Manchester United are the solo leaders after they defeated Chelsea 3-1 at home, and Manchester City blew a 2-goal lead against Fulham on the road to end with their perfect record.
Matchday 5 saved the best from last in the English Premier League with the showdown between Manchester United and Chelsea. It was a sunny afternoon at Old Trafford where the Red Devils wanted to keep up with their perfect season -as they had won the four previous games disputed- against the Blues, who were looking to climb to the top of the standings by defeating the leaders of the competition that were just 2points away.
An early header from Smalling gave the home team the lead after only 8 minutes played. Far from resenting the goal the Blues began to dominate the game and create scoring options, which were missed Torres and Ramires. The Red Devils simply resisted as they waited for their chance to increase the 1 goal lead, and that chance came at the 37th minute through Nani, who unleashed a wonderful 25-yard shot into the top corner of Cech’s goal.
When it all seemed that the game was going to halftime 2-0 the top scorer of the tournament, Rooney, scored his 9th goal of the season, and left the Blues in a precarious situation for the second half.
Chelsea’s coach Villa-Boas saw that keeping the possession wasn’t giving his team results, and that they needed more depth, reason why he sacrificed midfielder Lampard to send striker Anelka in. The substitution gave results as Anelka assisted Torres in the first minute of the second half, to put things 3-1.
The game was going to have more action on both goals, but without luck, as Rooney missed a penalty kick and Torres an incredible chance with no goalie. It was 3-1 for the Red Devils that are the leaders of the Premier League with 15 points, 5 more than No. 3 Chelsea.
If Manchester United are the solo leaders is not only because of their perfect record, but also due to Manchester City’s draw against Fulham. Prior to round 5 the Citizens and the Red Devils where fighting head-to-head for the first place, but they couldn’t keep up the defending champion’s pace, as they gave away a two goal lead on Sunday morning at Craven Cottage.
Two goals from Aguero after 46 minutes were giving Manchester City a 2-0 win over Fulham, but the Cottagers didn’t give up and fought for the equalizer, which they got to through Zamora’s and Murphy’s goals. This result leaves the Citizens in second place with 13 points, and Fulham sank in No. 18 with 3 points.
Speaking about teams that are sank in the bottom of the standings, as unusual as it can be to find Arsenal in that situation, the on the road 4-3 defeat suffered against Blackburn Rovers condemns them to the 17th place.
Saturday’s game was an odd one for the Gunners, since half of the goals received against Blackburn were scored by their own men. In the first half Gervinho opened the score for Arsenal, Yakubu scored that equalizer for Blackburn, and Arteta gave the visitors the lead again before going to the break.
In the second half the misfortunate events took from the Arsenal took place: at minute 50 Song scored and own goal, nine minutes later Yakubu netted his second goal, and ten minutes after Koscielny unfortunately scored the second own goal of the night, and fourth for the Blue and Whites. With 5 minutes to go Chamakh put things 4-3, but it was already too late to stop the fall.
