Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Premier League Title Race: Oh, It's ON!


Well, the last few days have been quite eventful in terms of the Premier League title race. On Saturday, Chelsea comfortably defeated West Brom with a score of 1-3, and in doing so, made the gap to Arsenal only 2 points. But, the Gunners, instead of being inspired by Chelsea's closeness in the table, only managed a home draw against Liverpool on Sunday. Arsenal's attack was slow, sluggish, and was actually very predictable. The wingers, Theo Walcott and Samir Nasri, couldn't even create many chances because they couldn't get past Liverpool's fullbacks, who were both from the reserves. Then, the magical moment. Arsenal got a penalty, and Robin Van Persie coolly put it in the bottom corner, thinking that he secured the 3 points. But, at the other end, Eboue had other ideas. He fouled Lucas, who wasn't even threatening Arsenal's goal, and gave the Reds a penalty. Dirk Kuyt put it away, and also basically put Arsenal's title hopes away for another season. 


So, it looked like today, Manchester United would finish off any chance for Arsenal to come back and cause a huge upset in the title race. But, Tim Krul, the Magpies' number one, had other ideas. Putting in a Man of the Match performance, he kept the Red Devils at bay and earned Newcastle a 0-0 draw. Because of Man United's naive performance, the gap is now 7 points, but Arsenal have a game in hand. Will this be an impetus for the Gunners? Will they now play the wonderful, attacking, and clinical football that they showed earlier in the season? Time will only tell. I think that players like Jack Wilshere and Robin Van Persie will play their heart out during Wednesday's game against the Spurs. It won't be easy, with Gareth Bale and Rafael Van Der Vaart constantly threatening to score. 


With 5 rounds to go, Manchester United still has to play Arsenal at the Emirates and both Everton and Chelsea at home. Compare this to Arsenal's fixture list, with tomorrow's game against Tottenham and the game against the Red Devils being the matches where Arsenal could truly lose points. But who knows? There can be many, many surprises to come until the last match of the season. Both teams could potentially drop points, and of course, no one should truly rule out Chelsea.


Haha. Just kidding. Those chavs are out of it.

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