Premier League Weekend: The Talking Points – Leicester FineForm Continues
By Kevin Kelly
While it was Chelsea who were crowned champions on Sunday, here we will review the talking points from the rest of The Premier League weekend (see here for Chelsea specific talking points). Wins for Leicester City and Aston Villa reasserted their fight against relegation while Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool stopped the rot with a narrow victory at home to QPR. Co-Editor Kevin Kelly discusses all the pertinent talking points below.
Survival for Leicester and Aston Villa Stays Alive:
The bottom of the table in The Premier League always excites at this time of year and this season is no exception. Nigel Pearson’s Leicester City have won five games in their previous six Premier League outings – which included a respectable performance vs. champions Chelsea – which has lifted them up to 16th place.
Leicester City faced an embarrassingly dour Newcastle sided and swatted them aside winning 3-0 with striker Leonardo Ulloa being key to the victory, scoring twice on the day, which means he has now struck the back of the net 12 times this season and assisted twice in all competitions; a fine return for the 28 year-old Argentinian striker.
Aston Villa are another relatively resurgent side in the bottom half looking to avoid relegation. The Birmingham based side hosted Everton on Saturday afternoon in what surprisingly turned out to be a five-goal thriller, in which Tim Sherwood’s Wembley bound side won 3-2 with Christian Benteke pivotal to the victory, scoring twice on the day.
Villa now sit in 14th place, two points clear of 18th placed Sunderland. With just two points separating 14th and 18th the run-in is guaranteed to provide Premier League fans with the most exciting relegation battle in years.
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Rodgers’ Reds Stop The Rot:
Having gone on a terrible run in the past four weeks, with consecutive losses to Manchester United and Arsenal, followed by an embarrassing FA Cup exit to Aston Villa, a turgid draw vs. West Brom and another loss to Hull City, the time for Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool to get their act together had arguably come and gone.
Despite that, Liverpool narrowly saw off an aggressive QPR side fighting for their Premier League lives on Saturday. The game, which it’s early stages were marred by some overly-aggressive challenges, saw PFA Team of the Year member Philippe Coutinho striker his fifth Premier League goal of the season, leaving keeper’ Rob Green hapless.
Not only that, but we had time for perhaps the last ever Steven Gerrard goal – a winner in front of the famous Kop stand. The Liverpool missed a penalty in the dying minutes with Liverpool pegged back level to 1-1, and the game – and his career – looked to be dwindling away painfully. But thankfully for Liverpool fans, he had the last laugh, scoring a fine header to provide Rodgers’ Reds with the three points and fans with memories to saviour for years to come.
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Sanchez Signing of the Season:
Scoring twice against Hull City on Monday night Sanchez was the star of the show as Arsenal put out all the stops to reassert their vastly improved form in the past 18 months. Alexis Sanchez topped this week’s EA Sports’ Performance Index following the performance. The Arsenal forward has 16 goals and eight assists in 31 appearances, with a direct contribution to a goal in a game every 108 minutes in The Premier League.
Wenger, who holds Sanchez in very high esteem, has regularly purred over the consistently scintillating performances of his marquee player.
“Yes (he has exceeded all my expectations) because I expected him to be more of a provider than a goalscorer,” Wenger told Sky Sports.
“And especially because I play him on the flank where you have less chances. But he has the timing and the quality of his runs are very good and he gets in good positions to finish.”