Premier League Week 1 Recap

Game of the Week: Tottenham 2 – Liverpool 1. The Sunday afternoon kickoff featured Tottenham’s return to the upper echelon of the Premier League with a convincing 2-1 victory at White Heart Lane. Suddenly, questions are being asked of Liverpool’s title credentials as Spurs summarily dominated the match. Rafa Benetiz will need to regroup the Reds as a slow start to could dampen title aspirations.

Shock of the Week: Everton 1 – 6 Arsenal. Aston Villa’s 2-0 clunker against Wigan looked like a shoe-in for this mention until Everton turned in an appalling performance against the Gunners in the late kickoff. One game doesn’t make a season but it sure looked as if only one of the two teams expected to sink this season got the message. Arsenal absolutely dismantled Everton, serving notice to many the Big Four remains intact.

Transfer Goat of the Week: Martin O’Niell While it might be a bit unfair to single out MON after all he has done to remake the club, the Villans performance at home shows that his inability to bring in replacements for Gareth Barry and Martin Laursen has jeopardized Villa’s place among the better Premier League clubs. With European commitments adding further strain to an already thin squad, its not been a good week for MON.

Big Four Snoozer of the Week: Manchester United 1 – 0 Birmingham City. United’s title defense started with a Wayne Rooney goal in the 34th minute. Unfortunately, that is all that happened as many of the Red Devils’ chances came to nothing.

Relegation Six-Pointer of the Week: Stoke City 2 – Burnley 0. Points weren’t going to come easy for newly promoted Burnley as they see Manchester United, Everton, and Chelsea in the next three matches following a trip to Stoke. Unfortunately, it looks as if Burnley could close out August stuck on zero. Let the relegation talk begin.