Premier League Shorts

The 2019/20 season’s started off like a wild raging bull scampering off a paddock. Liverpool who many pundits will consider as favourites again for the title this season showed why they are so highly rated as they took a shell-shocked Norwich to the cleaners on opening day.

If the Canaries needed any reminding of how brutal the Premier League could be, they got their first taste of its ferocity after Grant Hanley yielded to the unbridled pressure from the hosts by unwittingly poking an Origi cross into his own net. From then on, it was all Liverpool as they romped away to a deserved 4-1 victory.

Last season’s runner ups had laid the marker and it was up to the champions to respond the next day as City travelled to the London Stadium to take on the Hammers. It was a rout. The ever impressive Raheem Sterling helped himself to a hat-trick and if anyone needed any reminding about how ruthless this Manchester City side could be, they only needed to watch how the Citizens clinically dismantled West Ham. At the final whistle, a 5-0 scoreline seemed like it flattered the hosts who were all too keen to get off the pitch in a hurry. That was as emphatic a result as you are bound to see anywhere.

Elsewhere, there were wins for Manchester United who thrashed Frank Lampard’s Chelsea 4-0 at Old Trafford – a chastening introduction for the Chelsea hero who I suspect will do well at the club despite this unfortunate result. Arsenal were impressive in their 1-0 win over Steve Bruce’s Newcastle and the surprise result of the weekend was arguably at Vicarage Road where Brighton beat the hosts Watford 3-0.

Abiye Opuamah

Abiye Opuamah is an editor and a massive football enthusiast who also dabbles now and again in writing flash fiction pieces, playing chess against the machine and almost always roots for the underdog. He lives in Johannesburg.