The Premier League season is now more than one quarter of the way over. The table is beginning to take shape, and fans are beginning to gain insight on which teams are actually title contenders and which teams will be fighting for survival come April and May.
Week 10 was full of drama, as we always expect from the Premier League. In this blog, I will discuss week 10 fixtures and results as well as some underlying storylines.
Brighton and Hove Albion made history on Saturday when they defeated Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 at home. This is coming off the back of consecutive 1-0 wins over Newcastle United and West Ham United respectively. This is the first time in the club's history that they have won three consecutive matches in the Premier League.
The statistic is not overly-shocking as this is only Brighton's 2nd in the PL, after they beat the drop last season. Although this is a team achievement, special attention must be paid to Australian goalkeeper Maty Ryan. After being immense in their push for safety last season, Ryan had not registered a shutout in the first seven matches this season. Now he now possesses a three game shutout streak and sits in 3rd in the league in saves (43), only behind Joe Hart and Lukasz Fabianski (44 each).
AFC Bournemouth are doing their best to prove that they are for real this season. Another clean sheet and another three points has them sitting comfortably in 6th in the table. While Bournemouth may be turning more heads with their attacking fire power, they have quietly accumulated three straight clean sheets just as Brighton have. Last time out, striker Callum Wilson found the net twice, as did youngster David Brooks, who was acquired from Sheffield United last season.
Just as Bournemouth dispatched Fulham 3-0, Watford downed Huddersfield Town by the same scoreline. The widely diverse Watford is being led by Argentine Roberto Pereyra who has netted 5 goals in the league thus far this season. The return of goalkeeper Ben Foster, who was on loan at the club from 2005-2007, has seemed to reinvigorate the team's defense as well.
As stated above, both Fulham and Huddersfield Town are struggling mightily. However, these are not the only teams that are being sucked into the relegation battle. Even though it is still early in the season, some of the teams at the bottom of the league are in danger of losing touch with the rest of the pack.
None of the seven teams shown above won their match last time out. Newcastle United and Southampton played to a nil-nil draw, while West Ham United drew Leicester City and Crystal Palace earned a great point against Arsenal. Burnley and Cardiff City ran into buzzkills Chelsea and Liverpool, losing 4-0 and 4-1 respectively.
It is Newcastle and Huddersfield who have the most to be worried about, though. Neither team has registered a win yet this campaign, and both are struggling mightily to score goals. Newcastle may look back to their heartbreaking 3-2 loss to Manchester United at Old Trafford about a month ago as a huge missed opportunity, as they lead 2-0 within the first 10 minutes of that match.
Huddersfield Town has scored a league low four goals this campaign. Four goals from 10 matches is abysmal, and David Wagner and his Terriers will know that they must create more going forward if they are going to have any chance of repeating an unlikely push to safety.
Fulham have conceded the most goals in the league by a decent margin; however, it has been their ability to score that has kept them from falling below 18th. Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic has been a spark ever since signing from Newcastle midway through the season last year. Mitrovic's goals helped Fulham to promotion and he started the season off hot. But he has cooled off in recent weeks, and Fulham have since fallen down the table. Mitrovic hasn't scored in their last four league matches, all of which have been losses.
At this stage in the season, a team can be lifted out of the relegation zone with just one win. It is still too early to predict who will go down, as momentum plays a massive role in football. However, no team wants to see themselves down there, not even at this juncture of the season.
The headline of Matchweek 10 has to be that, for the first time in Premier League history, three teams have gone undefeated through 10 matches. Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea have accumulated zero losses through 30 matches, a feat that has never before been done in the Premier League era. City and Liverpool are the pace setters, but Chelsea has refused to lay off the gas at all. On top of that, Arsenal have experienced a resurgence under Unai Emery after a slow start to the season. Their streak of 11 straight victories was snapped by Crystal Palace over the weekend.
Manchester United got back to winning ways this past weekend as they ended Everton's three game winning streak. United have now elevated themselves back into the top eight.
Interesting Stat:
This past week, Brighton's Bruno became the oldest player in Premier League History to register an assist.
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