Team of the Week:

                                                   Lloris (Spurs)

    Olsson (West Brom)              Caulker (Cardiff)               Davies (Swansea)

Gnabry (Arsenal)   Sigurdsson (Spurs)   Ramsey (Arsenal)   Amalfitano (West Brom)

                                             Barkley (Everton)

                     Sturridge (Liverpool)                        Lukaku (Everton)

Manchester Rain:

Both City and United slipped up over the weekend with the former losing 2 in-a-row in the league. the biggest blow falls to United because of this but also considering last week’s defeat was a 4-1 thrashing against City while this week they lost at home to West Brom for the first time since 1978 – officially the worst start a Man Utd team has made in the Premier League years. City also managed to lose 3-2 away to Villa despite taking the lead twice. All the big clubs that have had managerial changes are the slowest starters; it should be common sense that such changes take time to become familiar for all involved but modern football dictates results and quickly, either way we got a very close season ahead.  

Now it’s easy to sit here and say that Man Utd don’t look good, they are struggling under new management, Moyes hasn’t got a clue. This was always going to be the case though; it was never going to go swimmingly. However the media often lack logic with their reporting and often miss the bigger picture and we’re seeing that with Moyes and even Mourinho who stormed out of a press conference yesterday. Surprisingly Pellegrini seems to have avoided some of the media flack for some unknown reason despite his team definitely looking vulnerable at the back and already throwing away points due to pure carelessness. Now even the most optimistic of Man Utd fans wouldn’t have expected Moyes to go on and win the treble in his first season, in fact if it wasn’t for Chelsea and Man City getting new managers too I doubt the fans would even expect the title. There has to be a period of transition and it may take a season, it would take Sir Alex a season but that’s because he had 20-odd years of continuity behind him, it will take longer for Moyes. Basically we’re 7 games in and Man Utd haven’t started well but is it necessary to doubt the man’s pedigree? Do the media really need to pounce like they do? Give the man some time.

Pellegrini will be very disappointed that they followed up last week’s win with a loss this time as they could have built up some great momentum with that win. The way in which they lost will be more of a worry for Pellegrini. The first girl they conceded was dreadful awareness by the City defence and even though it was offside, they deserved to concede due to their failure to pick up simple runs. Kompany at one stage literally pointed at the space where the Villa player should play the ball and he did. The third and winning goal was nothing short of comical. A straightforward clearance by Guzan in the Villa goal went right in between City’s centre-backs in which Weimann latched onto before Joe Hart to tap home. You can’t throw away goals like that and can’t lose games like that so the British media may not be on your back Pellegrini but I’m in the mood for a Chilean piggy-back.

Hero of the Week:

Hero of the week has to go to Lukaku although he only just edged Sturridge. Lukaku got himself and Everton 2 goals as they beat Newcastle 3-2 on Monday night. Mourinho finds himself with 2 strikers at Chelsea that have yet to score in the league while he has loaned out Lukaku to Everton where he’s got himself 3 goals in 2 games – continuing his form from West Brom last season. It’s a bizzare decision as Lukaku is a goal-scoring machine with a great attitude and there is no doubt he’d get goals for Chelsea. Anyway it's Everton that are enjoying him now and will be until the end of the season if he keeps this up. Without Lukaku I was wondering where their goals were going to come from as Jelavic looked to be going through a dry spot but now they have the big Belgian in there to bang some in. Everton are starting to look good now and Martinez looks like he’ll be showing what he can really do.

Nipple of the Week:

It’s hard to pick nipple of the week this week which is a bummer because I just love those weeks where I can straight go “mmm yep he’s defo the nipple this week” but there hasn’t been anything that stands out. Rio could be highlighted as he got embarrassed by Amalifitano as the Frenchman strolled past with ease into the box to score the goal of the weekend. Chamakh is another who made himself look a bit of a tit as he dived for a penalty when he could have tried to score for Palace but ended up getting booked for simulation. Their quite minor ones but a nipple is a nipple so looks like we got a pair.