Premier League winners and losers: Arsenal provide more schadenfreude
By Ty Finch
The Premier League is back after another international break. Here are the winners and losers from matchweek 8.
The week following an international break is often bewildering. Fatigue and injuries from national team duties force managers to tinker with team selection and tactics, and players often have little time to recover following lengthy travel. Matchweek 8 of the Premier League was no different. While the big matchup of the week failed to deliver on expectations, there were more than enough surprises to make up for it.
Here are the winners and losers of the Premier League weekend.
Winner: Crystal Palace
Yes, Crystal Palace! Not only did they score a goal; they won! Against Chelsea! I’d put them down for all three winners spots if that was allowed, but alas, there were others who deserved them.
Palace went six matches without scoring a single goal before Sunday. That’s 540 straight minutes of goalless play. You could drive from Cincinnati to New York in the time it took Palace to score one league goal, and I’m sure that would be more preferable than sitting through those six goalless matches.
In the past few iterations of this column, I’ve noted how unlucky Palace were to not score a single goal through six games. They hit the post a few times, missed a couple of absolute sitters and whiffed on a few big chances. On Sunday, their luck finally came through, as their first goal came from a deflected scramble in front of the net. Cesar Azpilicueta was credited for an owl goal, but Palace fans couldn’t care less. It finally got them off the mark.
Not only did they score their first two goals, but they beat Chelsea in the process. The champions were missing a few key players after the international break, but take nothing away from Palace’s performance. They were the better side on the day. Wilfred Zaha was constantly applying pressure to the back line, and he scored the eventual winner, ghosting past Azpilicueta, who had one of his worst games as a Chelsea player.
Even Mamadou Sakho’s perplexing back-heel in his own penalty box in the waning moments of the game couldn’t stop Palace from picking up their first points of the season. It was just their day. Frankly, it had to happen sometime.