Weekend Review 19th and 20th September:
Well another exciting weekend in the Premier League and it appears that several players have heard of Lovely Volley as we have Three Volleys and Two Megs to tell you about this week.
Firstly we’ll start at the tie of the weekend at Old Trafford between Man United and Man City. United went ahead early through a poor bit of defending from Man City that allowed Wayne Rooney to slot home early. Man City managed to equalize through Gareth Barry who latched onto Carlos Tevez’s pass after Ben Foster had spilled the ball on the edge of the area. Darren Fletcher added another after the break but the lead didn’t last long as Craig Bellamy scored a fantastic solo effort to draw City level. However the game would soon end (well in our eyes anyway) when old faithful Ryan Giggs brilliantly megged Shaun Wright Phillips to win the game 4-2 for United. Wright-Phillips immediately knew that game was lost as he held his hands up to apologize to his team mates. The teams however ignored Shaun’s response and bizarrely continued to play, and claim the game finished 4-3 to United! Craig Bellamy was obviously as confused as us and decided to hit a delirious fan in frustration.
Next we will look at what is possible the classiest volley of the season, coming courtesy of Cesc Fabregas With Arsenal a comfortable three goals up against Wigan, Fabregas knocked in a volley very similar (although not as spectacular) to Gianfranco Zola’s back heeled effort against Norwich from a few years ago. We will try and post a video of the goal if we can find one because it is a very classy finish from the young Spaniard. Arsenal won the game 5-0 thanks to the volley.
Dirk Kuyt is fastly proving himself to be a contender for top volley scorer this season as he scored another scrappy volley against West Ham. The game was tied at 1-1 thanks to goals by Torres and a penalty from Diamanti, when Steven Gerrard headed to ball goal bound before Dirk Kuyt deflected the ball in. The ball would have probably go in anyway, but knowing the rules of Lovely Volley, Kuyt decided to give his team an extra goal advantage. And it proved worth while as West Ham nearly got back in the game after a Carlton Cole header, but Fernando Torres got his second of the game to give Liverpool a 4-2 win and the three points.
Lois Saha also submitted his form for Volley contender this season, knocking home a nicely placed cross by Leighton Baines. Saha added another for Everton before Joseph Yobo sealed the points for the Toffees as they saw off Blackburn 4-0.
Now remember the article a few weeks ago where we asked you to spot any megs we might have missed, well it seemed to have worked as Christian ‘Chucho’ Benitez converted what is said to be a fantastic megs for Birmingham in their game against Hull. We at Lovely are yet to see the megs but will post it when we find a video. So for know we will take the word of Dan Copeman from Loughborough and Johnny Ryall from Newcastle, and accept that Birmingham won the game 2-0. Cheers for that lads.
With the megs and volleys rounded up, we’ll look at the rest of the weekends action. And we’ll start at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea proved that Tottenham have still got a long way to go before they can contend with the big boys as they were comfortably beaten 3-0 with goals coming from Ashley Cole, Michael Ballack and Didier Drogba.
Congatulations to David Nugent, after a torrid time at Portsmouth, Nugent wasted no time in opening his account for Burnley. Nugent came off the bench to win three points for Burnley scoring two in the Clarets 3-1 victory over Sunderland. Dave Kitson also continued his rich vein of form for Stoke against Bolton. Unfortunately Kitson’s effort wasn’t enough as Matty Taylor scored a late penalty to earn a point for Bolton. Wolves grabbed their first home victory of the season, beating Fulham 2-1 thanks to goals from Kevin Doyle and Dave Edwards, with Danny Murphy grabbing the consolation goald for Fulham via the penalty spot. To wrap up this week we will consoling Portsmouth as they set a new record for the start of a Premier League season, yes even Derby started better than this! Pompey slumped to their sixth consecutive defeat at the hands of Aston Villa after goals from James Milner and Gabriel Agbonlahor. Sorry Pompey, perhaps look for a few megs in you next couple of games and you might creep up our league at least.
Tables to be updated later. Keep Volleying.
