The EPL Report

It’s almost Christmas, and in terms of the EPL, this means football by the bucket-load! So with the abundance of footy coming our way, the EPL report is brought to you early this week, as I attempt to break down the movers and shakers of match-day 16.

We start off this weeks round-up with the six games played on Saturday, and specifically with the continuing woes of Bolton Wanderers. Things are looking extremely grim as we move into the holiday period, and going down to Fulham and suffering yet another defeat does not help the cause. Clint Dempsey and Bryan Ruiz scored the goals as Fulham walked away 2-0 winners, leaving Bolton firmly rooted to the foot of the table with a miserly 9 pts. Bolton chairman Phil Garside must be wishing he has a visit from the ghost of Christmas Past, aka Big Sam, and that it all turns out to be a dream. Not likely though as the ghost of Christmas future says its Championship football for you. Also facing the drop is Blackburn, who went down 2-1 to West Brom at Ewood Park. Steve Kean stated after the game that these are the clashes they must win in the future. My crystal ball says you may not have to worry about that for much longer Stevo.

Wolves got off to the perfect start against Stoke as Steven Hunt scored a 17th minute penalty to put the Doggies in the lead. However that proved a batch of false hope as a Kevin Doyle own goal and a 70th minute strike by the human javelin secured all three points for the Potters. They may have some of the worst fans in the country, play rubbish football and be full of Spurs-rejects, but Stoke are in 8th with an outside chance of Europe again so who cares what we think? At St James Park, Newcastle continued their stuttering recent form with a 0-0 draw against Swansea *Insert continuing Welsh joke here*. The highlight of the game came at the final whistle as fans were finally allowed to go home.

BBC Sports Formula 1 host, and massive Canaries fan, Jake Humphrey’s made a Twitter plea this week for the BBC’s Football Focus to stop drawing attention to how good Grant Holt is as they fear the bigger, badder predators might come and snap him up. Well Jake, I think he’s doing a good job of that himself. He scored his 7th league goal of the season against Everton as Norwich pulled off a 1-1 draw against the Toffeemen who themselves have slipped perilously into 14th place. Talk of an Olympic call-up for young Holt may not be too far off the mark if he continues his rich vein of form. Saturdays final game came at the DW Stadium as Chelsea travelled up north to face Wigan. A Chelsea win would have seen them two points behind United in third place, and a 58th minute goal from Daniel Sturridge seemingly put them on their way. But Chelsea sat back and allowed Wigan to get back at them, and in the 88th minute Jordi Gomez struck an equaliser and secured an unlikely point.

A cold and Frosty Sunday filled with EPL treats kicked off at Loftus Road at lunchtime with QPR hosting Man Utd. United, buoyed by Chelsea’s failure to capitalise on the earlier game, and by getting an early one over City, took the game to QPR straight from kickoff. Wayne Rooney opened the scoring within the first minute with the third fastest goal of the season. Neil Warnocks men couldn’t live with United for the first 30 mins as United passed at will, squandering a number of chances along the way. Michael Carrick sealed the win on 56 minutes with a 60 yard run and goal that would have made Ronaldo proud. Liverpool quickly followed suit by securing a 2-0 away win o their own against Aston Villa at Villa Park. Bellamy and Skrtel putting Liverpool 2 up within 15 minutes before Suarez nearly scored a third in the second half, his shot coming off the post.

Spurs face Chelsea on Thursday night in a key game which could see the whites pull away from the blues in third place. And they made sure they go into that game in prime position as Roman Pavlyuchenko secured a 1-0 home win against Sunderland. Unfortunately, Spurs go into that game missing both Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon, who are both key players to how Spurs play. Rumour is that neither player is injured, it’s just ‘Arry is resting them for an important game against a tough opponent. The final game of the weekend saw Robin Van Persie travel up the M6 to face Man City and the Etihad Stadium. City, who suffered their first loss of the season last week against Chelsea, and lost top spot to city rivals United earlier in the afternoon, put on a workman like display to secure the 3 points and regain top spot. Christmas certainly came early in Manchester as City’s bonkers striker Mario Balotelli is rumoured to have driven around the city on Saturday night, dressed as Santa, giving money to the homeless. If it was any other player, I’d 100% think it was false but as ‘Super’ Mario has shown us this season, anything is possible!