{"id":933,"date":"2016-09-27T01:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-09-27T05:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=933"},"modified":"2016-09-26T22:52:49","modified_gmt":"2016-09-27T02:52:49","slug":"premier-league-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2016\/09\/27\/premier-league-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Points: This week&#8217;s Premier League notes"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Talking Points: This week&#8217;s Premier League notes<\/h2>\n<h3>Joyeux Anniversarie, Arsene Wenger<\/h3>\n<p>With Arsene Wenger losing his 500th and 1000th games in charge of Arsenal against Chelsea, anniversaries do not quite work out well for him. However a thrilling first half performance against clueless and sluggish Chelsea set up a perfect anniversary treat. Moreover, it felt rather like a highlight reel of Wenger&#8217;s Arsenal career.<\/p>\n<p>His eleven showed quick-fire passing and excellent movement\u00a0to carve up Chelsea&#8217;s defenders. Alexis Sanchez seems to have taken to the number nine role, and watching the Chilean tangle David Luiz and Gary Cahill&#8217;s legs were inspiring. The manager\u00a0will certainly feel good about the emergence of another reliable defensive partnership in Laurent Koscielny and Shokdran Mustafi. They were strong when they needed to be, and were the anchor the club has been looking for.<\/p>\n<p>It was a blistering first half performance followed by a professional second half display. The match showed that Arsenal can hold their nerve against their rivals. His best years might be behind him but Wenger\u00a0reminded everyone why he is known as\u00a0&#8220;Le Professeur&#8221;.<\/p>\n<h3>City In Cruise Control<\/h3>\n<p>Goals from Sergio Aguero and a sublime solo effort\u00a0from Raheem Sterling ensured Manchester City continued their perfect\u00a0start to the season. It is almost frightening to see Pep Guardiola change a disinterested squad of players into league beaters. Particularly impressive is how has rejuvenated players&#8217; careers, especially with Sterling. The former Liverpool player seems to have reborn after being scapegoated for England&#8217;s poor Euro 2016 performance.<\/p>\n<p>Manchester City are not without drama. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2016\/09\/25\/rise-kevin-de-bruyne\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin De Bryune<\/a>&#8216;s hamstring injury will overshadow their win and the question here is if they can continue to win games without their key man. With Sterling, Aguero, David Silva and company in fine form, the effects of his absence will be minimal.<\/p>\n<h3>West Ham Struggling To Settle In<\/h3>\n<p>Another loss at their taxpayer-funded stadium was a sad indictment of where West Ham are currently. Defensively they are\u00a0all over the place, unable to retain any shape or style and look quite limp upfront with Zaza failing to flatter. West Ham look a little lost and, as\u00a0their new shiny stadium, currently lack any real identity or style. It does not help the fans&#8217; continued protest against seating arrangements and stewards are adding pressure on the East London side\u2014and by the sounds of things, it might be escalating. One can hope they can have their own Super Saturday moment and triumphantly seal three points soon.<\/p>\n<h3>Flourishing Liverpool Continue To Entertain<\/h3>\n<p>A 5-1 win over Hull means\u00a0Liverpool have scored 24 goals in eight league games. It is a further credit to Jurgen Klopp&#8217;s managerial talent to turn an uninspiring Brendan Rodgers led Liverpool into the high tempo machine they currently are. Other keen recipients of Liverpool&#8217;s excellent start include\u00a0Sadio Mane\u00a0with his\u00a0sharp pace and finishing. Adam Lallana\u00a0has shown an excellent\u00a0work rate and pressure, while Phillipe Coutinho\u00a0has demonstrated an\u00a0eye for stunning long range goals. Even playing the likes of Jordan Henderson and James Milner out of position has shown no disadvantage on the players or the team.\u00a0For their attacking flair, Klopp&#8217;s men still\u00a0lack defensive cohesion\u2014maybe a\u00a0reconciliation with\u00a0Mamadou Sakho could fix that.<\/p>\n<h3>United Bounce Back Against Champions<\/h3>\n<p>Losses against Manchester City, Feyenoord and Watford let the memes roll in and joke that Jose Mourinho was already at the third-season stage of the &#8216;Mourinho Managerial Cycle&#8217;. Facing Leicester City was a potential banana skin for United, but a first half demolition was enough to settle nerves and quiet the Einsteins. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2016\/09\/24\/mourinhos-manchester-united-dismantle-reeling-leicester-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A 4-1 win<\/a> including Paul Pogba&#8217;s sharp header will silence fans calling him an overpaid haircut merchant and showed an alternative United side without\u00a0Wayne Rooney can still win games.\u00a0Leicester need to rethink their approach to set pieces and re-approach their games against bigger opponents.<\/p>\n<h3><\/h3>\n<p>Main image credit:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/610107440\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 57.912458% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/610107440?et=XbGLPqdmQ6pddhxlwB3Iew&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=ELYIFzsVBTCc86vMRuQVMWk5js44GCZ45it6Wd_Xb0s=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"344\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Talking Points: This week&#8217;s Premier League notes Joyeux Anniversarie, Arsene Wenger With Arsene Wenger losing his 500th and 1000th games in charge of Arsenal against Chelsea, anniversaries do not quite work out well for him. However a thrilling first half performance against clueless and sluggish Chelsea set up a perfect anniversary treat. Moreover, it felt [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1124,"featured_media":984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,30],"tags":[32738,88,46,36],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-premier-league","category-news","tag-arsenal-fixtures","tag-arsene-wenger","tag-chelsea","tag-manchester-united"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}