Image courtesy of cbssports.com
Wowowowow! What an opening weekend! Despite having one of the shortest off-seasons in professional sports, I still find myself itching for Premier League football to return quicker than with other sports, like American football or basketball. But boy, was it worth the wait this year! Here are the final results from Matchweek 1:
FRIDAY
Arsenal 4:3 Leicester
SATURDAY
Watford 3:3 Liverpool
West Brom 1:0 Bournemouth
Crystal Palace 0:3 Huddersfield Town
Southampton 0:0 Swansea
Everton 1:0 Stoke
Chelsea 2:3 Burnley
Brighton & Hove 0:2 Manchester City
SUNDAY
Newcastle 0:2 Tottenham
Manchester United 4:0 West Ham
Synopsis: English football announced its return immediately in Arsenal's 4-3 win over Leicester on Friday, which, according to The Guardian, is tied for the most goals scored in the opening match of a Premier League season. That was followed up with a thrilling 3-3 draw between Watford and Liverpool in the early match Saturday, and a couple of eye-opening results in the mid-morning (in the U.S.) fixtures, namely Burnley's 3-2 triumph over Chelsea and Huddersfield beating Palace 3-0. Wayne Rooney scored the lone goal in Everton's 1-0 win over Stoke on his return to Goodison Park, and City breezed past Brighton and Hove in the late match on Saturday. On Sunday, Newcastle gave Spurs a bit of a run for 48 minutes, until Jonjo Shelvey earned a red for this moronic stomp on Dele Alli. That match finished 2-0 to Spurs, and then United put four past Joe Hart to down West Ham with ease.
Surprise of the Week: The week was full of unexpected results, but for me the most surprising was the dominating fashion in which Huddersfield beat Palace. Chelsea's display against Burnley was equally as pitiful as it was unforeseen, but with Gary Cahill getting sent off in the fourteenth minute, the Clarets victory is a bit misleading. This is not an attempt to detract from the courageous effort Burnley put forth, but rather an attempt to make the point that Burnley played 67 minutes up a man (and took full advantage of that), and finished the final ten or so minutes of the match up two men. That's a different game than 11-on-11.
More of a surprise for me was how commanding Huddersfield Town were against Crystal Palace in Selhurst Park. I certainly did not envision this match going the way it did, and that's not meant to be a knock on Huddersfield. Palace brought in a new, attack-minded manager in Frank de Boer, someone that I believed would be able to get the most out of Zaha, Townsend, and Benteke. He didn't find the key to unleashing their potential on Saturday, and to make matters worse, the Palace back line often looked completely overwhelmed. If not for a desperate tackle from Timothy Fosu-Mensah, Huddersfield could have easily put up four on Palace. Obviously it would be rash to jump to conclusions about how the season will develop for Palace based on their first match, but if this result is any indication, they're in for a long year. Huddersfield, on the other hand, announced themselves in fine fashion, looking every bit the part of a club that is ready for an extended stay in the top flight. Steve Mounié looks like he'll be a handful for defenders with his combination of pace, power (he's 6 foot 3) and his nose for the goal, much the way he did against Torino in Huddersfield's final preseason friendly. At any rate, that match was a perfect example of why we love the Premier League!
Player of the Week: This is a tough one. It could be any one of the players that put away two goals this weekend, such as Sam Vokes, Steve Mounié, or Jaime Vardy. It could also be Paul Pogba or Nemanja Matić, who dominated the midfield for United against West Ham, or Christian Eriksen, who set up both of Spurs' goals. For me though, it has to be the most impressive player on the most impressive team from the Matchweek, which was Romelu Lukaku. His movement off the ball and work rate to be a target for his teammates were both brilliant, and his two goals on his Premier League debut for United sparked his new club to a convincing win. Of course, the play of the aforementioned Pogba and Matić, as well as Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, helped to elevate Lukaku, but the big Belgian was the star of the show.
Goal of the Week: Another tough one. There were some fantastically-worked finishes, incredible individual efforts, and some goals that had a bit of both. With that said, I have to go with Burnley's Stephen Ward, who scored the second in the Clarets' three-goal first half. Ward streaked down the left flank after delivering a ball to Jack Cork, who lofted a pass back to Ward. Ward then took the ball off his chest into his path, shook off N'Golo Kanté, and absolutely buried the ball with his left foot on the half-volley. Check that goal out here, and catch all 31 goals from this weekend here.
I don't know about anybody else, but I'm already getting anxious for next weekend!
Thanks for reading!