There were a lot of headlines from this past weekend of action in the English Premier League, ranging from Manchester United’s dominant win over listless Liverpool to Manchester City’s start of life without Sergio Aguero. We monitored everything that went down and have rounded up the three main takeaways we had from the Premier League this week.
Even Though Aguero Is Sidelined, Manchester City Is Far From Done Yet
Manchester City’s pursuit of Chelsea atop the table took a major hit when Sergio Aguero was lost for six weeks with ligament damage in his knee. However, a relatively mediocre schedule over the next few weeks might be their saving grace as they wait for the league’s leading scorer to return. First up was this past weekend’s 1-0 win over lowly Leicester as Frank Lampard provided the lone marker in a game that City never really looked at risk of letting the three points get away. The final score might indicate otherwise, but Leicester wasn’t much of a threat here.
City is still three points back of Chelsea in the table but they’ll have plenty of opportunities to make up some ground thanks to the schedule. They’ve got a row of cupcakes lined up with Crystal Palace next, followed by West Brom, Burnley, Sunderland, and Everton to make up the next couple of weeks on agenda. City will count on Lampard, Yaya Toure, and Edin Dzeko to step up – as they did versus Leicester – and if that holds true while Aguero is nursing his injury, don’t expect the Citizens to lose much ground in the table.
Liverpool Is In Absolute Ruins
Liverpool exited the Champions League after a 1-1 draw with Basel and then followed it up with a brutal 3-0 loss to Manchester United. Both performances were quite disheartening. Their lack of scoring has been a major storyline all year but their lack of control at the back end has not been talked about enough.
It was on full display against United. There were moments when Liverpool looked completely lost. The defense was exposed as Liverpool fell 10 points back of Man U for third in the Premier League standings and they are still five points back of Southampton for fifth.
Manager Brendan Rodgers said after the game that they understood what went wrong and where they need to be better, but after a pair of listless performances at a key time in the season, it’s clear that Liverpool is in big trouble. It could get much worse before it gets better for a club that was expected to be a true contender this season. It’s somewhat hard to believe that they aren’t even in the top 10.
De Gea Is An Elite Keeper, United A Contender
It wasn’t that long ago that Manchester United was in big trouble too, but they have dramatically turned their season around and the play of netminder David De Gea has been instrumental in the change. Gunnar Solkskjaer called De Gea’s performance versus Liverpool the best performance he had ever seen from a United keeper at Old Trafford.
With the win, United has now won six straight overall to climb five points clear of Southampton separating third from fifth. Manager Louis Van Gaal still thinks his team has to improve dramatically but they continue to find ways to get results and if they can find a way to keep on securing maximum points while improving on the field, they certainly have the potential to catch Chelsea. It’s important to remember that United is winning without Daley Blind, Angel Di Maria, Marcos Rojo, and Luke Shaw and they could get a boost with one or more of those names returning to the line up soon. And they still have one more meeting with Chelsea later in the year, on April 18th,where they will have the opportunity to make up some ground. This is a team that’s clearly on the rise.
