Premier League Round-up – Gameweek 2

Cardiff City created magic at home

Sunday held only two fixtures, one at White Hart Lane and the other in the second Welsh stadium for the 2012 champions, the Blue side of Manchester. Andre Villas-Boas’ record signing, Roberto Soldado continued his good fortune for the Spurs as he netted in the only goal of the game as Andros Townsend fell rather tamely in the box from a slight nudge off Jonjo Shelvey to give the home side a penalty, the second week running and maintain their 100% record versus Michael Laudrup’s Swansea City.

Paulinho and former Arsenal target Etienne Capoue both impressed by creating many chances but the Brazilian missed many shots including a possible goal when Michel Vorm had left the goal half open. Spurs fans were enraged when a penalty wasn’t given on an earlier challenge on Townsend bodychecked by Shelvey a minute before the 1st half ended. But they were soon rewarded by a soft penalty from the former Valencia man.

The Swans were able to inject some life into the game when record signing Wilfried Bony came on, the only scorer from the United game but weren’t able to equalise as Spurs captain Micheal Dawson was able to contain Swans star striker Michu like his United counterparts did last week.

Another Premier League upset so early in the season was on the cards when Aron Gunnarsson slot an equaliser just before an hour past a listless Joe Hart for his newly promoted side, Cardiff City after an Edin Dzeko superb shot had given the Citizens a lead early in the second half. This motivated the Welsh side to tighten up their defence and therefore assist Fraizer Campbell, their Sunday hero, who troubled a depleted City defence and exposed their dependency on injured captain Vincent Kompany.

Campbell’s pace was too much for Javi Garcia, Pablo Zabaleta and Joleon Lescott and the Bluebirds should have been leading at half time. The second half saw the City defence struggling to even pick out regular passes as two goals were scored by the former Manchester United man off shoddy marking from Zabaleta. While the equaliser off Gunnarsson was a rebound from Campbell’s saved shot by Hart, the next two goals were football at its best.

The Championship winners showed that they weren’t pushovers and thus City leave South Wales with an abysmal, all loss record in three games. City can find solace that one of their new signings, Alvaro Negredo scored his first goal in stoppage time, but a tad bit late and was no more than a consolation.

What do you get when you have two newly appointed managers eager to establish themselves, two strong defences, two intelligent goalkeepers, competing midfielders, numerous Golden Boot winners, an enthusiastic crowd in a historic venue and a transfer target? A goalless draw? That is not what everyone expected when around the world, people tuned into the first blockbuster fixture of the 2013-14 season, Manchester United, defending champions up against potential champions Chelsea.

While the press conferences were dominated by whether Wayne Rooney would start, there were individual battles to address – Robin van Persie vs John Terry, Ivanovic, Gary Cahill and Cech; Nemanja Vidic, Phil Jones, Patrice Evra and Rio Ferdinand vs. Hazard, Schurrle, Kevin De Bruyne and Oscar; Michael Carrick vs. Lampard and Rooney vs. the United home fans.

Realistically both sides were aiming at taking at least a point away from the match and they did just that, except not the goal flurry that everyone expected. It took United 22 minutes to create a shot and relatively the same amount of time for the Blues. Both set of strikers, van Persie and Schurrle were kept quiet while Rooney sparkled amidst the transfer saga and questions over his fitness. Whatever Chelsea did United counter-attacked and vice versa.

It was like a convoluted maths problem that ultimately results in the answer being 0. In the dying embers of a fire that barely provided any warmth, Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley provided some solace but were not on target while Ashley Cole was lucky not to be booked himself even though he went down trying to get a penalty. It was finally a rather tame Monday Night Football (MNF) match, far below everyone’s expectations.