Premier League Results 21st August 2010

Arsenal 6-0 Blackpool
Many have written off Blackpool (again) following their 6-0 defeat to Arsenal. But since when does losing 6-0 to Arsenal mean you’re a bad team? (And if Blackpool are bag, what hope do Wigan Athletic have?). True, Blackpool weren’t at their best but it’s difficult for any team to play well when they’re being thrashed and they only have ten men. (That shouldn’t have been a sending off. If it was in the penalty area, which is very debatable, it was a red card according to the rules but that lst man rule is stupid. It makes less sense than the offside rule and that’s saying something. The penalty was enough.)
Arsenal were excellent. One 6-0 win against a team who will probably still go down doesn’t necessarily mean this could be the season but it looks promising. If they carry on playing like this, Aaron Ramsey might struggle to get back into the team.
David Vaughan was the only Welshman to feature for Blackpool. He looked pretty good pre-thrashing and could have opened the scoring but Manuel Almunia made a good save. Neal Eardley and Rob Edwards stayed on the bench which can only be a good thing as far as Arsenal are concerned. Blackpool remain in the top half of the table.
This isn’t real but I enjoyed reading it all the same - despite the Arsenal result and the incorrect use of the word fulsome (the correct meaning isn’t impossible but it’s not in keeping with the tone of the rest of the article).

Birmingham City 2-1 Blackburn Rovers
No sign of second-season syndrome here as Birmingham beat Blackburn, who are expected to do fairly well.
But however they do, it looks as they won’t be a regular feature of this blog. Jason Brown was again omitted from the bench in favour of Mark Bunn.

Everton 1-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers
Everton played well and took the lead to the end of a promising first half but after that Wolves defended solidly – and attacked just about enough to win a share of the points and maintain their unbeaten record. They won’t be 5th at the end of the season but points like these can only help.
David Jones played the first 70 minutes for Wolves. Wayne Hennessey was on the bench. Dave Edwards was missing due to a groin injury.

Stoke City 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur
Stoke feel they should have drawn this game and the whole of the ball probably was over the line but Stoke probably did foul the keeper. It looked that way and they fouled pretty much everyone else.
I don’t usually like to see Tottenham win but there is something satisfying about watching Gareth Bale get the winning goal, something which has happened regularly during the past few months. This time last year, the words ‘Gareth Bale’ and ‘winning’ were only in the same sentence if you pointed out he hadn’t yet. Now Gareth is a winner and even the Tottenham fans can see it although some would sell him if £100 million was offered.
The first one looked lucky and painful but if Ryan Shawcross has to mess up a clearance like that, giving it to the Welsh player is probably the best thing he could have done.
The second goal wasn’t as funny but it was just as amazing in some ways – and considerably more amazing in others. A perfect, acrobatic, unstoppable left-foot volley, the type that makes me feel very glad Gareth is Welsh. The calls for Gareth to be picked for England haven’t entirely abated but those who know he’s Welsh tend to feel he’s better off out of the England team. I’m very glad his Welsh but I wish he played for Arsenal.
Playing alongside Ryan in Stoke’s defence was Danny Collins. It was a surprise to see him recalled – I wouldn’t have recalled him for the simple reason that I wouldn’t have dropped him – but he looked defensively solid and also made a few good attacking moves.

West Bromwich Albion 1-0 Sunderland
West Brom going to struggle? Sunderland pushing for a place in the top half of the table? One game can’t tell you much but West Brom looked like the team more likely to get a top-half finish.
But it’s not all good news. With Scott Carson keeping a clean sheet for west Brom, it doesn’t look very likely that Boaz Myhill will get a chance next week.

West Ham United 1-3 Bolton Wanderers
It’s been suggested that the bottom three will include at least one team whose name begins with W. West Brom looked like they were trying to avoid this but West Ham looked like a team in trouble. Bolton are now up to fourth after Johan Elmander found out where the goal net was. But unfortunately for him, he won’t be shooting into the same goal net next week.
Danny Gabbidon got the chance to start for Bolton and to be fair, he didn’t seem to do anything too badly wrong. It was the other defenders.
Sam Ricketts was on the bench for Bolton.