Premier League, Liverpool v Arsenal, Ashton

A combination of natural laziness and a horrific hangover prevented me from blogging yesterday, but I'm glad I saved it all for this wonderful morning. Wonderful in the sense that it's one of those crisp winter mornings with the sun peaking through the clouds, some golf is on the cards, my team are in action later in a massive game, and we had a truly brilliant day in the Premier League yesterday. If anyone says it's still boring and predictable, give 'em a tape of last night's MOTD and a slap round the face. Utd were beaten by an excellent Villa side who as I mentioned Friday, are just built to play away from home and defend early leads. A good goal from Agbonlahor came from defensive errors; Fletcher is a good player but not a right back, he did the typical uneasy midfielder thing of giving Ashley Young plenty of space to whip a cross in - he was terrified that if he got too tight he'd get skinned, and Wes Brown looked a man lost when the aforementioned ball plonked onto Gabby's head. 1-0. Utd could have been further behind after some shocking defending from Fletcher and Kuszchak (where's Ben Foster gone?) and almost equalised themselves from a great piece of play from Rooney where he crashed the ball at the underside of the bar. We saw the best and worst of Rooney in the game though, he was rightfully booked for a shocking piece of diving to try and cheat his way to a point in the game. Exactly what has happened was predicted by probably every Arsenal fan I know, that Eduardo was vilified, attacked and abused in the press, and when Rooney and (to a lesser extent) N'Gog dive it's brushed under the carpet. I don't want to revisit all this too much but because of Rooney's nationality and the popularity of his team these incidents just seem to get erased from public memory - MOTD sofa didn't pick up on it, nobody is questioning Rooney or Fergie, it's mental. Villa went on to have a couple more half chances but 2nd half was mainly a backs to the wall defensive job, but with the exception of one good save from Berbatov and a standard 'on the post' clearance from Downing, I can't remember Utd creating too much. Great result for Villa and a great result for the title race!

Utd were trying to take advantage of another Chelsea slip up, they were held 3-3 at home by Everton. As I said on Friday, we know that Everton have these sort of games in them despite not really showing it recently, and although 2 of the goals were a bit jammy they looked good value for the win. Drogba looked awesome again but if you actually look at Chelsea's results in detail, we shouldn't be too surprised to see them slip up. The didn't deserve to beat Utd, they got a lucky late deflected goal at Stoke, and on the opening day they were about to be held by Hull, until Drogba's bad cross looped in the net. When these kind of things don't happen for you, you can easily drop points to Everton and get beat by City. Speaking of City, they were on the end of another 3-3 draw against a gutsy Bolton side. Thrice being behind, Hughes will be happy with his teams' fighting spirit, but he won't be happy with the officials (and has publicly displayed his displeasure). Bellamy was given a second booking for being fouled (not diving) and Bolton's first goal was a mile offside, Hughes was ney happy. Most surprising result of the day had to be at Shite Hart Lane where Spurs were turned over 1-0 by a struggling Wolves side. Doyle claimed the goal which must have brushed a couple of his spiky hairs, and from then on I wasn't that impressed with Spurs. They suffered a similar fate at home to Stoke a few weeks back but peppered the goal with shots in a game they deserved something from, yesterday wasn't the same. And here lies the problem that Spurs, Villa and City will face this season, it's no good getting one or 2 good results under your belt, it's gotta be 3,4 and 5 - something that the big 4 have mastered over the last few years. Villa have has some good results of late but if they don't follow that up at Sunderland and Stoke in the next week, all progress will probably be lost. Spurs, they were flying up until a couple of weeks ago, now they've taken 2 points from a possible 9 and been humbled by Utd in the cup. City's drawing record is well documented, they travel to Spurs in midweek in what promises to be a very exciting game indeed. Finally, arise Sir Maynor of Figueroa who scored what will be one of the goals of the season in Wigan's 2-2 draw at Stoke yesterday. A niggly foul just inside Wigan's half resulted in a free kick, and without breaking stride Figs hit the ball absolutely sweet and launched it over the keeper. Just because he's not David Beckham he probably won't get the attention he deserves, but Maynor, nice hit son.

Only one game worth talking about today and that is Liverpool v Arsenal. Liverpool's hopes of a title tilt would have been boosted by yesterday's result but realistically they will be concentrating on getting Champions League football secured for next season. Aquilani started his first game in the week and will be in the frame to start again, and the sight of Torres coming off the bench won't have made any Arsenal fans happy. He's not quite got the Drogba fear factor yet for the Gooners, but has already amassed a decent amount of goals against us. Off the top of my head he got 2 in last year's 4-4, I think another 2 in the Champions League game, and maybe another somewhere along the line. This fixture tends to be the most open of the big 4 games - probably because of the 2 shittest defences - but a lot of the recent games have ended up draws. I think the Arsenal will go something like Almunia - Sagna Gallas Vermaelan Traore - Song Cesc Denilson - Nasri Arshavin Walcott and once again employ Arshavin as the main up the middle. We know that he likes playing Liverpool and so he might be in for some treatment from the home crowd and home defenders, but I fancy him to do something special again. I'd take 4 goals from him now, to tell you the truth.

Finally, some sad news that Dean Ashton has had to retire from football, fearing for his long term health should he have carried on. There have been rumours about this for a while but it's such a shame that he's finally had to confirm this. Only 26, Ashton has a good goalscoring record, a great touch and could have probably made the Heskey role for England, the Ashton role. He's a big man who doesn't mind being targeted with the long ball but has a much better record in front of goal than Emile. He sadly only made 1 cap for us, his international career being cut cruelly early by an injury actually obtained during England training. He's made some brief cameos since then (a wonderful overhead kick at Old Trafford which a lot of Utd fans got up to applaud) but surgeries and rehab programmes failed to solve his problems. Very sad news for West Ham, and for England. Take her easy.