While teams in Spain and Germany enjoy the holiday season with their feet up teams in the English Premier League continue to slog it out, playing on Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and the weekend in-between. Manchester United extended their lead at the top to seven points seeing off relegation candidates Wigan with ease at the DW stadium. Robin van Persie continued his mission to be crowned the league’s top goal scorer with both a typically well taken individual effort and a close range tap in, Javier Hernandez also scored a brace in the Manchester rain.
Champions Manchester City kept themselves in touching distance with their Neighbours recording a convincing win at home against Stoke City. The three goals were scored by Zabaleta on the stroke of half time and multi-million pound signings Aguero and Dzeko in the second period.
With the scramble for fourth place intensifying it was up to Arsenal to keep pace in the day’s late kick off. Wenger’s men had seen Tottenham gain all three points earlier in the day and had to beat lowly Southampton at Saint Mary’s, a team the Gunners had already seen off 6-1 earlier in the season. Arsenal again provided evidence of their erratic form, scoring seven past Newcastle only three days prior, the Gunners failed to create any notable chances and only gained a point through a fortuitous own goal.
Having shipped eight against Chelsea and three against Wigan Aston Villa had the chance to stem some of the criticism aimed at manager Paul Lambert against high flying Swansea. Despite the game being played in Wales with Villa being dominated for large parts Lambert’s men managed to come away with a deserved point.
In the early kick off Martin Jol’s Fulham, led by the languid genius of Dimitar Berbatov, beat West Brom 1-2 at the Hawthorns to end an uncertain run of results. Berbatov scored an early goal but didn’t display his ‘keep calm and pass the ball to me’ boxing day t-shirt. Chelsea loanee Lukaku scored his seventh goal of the season but it wasn’t enough to stop an organised Fulham team taking the spoils.
Despite some late jitters West Ham beat Norwich at Upton Park courtesy of a well taken Mark Noble penalty and a rare goal from Joey O’Brien. The game was shrouded in controversy as Mark Clattenburg gave a penalty for tugging in the box but failed to award Norwich a spot kick on two occasions.
By Harry Dillon
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