Dreadful Starts for London’s Top 3 Premier League Teams
Arsenal, Chelsea, and Tottenham all suffered disappointing results in the first EPL weekend
It’s finally almost over. The first weekend of jam-packed Premier League action featured lackluster performances from top clubs like Chelsea (who suffered a draw at Stamford Bridge against Swansea), Arsenal (who lost in a surprising 2–0 scoreline at the Emirates to West Ham), and Tottenham (who succumbed to an early own goal that spelled their demise).
Even the other contenders for Premier League glory fared abysmally in their opening games. Manchester United landed upon a 1–0 victory only after securing an early own goal from Tottenham. Liverpool narrowly escaped a draw against Stoke City with the help of an 85th-minute thunderous shot from Brazilian starlet Philippe Coutinho. Sheikh Mansour’s Manchester City men are the only remaining top team that did not feature on the slate of opening weekend games. They will play West Brom at 3 PM EST today at The Hawthorns.
Of course, when I set the alarm late Friday night for 7 AM in order to catch the Manchester United-Tottenham match at Old Trafford, it never crossed my sleepy, yet excited mind that many of the top teams would also have sleepy and fitful starts to their Premier League campaigns. As promised, at 7:45 AM EST Saturday morning, Manchester United, led by Captain Wazza himself, kicked off the festivities against waiting-to-be-knighted Harry Kane and the Tottenham Hotspur.
Spurs were surprisingly inventive and assertive in the opening twenty minutes of the match, which came as a shock to most watching since they had arrived back in London only a day prior after two consecutive matches against AC Milan and Real Madrid in the Audi Cup held in Munich, Germany. After a third-place Audi Cup finish in Bavaria on Wednesday, Spurs were expected to show some signs of fatigue in their opening match against United only a few days later. However, it was United, with the exception of defenders Chris Smalling and Matteo Darmian, that came out without much conviction and enthusiasm despite their ample rest beforehand.
So, when Spurs midfielder Nabil Bentaleb gave the ball away to United on an errant pass in the 21st minute, the Old Trafford crowd found it rather shocking that their team even remembered how to launch a counterattack. But, United winger Ashley Young latched onto Bentaleb’s misfired pass and quickly crossed it to a stampeding Wayne Rooney in front of goal and, Wazza, in a moment’s hesitation that was timed perfectly, allowed Spurs defender Kyle Walker, who was rushing back to play any sort of last-resort defense on Rooney, to inadvertently kick the ball straight into his own goal. A flustered Hugo Lloris could do nothing but gape as the ball rolled past his goalposts for United’s first and only goal of the match.
After the United victory, magician midfielder Juan Mata took to his blog to explain his thoughts on the team’s shabby, but fruitful opening weekend.
“Last season we had a bad experience when we lost the first game at home against Swansea, and this time the team was really focused to have a different start. And so we did. As you could see, it was not a brilliant game, but you can understand that, being the first one, there’s still a lack of rhythm. It wasn’t easy for any of the teams, and the pressure from the opponent made it hard to play a fluid game, but we managed to score in the first half and that goal was enough to get the three points.”
— Juan Mata, One Hour Behind — Blog
Mata’s “opponent [who] made it hard to play a fluid game” was Tottenham, a team that did not splurge a ton of cash on untested players in this transfer window as they had in previous seasons. Instead, Mauricio Pochettino opted for signing established, proven starters like defenders Toby Alderweireld, Kieran Trippier, and Kevin Wimmer and the young MK Dons midfielder Dele Alli. Alderweireld excelled against United on Saturday and will only continue to improve as he plays in more matches alongside veteran and vice-captain Jan Vertonghen.
Manchester United and Louis van Gaal, on the other hand, did not embrace Pochettino’s austere spending habits. The Red Devils chose to bring in equal portions of both rising stars and established veterans in Memphis Depay, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Morgan Schneiderlin, Sergio Romero, and Matteo Darmian. All five of the United signings got a chance to play against Spurs and Memphis, Schneiderlin, Darmian, and Romero all impressed in their starting eleven outings while the former Bayern Munich superstar Schweinsteiger played a subdued role after coming into the match in the 60th minute. In their limited playing time, all five signings have shown flashes of their brilliance, but, the remaining thirty-seven matches will show us all what they are truly made of.
Last season’s Premier League champions Chelsea also began their season on Saturday at Stamford Bridge against a tenacious Swansea side. Swansea striker Bafétimbi Gomis caused all sorts of problems throughout the match for Chelsea’s defensive core of Branislav Ivanovic (who started all 38 Premier League games last season), Gary Cahill, John Terry, and Cesar Azpilicueta — a core that remained virtually unchanged throughout all of Chelsea’s last season. Swansea’s new signing André Ayew also wreaked all sorts of havoc over the Stamford Bridge pitch. In fact, the dynamic duo of Gomis and Ayew will provide challenges for almost every Premier League opponent given they both stay fit.
Chelsea’s young stars Oscar and Eden Hazard both served as the human tackling dummies for a wide array of Swansea defenders. Jonjo Shelvey, the bald Swansea midfielder, was consistently seen launching himself into both Chelsea men to offer his bone-crunching challenges. Of course, all of Swansea’s defensive measures were for nought since, by the 3oth-minute, Chelsea had cruised to a 2–1 lead and looked thirsty for more goals.
After half-time, during which Swansea manager Garry Monk presumably implored his Swansea side to keep up their aggressive tempo and clinical tackling, Chelsea looked positively finished as the resurging Swansea side began spraying through-balls all over Stamford Bridge. In the 51st-minute, a Jonjo Shelvey through-ball over the top of the Chelsea defense found the Swansea striker Gomis on the edge of the penalty box with a sprinting Thibaut Courtois charging in to clear the threat on goal.
Instead of clearing the threat, Courtois found the upper knee area of Gomis with his studs and, on cue, Gomis lunged himself into the penalty box and started writhing in pain. The referee on hand, Michjael Oliver, immediately brandished his red card towards Courtois, who obediently began his marching orders to the Chelsea dressing room. Down to ten men, Chelsea manager José Mourinho pulled his most creative spark plug in Oscar for Courtois’ replacement in goal, Asmir Begović.
Gomis, being given a full three minutes to ruminate on the placement of his penalty shot, immediately slotted the penalty to the bottom right of the Chelsea goal, giving Swansea the 2–2 scoreline it would hold for the rest of the match.
Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger began to implore his midfielders “to up their goal rate” in the preparations leading up to their Sunday morning tie with West Ham. Surely, these are telltale signs of the usually stingy Wenger closing his wallet for the duration of the transfer window. If that’s in fact the case, I sure hope those same midfielders can relay to Arsène that they are hopeless in front of goal and need a great striker — like a certain Karim Benzema, perhaps(?) — to spray perfect passes and crosses towards.
“I am not concerned about the goals in our team. We look like we can score goals when we go forward and I think we have to depend less on one guy who can score. We need to develop the collective aspect.” — Arsène Wenger
Of course, that idea of “develop[ing] the collective aspect” completely fell apart from the opening kickoff against West Ham early Sunday morning and, for the next ninety minutes, Arsenal looked in certain need of a “guy who can score” and Wenger resembled an octogenarian that was frightfully not “not concerned about the goals in [his] team.” Welcome to the joys of being an Arsenal fan!
With Benzema still ensconced in the heart of Spain, Wenger chose to put Olivier Giroud up front, who basically served as the subject of the Arsenal fans’ vitriol post-match due to his thoroughly ineffective performance. The German Mesut Özil also suffered through a lackadaisical performance that was subjected to much criticism. But, the poster boy for Arsenal’s 2–0 meltdown to a middling West Ham side was new goalkeeper Petr Čech.
The former Chelsea star Čech was primarily culpable for both West Ham goals. In the first goal, Čech vacated his position in front of the Arsenal goal in the hopes of punching away the incoming free kick. Instead, he woefully misjudged the ferocity and placement of the kick and was found lunging the Emirates air as the ball found its way in the back of the Arsenal net via a Cheikhou Kouyaté header, giving West Ham its first goal of the season.
West Ham’s second goal came after half-time in the 57th-minute when their Argentinian midfielder Mauro Zárate launched a bouncing long-range effort towards a completely slow-to-react Cech, who still couldn’t have saved the slow-rolling ball if his 6'5" body suddenly grew by four feet. That second goal effectively nailed the coffins on the Gunners’ hopes for a victorious Sunday. Even when MVP Alexis Sánchez came into the match in the 67th-minute, the Emirates crowd knew a draw or a win was not meant to be despite the Chilean’s herculean efforts.
Arsène Wenger, sign Karim Benzema. ASAP!
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