Alan Pardew might have sent his Newcastle replacement to the unemployment line

There were just six games in the Premier League on Saturday, but they managed to produce a whopping 25 goals between them. A couple of the weekend’s best goal-fests were very even matches ... and then there was Newcastle-Palace. Yikes. Alan Pardew’s revenge is now very complete.

Saturday’s scores

Bournemouth have fought their way to an impressive point for the second straight week, and this one was probably the most dramatic draw we’re going to see this season. Everton were sure they’d won it, and they were wrong.

Let’s be realistic -- Bournemouth are screwed. If they were healthy, they would have had an excellent shot at staying up, but a team with their budget can’t endure the injury crisis they’re currently going through. But shhhhhh, don’t tell that to your favorite Cherries supporter. Let them have this.

A 5-1 loss to Crystal Palace and their former manager marks the bottom for Newcastle, who are probably going to fire Steve McClaren soon.

Coming Home Newcastle has responded with a long breakdown of exactly how and why Newcastle have gone from European contenders to relegation fights so quickly.

In terms of managers, we’ve too often gone for who is available rather than who is right. It’s akin to those cars you see on the road where the colour of one door panel doesn’t match the rest of the car ... [McClaren’s] own lack of flexibility is concerning and it would be ignorant to absolve him on the grounds that the players aren’t the perfect fit for him. No squad is.

Someone needs to hit the reset button on Newcastle and rebuild from scratch, but owner Mike Ashley probably isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so don’t expect that to get done.

Oh.

After last week’s loss to Liverpool and City’s midweek loss to Juventus, their season appeared to be circling a downward spiral, considering diving in. Southampton’s strong start in the second half on Saturday had the Citizens on the brink of outright crisis mode. But City captured the win, and manager Manuel Pellegrini provided everyone with some friendly reminders.

“I was very pleased with the team’s reaction. We were a little nervous until the third goal, but I’m happy with the performance and the result ... We played on Wednesday a very difficult game and we didn’t have 72 hours to recover from that game - Southampton had the whole week. The third goal by Alex [Kolarov] fortunately killed the game for us ... It’s not a crisis - it’s a very good season.”

Oh yeah, that’s right. City are very much alive in every competition, and they’ve been doing OK without David Silva in the lineup. They should be fine.

21-year-old Duncan Watmore is only a couple of years removed from playing for Altrincham, but he’s quickly becoming a key player for the Black Cats. He was the Under-21 player of the season last year, despite spending a good chunk of the campaign on loan to Hibernian, and he’s been a revelation in the Sunderland team so far this season. He scored their second goal against Stoke, pulling them out of the drop zone.

Sit down, Ruud van Nistelrooy. Jamie Vardy is the only player to score in 11 consecutive Premier League games. This goal got Leicester a point against Manchester United, keeping them ahead of the Red Devils in the table and sending them joint-top with City.