverpool had the points in the bag. Some poor Spurs defending gave the Reds’ left-back Alberto Moreno acres of space down the left flank, with the Spaniard flying down the wing and into the penalty area unchallenged before dispatching a low drive inside Lloris’ far post.

Things should have gone from bad to worse for the hosts with 20 minutes left on the clock, when some magical work from Sterling saw him duck and weave his way through their defence, only to fire his shot weakly at Lloris. The poor finish ensured Spurs limited their losses to just three goals.

Last season, Liverpool beat Spurs 9-0 over the course of their two meetings. But this time around, it’s Tottenham that might hold the edge. Under Mauricio Pochettino, they’re perfect through two, and they’ve yet to concede a goal.

Yes, it’s early days, but Spurs are going to take advantage of their momentum, especially since Liverpool haven’t quite kicked into gear. They took all three points against Southampton to start the season, but slipped up against Manchester City last week, losing 3-1.

Key player - Alexis Sánchez (Arsenal)

Leicester City injuries and suspensions

All eyes will be on Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli in this match, with the Italian set to make his debut for the Reds after completing his £16 million move from AC Milan. At his best, Balo is nigh-on unstoppable; capable of scoring and creating goals from all angles and ranges. He’s one of the few genuinely world class players Liverpool could have signed to replace Luis Suárez. The Tottenham defence will have to work extremely hard to keep him quiet.

Liverpool summer signing Alberto Moreno failed to impress on his debut against Manchester City, and he’ll have to improve defensively to retain his place in the team. If he shakes off a knock in time to play against Spurs, his direct opponent will be tricky winger Erik Lamela, who is beginning to finally look comfortable in the Premier League after a nightmare first season. If he gets the chance to run in behind Moreno, he could cause havoc.

It’s only the third week of the Premier League season, but Chelsea and Everton have produced a clear match of the year candidate. The second half featured six goals, including five in a period of just 11 minutes, with the Blues eventually coming out on top. It finished 6-3, and on the balance of play, the match was closer than the score.

Early on, it appeared that Everton were in for a beating. Chelsea scored just 30 seconds into the game, then doubled their lead before the 3rd minute was gone. Both goals were a bit controversial, and in the end, the linesman probably got the first one right and the second wrong.

Here’s a look at the results from Saturday’s schedule in the Premier League:

Burnley 0-0 Manchester United - Full match report here

Visiting teams don’t win at the Etihad. Especially not visiting teams like Stoke City. But Manchester City’s first loss of the season does indeed come at home, and it does indeed come at the hands of former boss Mark Hughes and his rather industrious side. It’s a shock result for the defending champions, who only lost one Premier League match on home turf last season, and it means a very early shakeup in the title race.

Stoke, as expected, put up fairly stiff resistance in the first half, flying into tackles and looking to pick off their hosts on the counterattack. And the Potters might have considered themselves unlucky not to go into halftime with the lead -- they were denied what looked like a clear-cut penalty after Aleksandar Kolarov felled Mame Biram Diouf.

Someone on City should have stopped him, but let’s marvel for a second at the fact that they didn’t. That he nutmegged one guy, sprinted past another and then made Hart look like an idiot. This might not be named the goal of the week -- people seem to like volleys like the one Wayne Routledge put in earlier -- but it’ll end up the best from one individual. People get lucky on 30-yard bombs all the time. There’s no luck involved here. Diouf just bulldozed the hell out of people.

Let’s sort out the difficulty score:

- 3 points for hitting it first touch

- 2.4 points for the ball being waist high

- 1.9 points for the ball being slightly behind him

- 2.3 points for being 20 yards out

- 1.1 points for being an acrobat

Séamus Coleman is something of a late bloomer, with the 25-year-old only having really established himself as one of the Premier League’s top right-backs last season. He finished in the PFA Team of the Year, and swept up a host of other individual awards. He’ll have to be on top form against Chelsea, as he goes up against one of the most dangerous attackers in the entire division, Eden Hazard.

Everton injuries and suspensions

It’s time for Manchester United to recapture some of the confidence they held going into the start of the Premier League season. With a new coach that had, quite surprisingly, guided Netherlands into third place at the World Cup, many were sure that the Red Devils were set to overcome last season. Some were even calling them title contenders.

Now, going into the third week of the season, United have captured just one point. That came against Sunderland last week. The first week brought a 2-1 defeat to Swansea.

Key player - Sergio Agüero (Manchester City)

Sergio Agüero hit the back of the net almost immediately after coming on in City’s impressive win over Liverpool on Monday. He’s quite possibly the best striker in the Premier League at present, combining tremendous pace and mobility with deadly finishing. If Stoke give the Argentine any sniff of Asmir Begović‘s goal on Saturday, they’ll probably pay a heavy price.