Premiership Round-up 17/08/2010

United’s easy victory this extended weekend came via goals from Dimitar Berbatov, Darren Fletcher and a sublime volley from the evergreen Ryan Giggs.

Spurs should have won, with Crouch proving a mouthful, er...sorry, handful, er... sorry, dangerous in the box, er... sorry, good touch for a big man...er I give up

The win over Newcastle was orchestrated by a performance of sheer beauty from Paul Scholes. At the beginning of the game the Geordies had a plan, then Scholes passed them to death. By the end the Newcastle players’ eyes were spinning like those of a hippy on a twenty year acid trip. Scholes’ is a model for every young player in the way he looks up and distributes the ball – if not for his 1916 haircut.

His was the sort of performance that is going to make me walk to the bookies at lunch time and put some money on him to win Player of the Season.

With another summer of mass spending under their belt much of the pre-season limelight focused on Manchester City, aka, The Joe Hart Support XI. Against Tottenham Hotspur they proved that not only can money not buy you love but it can’t buy you a team – although Mancini’s decision to play without any forwards at all didn’t help. The team seemed in severe need of a weekend bonding session, maybe an outward bound course in the Lakes.

Or maybe they just wanted shut of Shay Given, who'd been dropped in favour of his young padowan, Joe Hart. At one point, after Hart had backflipped, triple salko-ed and then pirouetted a ball away from underneath the bar, Given turned to a chum and possibly said, “Mancini’s right, he’s much better”. Or maybe, “What’s that Arsene Wenger’s number again?”

Spurs should have won, with Crouch proving a mouthful, er...sorry, handful, er... sorry, dangerous in the box, er... sorry, good touch for a big man...er I give up.

Extreme outsiders for the title this campaign are newly promoted Blackpool. Despite being tipped as one of the worst Premier League clubs ever, Ian Holloway’s men started like world beaters sweeping aside Wigan 0-4 at the DW Stadium. Then of course I realised the victory was against Wigan, not Chelsea.

That Marlon Harewood was a two goal hero for Blackpool was very worrying. I’ve been having nightmares that the lumbering forward is going to be able to keep this form all season, leading to a variety of accolades and a big money move to Barcelona. All of this will lead to Fabio Capello building his new look England squad around the man, making us once again the nation that the rest of the world giggle at.

Fortunately Chelsea restored the natural order of things by beating new boys West Brom 6-0, with last season’s Golden Boot winner Didier Drogba bagging a hat-trick. Drogba has recently proclaimed that this is the first time he has been fully fit for six years. If he’s fully fit and fully sane (not always the case with Diddles) then the rest of the Premiership might be in serious trouble.

Elsewhere in the Premier League, a last minute Pepe Reina blunder cost Liverpool two points in a 1-1 draw with Arsenal, manager-less Aston Villa thumped West Ham 3-0 and the Birmingham captain embarked on a one man mission to lose my fantasy football team points, as he decided to give away a penalty and score an own goal in their 2-2 draw with Sunderland.

Other notable mentions for my quite shocking fantasy league performance go to Wigan’s Charles N’Zogbia who decided he couldn’t be arsed to play against Blackpool and went on strike, while Liverpool’s Joe Cole was sent off less than half way through his domestic debut.

Cheers lads, you have all been removed from my team.

The editor wanted me to also mention Rochdale after their leap up to League One following four hundred years in the lowest tier of football. Apparently they’ve started the season with two draws against Hartlepool and Brighton and an encouraging victory over Barnsley, a team from the division above, in the Carling Cup. But the really exciting news is that manager Keith Hill looks set to put in an audacious bid for Marlon Harewood before the transfer deadline closes.

Fernando Hernando is a well-respected Mexican sports journalist who has been exiled to Manchester since his citizenship was withdrawn and a price slapped on his head after he admitted live on Mexican state TV to ‘an unhealthy fondness for Greggs’. We hope he never writes for us again.