10 Things We Learned From The English Premier League Football Weekend (23-25 Sept 2017)
The wheel slowly spins.
It's looking increasingly like a two-horse race for this season's Premier League crown.
In the red corner, Manchester United are a machine of ruthless efficiency - powerful and, the Stoke draw aside, impervious to opposition pressure. What they lack in knife-through-butter passing, they make up for with the best goalkeeper on the planet and a sturdy back four similarly impervious to injury. The Reds can also take solace in the fact that, if the renaissance of Henrikh Mkhitaryan is any indication, all is not yet lost for the promising but sidelined Victor Lindelöf.
In the blue corner, Manchester City are in sensational form. Their attacks aren't so much attacks as full-on deluges which overwhelm their jobber rivals from all angles. At present, last year's defensive woes look like mere teething problems. That's what spending £150M on full backs, a curious and somewhat damning stat, will do for their chances of supremacy. They have also solved the Sergio Aguero problem. The Argentine missed almost quarter of the previous two PL seasons - but there are beautifully-worked goals throughout their stunning-to-watch midfield and forward areas.
That said - the blue corner was further bolstered this weekend, potentially changing the title race into a Triple Threat match...
10. A Long Term Stay Of Execution
For all their home woes, Tottenham Hotspur remain a fantastic side to watch.
The opening goal triggered harrowing hope for the neutral that England have half a chance of not shattering our hearts in the summer. Dele Alli's inch-perfect cross teed up Harry Kane for the opener, and it was as good a header as you're likely to see all season, meeting each and every criteria; it was both glancing and powerful, and so perfectly directed into the far corner that Joe Hart had absolutely no chance of stopping it. The same devastating 9 & 10 combo combined to double Spurs' lead. It was less pretty, but no less heartening for Spurs fans. This partnership, at its best, is calibrated perfectly to score goals.
The subplot of the away win concerns the manager of the home side; languishing in 18th, the scythe hovers so closely above his head that he needn't pay for a haircut - and yet, his side showed enough to almost rival Spurs' class with pure spirit, coming agonisingly close to cancelling out Christian Eriksen's third with a vintage Javier Hernandez headed poacher's finish and a full-on Cheikhou Kouyaté bullet.
They saved themselves from a proper pummelling - and might have saved Slaven Bilić from the axe. Given that there are goals in this West Ham side, it's hard to tip them for relegation, irrespective of their lowly standing.