A belated first Premier League post of the season!

Apologies to all my "fans" out there/anyone who reads my blog regularly, I have kind of dropped the ball after my post from the opening weekend of the Football League season. I have been very busy this week, quite ill, and then my internet connection broke for a bit. I can only apologise for not doing it sooner, but as you can see, I have also had some terrible luck.

So, last weekend, the Premier League and Blue Square Premier joined the rest of British football in the 2010-2011 football season. I saw two games from the Premier League on opening weekend, and so I will disucss those and also highlight an absolutely stunning result that the best league in the world threw up last Saturday. Let's get on with all these action-packed updates and reports then.

The first game I saw of the Premier League 2010-11 was actually the Sunday afternoon as two of the perceived big guns, Arsenal and Liverpool, met at Anfield, a place the reds were no doubt hoping they could make into a fortress this season as they looked to snatch 4th place again amid the massed contenders. The first half passed with little incident, that was until Joe Cole saw red in his first Premier League outing for his new club after a horrendous tackle on new Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny. I think personally that Koscielny made a bit of a meal of it given that he was fit enough to come back out after the half-time interval, but nonetheless, it had to be a red as players simply cannot throw themselves into tackles like that anymore, and a model professional like Joe Cole really should've known that and so I feel he really can't have any complaints about it. As you can imagine, Liverpool came out after the half-time break determined to right the perceived injustice of Cole's departure, and soon they had managed to do that as David Ngog turned in the area and struck a beautiful shot into the top corner past a sprawling Manuel Almunia, though most critics will say he should've done better with it. What a change in a player who has so often disappointed since his arrival on Merseyside, and yet this season has managed 3 goals in 4 competitive games. The drama of this game was to come in the last few minutes however as Arsenal pummeled the 10-men of Liverpool looking for an equaliser to earn a less than deserved point. In the 89th minute, an Arsenal cross fell to Marouane Chamakh, the new Arsenal striker diverting the ball onto the post and as Pepe Reina tried to collect, he spilled the ball into his own net. One must feel that that was harsh on a man who had made so many good saves to deny Arsenal earlier in the game, but it was better for the game as a whole as both teams went into the 5 minutes of injury time looking for the vital winner. Neither team managed this, but they were briefly put on a level playing field in terms of players as Laurent Koscielny was booked for a second time in the 94th minute earning him a red card in his first competitive game for his new club. Arsenal will now have to struggle on as their defensive shortage has been sprawled all over the back pages this season and what with Koscielny now being ineligible for the next 3 games, these frailties could come to the fore.

The second game I saw from the opening Premier League fixtures was Monday's game at Old Trafford as last season's Premier League runner-ups Manchester United took on last season's Championship winners Newcastle United in what was a hotly anticipated battle between the United's. This time two seasons ago, Newcastle managed to take a point against their Manchester rivals and got relegated, so they were looking for a little more on Monday night after their immediate return to the Premier League otherwise the signs could be ominous for the Geordie side. Both sides shared the early exchanges and indeed Newcastle even had a brilliant chance to score early on and out Man Utd under some serious pressure. They didn't take the early chances though and they were punished in the 33rd minute as Dimitar Berbatov fired past Steve Harper and once again showed doubtful United fans why Sir Alex rates him so highly. Once again as with the Community Shield, his team-mates rushed to him in what was clearly a very public show of affection to United's board and owners and that makes me and other pundits think that perhaps Berbatov will actually be staying at Old Trafford for the forseeable future. Just 8 minutes later, Wayne Rooney diverted a cross into the path of Darren Fletcher who added a second for Manchester United and effectively ended Newcastle's resistance. From there on in it was pretty simple for the Community Shield winners and in the 85th minute they struck their final blow as man-of-the-match Paul Scholes floated a delightful ball over to Ryan Giggs who struck the ball left-footed past Steve Harper to cap a fine performance from Manchester United. Scholes in particular was exceptional and there will be people who will wonder what sort of effect this Paul Scholes could've had on England's disastrous display in South Africa. I also wanted to just bring it up in passing, Blackpool played their first game in the Premier League at the DW Stadium last Saturday and somehow not only came away with 3 points, but also 4 goals as they thumped a pathetic Wigan side and sent themselves top for a few hours at least. It was a miraculous story and I just wanted to mention that before I recap all of the opening weekend scores. Here are those scores then:
Aston Villa 3-0 West Ham United
Blackburn Rovers 1-0 Everton
Bolton Wanderers 0-0 Fulham
Chelsea 6-0 West Bromwich Albion
Sunderland 2-2 Birmingham City
Tottenham Hotspurs 0-0 Manchester City
Wigan Athletic 0-4 Blackpool
Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 Stoke City
Liverpool 1-1 Arsenal
Manchester United 3-0 Newcastle United

Onto the Championship and I only have 1 feature game from this division this week as I am in a bit of a rush, and to be honest with you, I didn't really see much of the Championship last weekend anyway. My feature game, as always, involves Swansea City and comes from the Liberty Stadium. I was meant to be at this game but because of circumstances outside of my control, I didn't end up getting to go, and boy, am I sad I missed it. I got all the ribbing from mates about goal-scoring last season, but last Saturday, Swansea City smashed 4 goals past Preston North End as they did their best impression of Blackpool at the DW Stadium. The goals came from last season's Blackpool loanee Stephen Dobbie, Darren Pratley, Nathan Dyer and David Cotterill who finished the thumping from the penalty spot after Nathan Dyer won it late on. A fabulous game to be a Swansea City supporter, and our biggest win in two and a half years incidentally. I don't think there'll be many criticising the appointment of Brendan Rodgers now. So the Championship classifieds are as follows:
Barnsley 1-0 Crystal Palace
Derby County 1-2 Cardiff City
Doncaster Rovers 1-1 Bristol City
Ipswich Town 1-1 Burnley
Leicester City 0-0 Middlesborough
Milwall 4-0 Hull City
Portsmouth 1-1 Reading
Scunthorpe United 0-1 Norwich City
Sheffield United 0-3 Queens Park Rangers
Swansea City 4-0 Preston North End
Watford 2-2 Coventry City
Nottingham Forest 1-1 Leeds United

I won't lie to you, I didn't see any of League's One and Two last week, so I can't comment, and I'm still in that original rush, so I'll just bring you the scores this week and concentrate more on these 2 leagues next week:
Bournemouth 5-1 Peterborough United
Brentford 1-2 Walsall
Brighton and Hove Albion 2-2 Rochdale Town
Bristol Rovers 2-1 Yeovil Town
Colchester United 1-1 Sheffield Wednesday
Hartlepool 2-2 Swindon Town
Huddersfield Town 0-0 Tranmere United
Oldham Athletic 3-0 Notts County
Plymouth Argyle 1-1 Carlisle United
Leyton Orient 1-3 Charlton Athletic

League 2:
Aldershot 1-0 Southend United
Barnet 0-0 Burton Albion
Bradford 1-0 Stevenage
Cheltenham 3-2 Crewe Alexandria
Hereford 0-0 Gillingham
Lincoln City 0-2 Torquay
Macclesfield 0-1 Shrewsbury Town
Morecambe 0-0 Rotherham
Northampton 0-0 Accrington Stanley
Oxford United 1-2 Bury
Port Vale 1-1 Chesterfield
Stockport 0-0 Wycombe Wanderer's

And last weekend there was only 1 result I was looking at in the Blue Square Premier League, and that was Newport County's result. They unfortunately lost 1-0 to Darlington, but that's no crying shame and they'll be looking for a win this weekend no doubt.

That's it until Sunday or Monday now guys. Sorry it's been so rushed but trust me, you have no idea how much of a rush I'm in and it will return to it's brilliant standard next week I promise. If you've taken the time to read it and actually hated how bad it was, I am sorry, but be safe in the knowledge that next time it'll be back to it's good old self. Cheers everyone. TTFN