EPL Review – Reactions to Week 5

By on September 22, 2014

The normal outnumbered by the upside-down this weekend
Seeing Frank Lampard playing against Chelsea wasn’t the only thing that didn’t look quite right this weekend. In fact, Chelsea drawing Manchester City 1-1 was perhaps the most normal game of the bunch. Elsewhere, Everton lost 3-2 to Crystal Palace, Liverpool allowed three in their 3-1 defeat to West Ham United, Manchester United allowed FIVE goals to Leicester City, and Tottenham Hotspur found themselves on the wrong end of the result against West Bromwich Albion. The only thing that keeps anybody from suggesting that it was all a dream and we’ll wake up on Saturday morning was the reassuring fact that Arsenal passed a lot against Aston Villa.

Louis Van Gaal outfoxed by The Foxes
Leicester City manager Nigel Pearson all but explained what happened as Leicester City stunned Manchester United 5-3 on Sunday. “We had done our research this week and their attacking options are frightening but the diamond formation they play leaves a lot of space behind the full backs and we looked to exploit that.” He coined the match in that one sentence – just sixteen minutes in United were up by two goals, and early in the second half found themselves up 3-1. All three of The Red Devil’s goals were brilliant – Falcao found Robin Van Persie with a pinpoint cross in the first one, while Angel Di Maria’s scooped lob of Kasper Schmeichel was an even better second.

However, Leicester struck back immediately after United’s second, like, Jamie Vardy fast. Vardy was the winger whom Pearson used to get in behind United’s full-backs, and boy did it work. The former Conference player, who just two years ago was the star of Fleetwood Town (yes, I had to look them up too), set up two goals, scored one, and got in behind Rafael and Tyler Blackett to win both penalties which Leonardo Ulloa converted. Marcos Rojo was perhaps the only defender not terrorized by Vardy.

Will Frank Lampard ever be truly fit in at Manchester City?
Watching Frank Lampard come on, and then proceed to score a crucial equalizer against Chelsea, the club at which he became a legend, in a Manchester City shirt was like watching a soap opera. Chelsea fans seemed desperately trying to stop loving him, while City fans were all in Chelsea’s faces about the whole thing. Meanwhile, Lampard himself seemed quite emotionally torn. Multiply the awkwardness of when he first trained with City times the number of appearances he has made for Chelsea. When he scored, the moment was just so awkward for him you can all but tell he will never truly fit in at The Etihad, much less when Chelsea are the visitors. Lamps is only at City for a six months before he will join New York City FC, owned by City’s owners, when the new MLS franchise begin playing in the 2015 MLS season, but he will have a chance of playing Chelsea one more time just a few days before he is due to leave for The States. That meeting in January has just been made even more awkward because of his goal this weekend.

Manchester United and Liverpool the cause of a wonky Premier League table
Both Manchester United and Liverpool went a long way to help Week Five’s results look upside-down (see note one), by losing to Leicester and West Ham, respectively, but with losses to Aston Villa and Swansea City as well the two also are a major culprit in why the Premier League table is still so wonky. Usually, the table has sorted itself out by this point, with the “top seven” having almost undisputedly dominated the top five by now almost as much as it has at the end of the season in the past five years. Yet currently, Swansea City, Aston Villa, and Southampton are all in the top five, while Manchester City are in sixth, Tottenham ninth, and Everton fourteenth. United and Liverpool, twelfth and eleventh in the table, are perhaps the biggest cause of this disruption. Without Villa’s upset win over Liverpool and Swansea’s 2-1 win over United, neither Villa or Swansea would be at best mid-table and at worst hovering near relegation.hy

Meanwhile, if Leicester hadn’t beat United this weekend they would be in an even worse fix, and if Liverpool and United had simply not lost any against the smaller clubs then the table would have gone a long way in fixing itself.

– World Cup hangover may also be a cause
Liverpool and United aren’t the only top club to have dropped points in the early stages of the season, though. Not a single team’s record is still unblemished, and only Chelsea and Arsenal remain unbeaten. Even then Arsenal have only won two of their five matches, while reigning champions Manchester City have dropped seven points, including three in their loss to Stoke City, Tottenham find themselves on just seven points of a possible fifteen, and Everton have won just a third of the maximum possible. Players like Sergio Aguero have missed matches after recovering from various knocks at the World Cup, and only now does everybody seem to have recovered.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.