SEVEN Things I noticed from the Premier League this week

Once A Blue, Sometimes a (bit) Blue – Everton 3-1 Man United –Not being booed incessantly seemed to put off former Tof Idol Wayne Rooney at Goodison, and despite seemingly trying to grow a good enough beard to imitate a garden gnome, his only glint of success in his former garden came when he rounded Tim Howard and was muscled off the ball by Phil Neville. Yep, Phil Neville. And when Wayne Rooney is muscled off the ball by Phil Neviile, you know it’s not gonna be Manchester United’s day. Everton claimed another impressive scalp after their over running of Chelsea last week, and the only sour note of the day for the Toffees was the knowledge that if they’d started the season better they’d probably be up there with Spurs and Villa fighting for fourth. Despite their best player Mikel Arteta – who’ve I’ve decided looks far too much like a pool boy from a trashy American soap opera whom Joan Collins would definitely have an affair with – being quiet, they were driven by great performances from Distin, Osman and Pienaar plus inspired substitutions from Moyes. I’m now going to spend the next week developing my 1970s porn detective duo series which, for those who didn’t read my last article, will likely sound completely insane.

All The Better To Beat You With – Wolves 0-2 Chelsea –- After being briefed about the importance of protecting the club’s image in the week, Chelsea seemed to start this match under the impression that the club’s image was that of a crap team struggling to contain Wolverhampton Wanderers. Wolves had by far the better of the opening exchanges until Zhirkov decided to stop spanking the monkey and start feeding the Drog (sorry, that was appalling, but I couldn’t resist it) In the second half Mick McCarthy’s side again had the better of the chances but failed to stop Drogba – now inescapably resembling something from Pirates of the Caribbean with that hair style – raping and pillaging their back line. Winning when not playing well is the mark of Champions, or so everyone keeps saying.

The Children Who Grew Too Fast – Arsenal 2-0 Sunderland – Constantly criticized for being unable to adapt from their “let’s try and pass it in to the net” style of play, Arsenal seem to have spent the last few weeks thriving entirely off crosses, individual runs, tap ins and other non neat pass specific types of play – just to try and prove everybody wrong. The Gunners only real tactic in the first half consisted of seeing how much they could humiliate George McCartney by hitting it towards him and watching Theo Walcott gain 10 yards in 2 seconds and dump him on his arse. This game should’ve been about 4-3 to Arsenal but instead we had to settle for 2-0 from a tap in and a penalty. Very un-Arsenal like, but maybe Wenger’s learning that’s the way to actually win titles.

Painting By Numbers – Man City 0-0 Liverpool – The second Liverpool match in a week that almost had me collecting stamps, and the only thing remotely interesting about this encounter was the rumors surfacing that morning that Gary Cook allegedly wanted to make Torres and Gerrard his latest global franchise entities at Eastlands. As Spurs and Villa helped their cause elsewhere, Liverpool and City seemed to be trying to out do each other in an epic battle of “who doesn’t want fourth place most”. Emmanuel Adebayor – inexplicably wearing what looked like Alan Partridge driving gloves – came the closest to breaking the dead lock, but that was about it. I missed the last 15 minutes because I had to make sure my paint was drying properly.

The Man from Diamanti - West Ham 3-0 Hull – Some awful defending by Hull – which encouraged Alan Hansen on MoTD, for some reason looking like death warmed up but warmed up badly in a microwave so no matter how alive he may have looked on the outside he was almost certainly frozen solid on the inside – saw missing link Gianfranco Zola’s free flowing ‘Ammers side climb slightly further up the table. Alessandro Diamanti almost did a Beckham, Julian Foubert delivered possibly the ball of the season for Carlton Cole to score West Ham’s second and Craig Fagan was seemingly sent off for standing slightly too close to Diamanti.

A Walk in the (Villa) Park - Aston Villa 5-2 Burnley -  Aston Villa managed to thrash Burnley – who continue to be amazing at home but Essex girls after a night on Lambrini away (lying down for anyone in case you’re wondering) – by not playing any better than them. Ashley Young leveled for Villa with one of those goals that goes through a heaving mass of bodies without touching anyone, which I assumed was lucky, until Stewart Downing scored his first Villa goal by doing practically the same exact thing. For a second I was lulled into thinking they were both utter Geniuses, until Downing scored a second via a massive deflection and my opinion swung straight back to lucky as quick as a text message of me in my Y-fronts might do if I was into that sort of thing, or those sort of pants.

The (Roman) Emperors New Clothes – Wigan 0-3 Spurs – Dressed as bananas and playing in a swamp, Tottenham managed to beat the dreaded curse of Tottenham and take advantage of a weaker team at a crucial stage of the season. Despite a clear offside goal from Jermain Defoe, Spurs could have won this match by about 6 goals but had to settle for 3 after Roman Pavlyuchenko pounced twice in the second half whilst wearing the infuriating combo of gloves and a short sleeved shirt. Both Defoe and Crouch could have added to the scoreline but were probably disadvantaged by not wearing a vest and a beanie, or a polar neck and Y-fronts.

Other Things I Noticed:

Two storming goals from Fulham couldn’t distract me from the fact that Capello and Trapattoni, watching from the stands, looked like a scene from a bad Leslie Nielson mafia movie. Unfortunately – and I mean that – Such a movie already exists, but I won’t tell you what it’s called for the sake of humanity itself. Sam Allardyce obviously incurred the wrath of God somehow for facing his old team with his new one by being forced to play in 3 different weather conditions within an hour, Porstmouth continue to be the most wretchedly unlucky club in the history of the Premier League, but might avoid that particular ignominy by not actually being a club by the end of the season and Jamie O’Hara wears silly tiny pants. Seriously man, everyone upgraded to boxers 15 years ago. And that goes for you too Ashley.