Harry Kane’s lone goal in the 48th minute put the finishing touches on a 4-0 aggregate victory for Tottenham over Borussia Dortmund on Tuesday, putting Spurs into the quarterfinals of the Champions League for the first time since 2011.
Merseyside rivals Everton dealt Liverpool’s Premier League title aspirations a heavy blow on Sunday by frustrating the Reds time after time during a 0-0 stalemate at Goodison Park.
There are still nine matches remaining in the season, but the draw has handed control back to Manchester City in the title race. The Citizens now have a one-point advantage and control their own destiny. They’ve also won five straight league games, certainly an ominous harbinger for a Liverpool side that’s won only two of its last six.
It’s easy to be critical of the Premier League thinking its referees are good enough to not need the help of video replay to get calls right. So we’ll do just that. The North London Derby highlights were marred by two penalty calls that VAR never would have allowed, resulting in a 1-1 draw between Tottenham and Arsenal on Saturday at Wembley Stadium.
The result meant the end to Spurs’ remarkable run of 35 Premier League matches without a draw, a Premier League record.
Mesut Özil scored his fourth goal of the Premier League season in Arsenal’s fairly simple 5-1 win over Bournemouth on Wednesday.
Özil’s strike opened the scoring in the fourth minute, having been played in by Sead Kolasinac. The German had only the keeper to beat, and he did so with relative ease. But his shot was anything but usual.
For the longest time, those that weren’t particularly enamored with the Abu Dhabi Royal Family Sky Blues steamrolling their way to three EPL titles in seven years had one piece of consolation: Since the club’s last First Division title hadn’t come since 1968 and since they’d spent so long in the shadow of neighbors Manchester United, City was viewed as a team without fans (at least when compared to United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea).
Chelsea manager Maurizio Sarri elected to bench starting goalkeeper Kepa for Chelsea’s hosting of Tottenham.
The benching ended in favor of Sarri as the Spurs failed to get a shot on goal against veteran keeper Willy Caballero in a 2-0 victory on Wednesday. The Argentine was not tested in the net as the few shots Tottenham managed to get off were wide.
On the Blues’ side, Pedro played phenomenal after nutmegging Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris.
It seems like not everyone is happy with Brendan Rodger's move to Leicester City.
The Northern Irishman and former Liverpool manager was announced as the Foxes' new manager on Tuesday after the sacking of Claude Puel. Rodgers spent the last two-and-a-half seasons as the manager of Scottish giant Celtic, leading the Goops to two Scottish Premier Leagues, two Scottish Cups and three Scottish League Cup titles.
Sometimes you have to wonder about the hype surrounding the English Premier League. You’re supposed to treat Manchester United-Liverpool like a druid at the summer solstice, but it turns out to be 90 minutes of apocalyptic despair.
You then put on Newcastle United-Burnley and see Atlanta United’s Miguel Almiron bossing things, $66 million Liverpool target James Tarkowski sky a sitter from yards out and commentators treat the introduction of a 38-year-old Peter Crouch like the second coming of Marco van Basten.