Premier League Results 6th February

Bolton Wanderers 0-0 Fulham
Sam Ricketts played the full match and had a good game defensively, helping Bolton to keep a clean sheet and seeing that goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen was not unduly troubled. Maybe if he’d managed to steer Matthew Taylor’s free kick into the net but maybe that would have roused Fulham to get a goal back and go on to claim all three points. Simon Davies wasn’t fit enough for Fulham’s bench after all but it’s probably a good sign that he even came close to being fit enough.

Burnley 2-1 West Ham United
Lately, Burnley have lost their good home form while West Ham have actually been winning games. But this match offered something of a flashback to earlier in the season, with Burnley looking pretty good and West Ham looking like they’re in trouble – although things could well improve for them once their new strikers have settled. Jack Collison was on great form for West Ham, doing everything for them except put the ball in the net. Danny Gabbidon is still out with a hamstring injury.

Hull City 2-1 Manchester City
Hull have claimed some notable scalps during their time in the Premier League and this time the richest team in the world was the one to suffer. Although Manchester City were poor, Hull played wel and deserved their three points. Boaz Myhill didn’t get many opportunities to make world-class saves but it was another good performance from the man who looks set to be in goal when Wales play Sweden. As for the goal he let in, the ball was somewhere in the middle of what looked like a rugby scrum so he might not have been very sure where the ball was. Even so, he came close to stopping it. Craig Bellamy had a quiet sixty minutes before being substituted but in some ways a quiet Craig Bellamy is more of an achievement than a Craig Bellamy hat-trick.

Manchester United 5-0 Portsmouth
Ryan Giggs was rested as Manchester United did exactly what you expected them to do. But there was no hat-trick for Wayne Rooney – instead there was a hat-trick of Portsmouth own goals. Now, if only they’d be able to do that at the other end.

Stoke City 3-0 Blackburn Rovers
After a recent poor run (not including a certain FA Cup victory) Stoke once more were looking very strong on their home ground. Ryan Shawcross did his defensive duties well and was very unlucky not to get on the scoresheet himself as Blackburn keeper Paul Robinson made an excellent save. Danny Collins was left on the bench, as was Blackburn keeper Jason Brown.

Sunderland 1-1 Wigan Athletic
Steve Bruce’s current side met his former side and the match ended with one point apiece. Again, Jason Koumas wasn’t even on the bench.

Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Aston Villa
Gareth Bale gave yet another strong defensive performance as Tottenham drew with Aston Villa. While Aston Villa have struggled to score, they certainly have players who are capable of causing problems for dodgy defenders and the fact they didn’t proves to me (the very biased Wales fan) that his defending is actually pretty good and it’ll only improve as he gets older.
James Collins was on excellent form for the Villa defence. He, Richard Dunne and Stephen Warnock (although he missed this match with injury) have been great acquisitions and it seems as though they’ve inspired Carlos Cuellar and Luke Young to greater heights.