Premier League Matchweek 4 Review

Gameweek 4

The fourth set of matches this season saw the most surprising result in the history of the Premier League. Liverpool, champions and widely considered as one of the best teams in Europe, travelled to Villa Park to face Aston Villa, a club who survived relegation from the league last season by the very skin of their teeth. Even when Villa were 2-0 up right at the beginning of the game, many neutrals still would have predicted a win for Klopps’ men; what they didn’t expect, however, was for Villa to score 5 more before the 90 minutes was up. The game ended 7-2. Liverpool were rightly lambasted by the media, their fans and their manager for a woeful, dismal performance, whilst Villa were praised as Ollie Watkins scored a hat trick and Jack Grealish got 4 direct goal involvements to add fuel to England fans’ ‘Grealish in’ parade. This means that going into the international break, Everton are top of the league, Villa have a 100% win rate so far and Liverpool have conceded 7 goals in a game for the first time in 57 years, since 1963. What is going on? Is this perhaps the most ridiculous start to a season we have ever seen?

Prior to this humiliation in Birmingham, Manchester United suffered a similar fate at home to ex-manager Jose Mourinho’s Spurs; the lilywhites put in an incredible shift at Old Trafford, especially considering United’s only goal in the 6-1 battering came within the first 30 seconds. Predictably, Ole out was trending on twitter after the game. If I were to summarise this game, I would say it was characterised by an atrocious display from the defence, in particular Harry Maguire, an uninspiring and lackluster display from Paul Pogba (as has become commonplace) and Bruno Fernandes seemingly putting his feet up after scoring the customary penalty the referee awards him every game. It was bad. Perhaps I’m underselling it. It was men vs boys. There are no leaders in that team. Tottenham, on the other hand, put in a performance that could be characterized by scintillating, world class displays from Harry Kane, Heung-min Son and rather surprisingly, Serge Aurier.

Elsewhere across the country, Man City drew 1-1 at Leeds, Everton won 4-2 despite a howler from Jordan Pickford, Chelsea crushed Palace 4-0 and West Ham shocked Leicester with a comprehensive 3-0 win away from home. Now a 2 week break will commence. When it returns, I’m sure we will once again see the random and unpredictable nature of the best football league in the world...