Soccer Central

Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Manchester United all failed to score in today’s fixtures, three of the teams only managing 0-0 draws, and Arsenal succumbing to a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester City. It wasn’t a good day for the big four teams in England; Manchester United had a chance to claw some points back on League leaders Chelsea and Liverpool with their late kick off game against Aston Villa, they couldn’t do any better than the teams they were chasing however and it was 0-0 draws all round for the three top teams in English football right now.

Manchester United had won their last 11 games away at Aston Villa, and their last twelve games against the club in fact. United showed a phobia of unlucky thirteen however, and kept the record at ‘just’ twelve consecutive victories against Villa.

So there wasn’t a single goal scored by the big four teams today, just twelve goals were scored in the English Premier League, and once more the league was shaken up and many teams moved up and down. Two more games will be played tomorrow as Sunderland host West Ham and Blackburn travel to Tottenham, then on Monday Everton head to Wigan hoping for three points which would take them up to sixth.

Every week there’s usually a hammering which takes place courtesy of one of the top four teams, not today though, and beaten 3-0; today it was Arsenal’s turn to be on the receiving end of a heavy defeat. Aston Villa have now overtaken Arsenal in fourth, and with Arsenal seemingly weakening all the time; this could be Aston Villa’s year, and this could well be the season that Martin O’Neill’s men break the top four. It’d certainly be refreshing to see a new team in the Champions League next season, and if anyone’s going to do it then I believe it’ll be Villa.