Yesterday was a SUPER matchday as almost all the giants were going for a fight. Except for Arsenal got a last-minute comeback draw against Southampton, no upsets happened at all.
In case you missed it, we prepared a review for the peaceful but no quiet night.
West Ham 2-3 Tottenham
Goals from Son Heung-min, Lucas Moura and Harry Kane saw Tottenham win 3-2 at West Ham in Jose Mourinho's debut game at the helm.
Mourinho could not have hoped for a better fixture to start with after replacing Mauricio Pochettino this week with West Ham low on confidence amid a poor run of form.
Spurs looked livelier than in recent weeks, but it is hard to judge their performance against a team lacking inspiration as pressure grows on Pellegrini. Firmer challenges are on the way for Mourinho and his new side.
Among the Spurs players to badly lose form in the latter period of Pochettino's spell in charge, Alli shone in a confident performance and regularly exploited space in the final third.
The midfielder has lost his England place but could fight his way back into Euro 2020 contention if he continues to impress.
Man City 2-1 Chelsea
Manchester City came from behind to claim a valuable 2-1 win at home to Chelsea and move up to third in the Premier League table, although Saturday's victory was marred by injury concerns for Rodri, David Silva and Sergio Aguero.
This was far from a vintage City display as they struggled to dominate possession in their usual fashion, but they did enough to recover from a damaging defeat at Liverpool last time out - their third Premier League loss of the season - though Pep Guardiola may be concerned about Aguero's injury, in particular. Chelsea slip to fourth, dropping below City, after suffering a first league loss since September.
Bernardo Silva's suspension handed Mahrez a chance to shine and the Algeria winger provided a wonderful winner for City, his first league goal since September coming at the perfect time.
It was a dramatic international break for Sterling, who was dropped by England for a Euro 2020 qualifier following an altercation with Liverpool defender Joe Gomez. The City forward did not provide enough defensive cover for Mendy on Saturday and was well below his effervescent best in attack, though he would have scored at the death but for a marginal offside call aided by video technology.
Leganes 1-2 Barcelona
Barcelona beat Leganes away from home. This was a match they lost last season (where Gerard Piqué, quite incredibly, passed the ball to an attacker for one of Leganes’ goals) and yet they won it this season.
The victory ensured that the Blaugrana, barring Real Madrid demolishing Real Sociedad by four goals or more, would finish the gameweek top of the league.
It was also a match in which Barcelona came from behind, too. Leganes took the lead through a Youssef En-Nesyri wondergoal and the Blaugrana looked all over the place. Yet they gathered themselves, rallied, and gritted their way to an important away win. These are all good things, so what’s the problem?
The problem is Leganes have won just once all season. They are bottom of La Liga with just six points. They are not a good side, and yet they gave Barcelona no end of problems. After the match Ernesto Valverde spoke positively of the result, but the performance was shockingly poor. Both goals came from set-pieces (and one of those wasn’t even intentional) and the open play creativity was shocking.
Real Madrid 3-1 Real Sociedad
In many ways, Real Madrid rode their luck against Real Sociedad.La Real started the game much brighter and for 37 minutes were comfortably the better side. They should have been ahead by more than a single goal when Madrid equalised late in the first-half, but that rocked their confidence. Even then, when Los Blancos took the lead it was a heavily deflected potshot.
From there, Real Madrid were incredible. The goal rallied them and they began closing down on the Sociedad attacks with greater assurance and driving forward in attack with absurd ease. They began creating chances and half-chances every time they attacked their plucky visitors. They only scored three goals but it could have been so much more had they been a bit more clinical.
Zinedine Zidane’s rotation has Real Madrid in an ideal rhythm right now. They have a couple of clearly essential and standout individuals in Karim Benzema and Fede Valverde; the Frenchman is a colossus up-top, holding the ball up, linking play and scoring goals with glorious control. His assist for Madrid’s third goal was sumptuous.
Meanwhile Valverde is the lungs of Madrid’s machine. He moves up and down the field, covering team-mates in defence and supporting the forwards in attack. He gave Madrid the lead with a heavily deflected effort, but the fact that he was in place to take the shot on speaks to his attitude. He was always pushing forward, always trying to make something happen.
Granada 1-1 Atletico Madrid
Everyone wanted Atlético Madrid to do well this season. Hell, everyone expected Atlético Madrid to do well this season. Yes, they lost Antoine Griezmann but they signed the incredible Joao Felix as well as several other promising talents. However they’ve struggled to find their best rhythm this season, and this afternoon at Granada was no exception.
Diego Simeone’s men dominated Granada, out-shooting their opponent 17-9. Yet they scored just once, a lovely finish from Renan Lodi. Ordinarily that would be enough for Atleti who have made a habit of sitting on 1-0 leads and seeing them out. But they are not themselves this season, whether that’s Simeone running out of ideas or a lack of quality in his new recruits, they are definitely worse than they were.
This was most clearly seen in the Granada equaliser. A header. From a corner. Granada absorbed loads of Atleti pressure, got a bit lucky with Simeone’s men missing some good chances, made things very argumentative and ugly to disrupt their hosts attacking rhythm and then struck when they had their chance.
That’s exactly what Atlético Madrid made a habit of doing to other sides only to now have it done to them. They missed the chance to leapfrog rivals Real Madrid and rise into second place and were in fact lucky to escape with a point as Granada missed a sitter at the death.
Arsenal 2-2 Southampton
Alexandre Lacazette scored deep in stoppage-time to rescue Arsenal a 2-2 draw at the end of a disjointed performance against struggling Southampton.
The match summed up in one stat… Arsenal have failed to win in five consecutive Premier League games for the first time since 2011, losing two and drawing three.
What does this mean for the Premier League? Arsenal have moved up to sixth while Southampton remain in the relegation zone.
Man of the match? Danny Ings, who opened the scoring and won Southampton’s penalty.
Spare a thought for… Danny Ings. The English striker has been in good goalscoring form this season, being directly responsible for 46.2% of Southampton’s 13 Premier League goals. This has seen him score against Liverpool, Wolves, Everton, Tottenham, Chelsea and Arsenal so far. But Southampton fans may wish that Ings would stop scoring, with Saints yet to win a game in which the Englishman has found the net.
Brighton & Hove Albion 0-2 Leicester City
There was late VAR drama in Leicester's 2-0 win at Brighton on Saturday as Jamie Vardy was made to re-take a penalty after James Maddison's rebounded goal was disallowed.
The match summed up in one stat… Jamie Vardy has scored in each of his past five Premier League appearances.
What does this mean for the Premier League? Leicester remain second, eight points behind Liverpool while Brighton are also unmoved in 12th.
Man of the match? Jamie Vardy, who recorded an assist before extending his lead as the Premier League’s top scorer.
Are Leicester title challengers? It wasn’t a resounding win but Leicester City’s season rolled on and they kept the heat on league leaders Liverpool. Brendan Rodgers’ side have won their past five Premier League games and have opened up a 10-point gap to fifth place, but is it time to consider them genuine title contenders?
Crystal Palace 1-2 Liverpool
Liverpool's stunning start to the Premier League campaign continued as Roberto Firmino's late strike secured a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Saturday.
The match summed up in one stat… Sadio Mane has scored in each of his last five Premier League games against Crystal Palace.
What does this mean for the Premier League? Liverpool remain eight points clear at the top of the table, while Crystal Palace drop to 14th.
Man of the match? Virgil van Dijk, who was key to helping Liverpool hold off a Crystal Palace onslaught in the first half.
Spare a thought for… James Tomkins. Just before half-time, the centre-back thought he had given Crystal Palace the lead. It would have been his first goal since January, which also came against Liverpool. However, the goal was ruled out after a consultation with VAR, with Jordan Ayew having pushed Dejan Lovren inside the area moments before Tomkins put the ball in the back of the net.
Other Games...
Dusseldorf 0-4 Bayern
Atalanta 1-3 Juventus
Milan 1-1 Napoli
Torino 0-3 Inter
Flamengo 2-1 River Plate