Premier League winners and losers: Water is wet, Arsenal lose at Stoke

Loser: Stoke vs. Arsenal

The “can he do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke” quote is almost as clichéd now as it was obnoxious then. It’s also a description for the monotonous, unsightly and bewildering match that took place on national television on Saturday afternoon.

Here are some better things you could’ve done with the two hours it took to play this match: watch roughly five and a half episodes of “Two Broke Girls,” silently stare at a piece of burnt toast, listen to The Chainsmokers new album twice or drive an hour to nowhere in a traffic jam and then drive back.

I could fill up the entire “losers” section with various happenings from this contest. Instead of subjecting you, the reader to re-live the worst match of the week three separate times, I have graciously compiled it into one grotesque section.

The refereeing was a disaster. While this could be said about half of all Premier League matches, this was no ordinarily poorly refereed contest. It will come up later on in this article, assuredly.

Stoke fans were at their usual Stoke-iest, booing Aaron Ramsey every time he touched the ball. The reason? Because he was on the receiving end of a literal bone-breaking horror tackle from Ryan Shawcross seven years ago, and a vociferous portion of Stoke fans can’t get over the fact he recovered from it.

Arsenal were at their Arsenal-iest as well. Pretty passing, movement and combination play that led nowhere, while in shambles defensively because Arsene Wenger decided to play a left-back at center-back and switch his wing-backs on a whim. Combined with Stoke setting up shop in their defensive third, it all added up to a no good, very bad match to watch.