PremWatch 24th August 2008

Another Sunday, another look at the weekend's Premier League football.

Yesterday, Phil Brown's Hull City continued an unbeaten start to life in the top flight, drawing at Blackburn Rovers. The goals came from Richard Garcia and Jason Roberts respectively as City pegged Paul Ince's boys back after going one behind.

A Brede Hangeland goal in the first half at Craven Cottage secured a 1-0 win for Fulham over Arsenal. I saw a drunken Fulham fan mocking a Gooner at Clapham Junction last night, shouting "We beat you today!". Hilarious.

A goal from Mido put Middlesbrough ahead at Anfield, but Liverpool levelled courtesy of an own goal from Emmanuel Pogatetz. Not that you'd know that from Match of the Day's hyperbol-ocks about two Liverpool lads getting Redscouse out of jail. The other, predictably, was Liverpool's diving, moaning late goal merchant Stevie "Steven Gerrard" G.

Newcastle United played Bolton Wanderers, apparently. Michael Owen scored and the Barcodes won 1-0. I did watch Match of the Day, but I fail to recall anything else from this match.

Sadly, I remember the lot from the Britannia. Stoke City grabbed their first Premier League points with a 3-2 win over Aston Villa. Fan-baiting referee Mark Halsey (that's right Mark, I saw you, you tit) scored Stoke's first and third, sandwiching Ricardo Fuller's impressive strike. Shame his behaviour as he headed off at half time didn't match (yep, saw you too). Villa's goals came from John Carew and Martin Laursen. Trouble afterwards too. Well, it was Stoke.

Keiron Richardson and Jermaine Jenas scored for Sunderland and Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane, before loanee Djibril Cisse headed in the winner to force Roy Keane to break a smile. That's two defeats for Spurs, and Dimitar Berbatov was dropped from the squad.

A Roman Bednar penalty wasn't enough at the Hawthorns as West Bromwich Albion fell to their second defeat of the season. Leon Osman and Yakubu had put a young Everton side 2-0 up by the M5.

Today, we had one and a half action-packed matches. I watched Wigan Athletic versus Chelsea, and you can read my match report here. In the later game, Manchester City stuck three past Robert Green to beat West Ham United.

The Hammers were a man down following the earlyish sending off of Marc Noble. City eventually settled into a rhythm against ten men and goals from teenager Daniel Sturridge and Elano (2) settled matters. Micah Richards was reportedly unconscious for seven or eight minutes following a clash of heads with Tal Ben Haim, and Kelvin Etuhu did his hamstring. All of which left both teams with ten - which was also the number of minutes added on for stoppages. Incredible.

So after 101 minutes and 17 seconds at Eastlands, attention moves to Fratton Park for tomorrow evening's match between Portsmouth and Manchester United. I predict a score draw.

This evening, Chelsea are top from Liverpool, both with a maximum six points. Blackburn and Hull complete the top four, while Portsmouth, Wigan and West Brom are heading for the drop. Maybe.