Liverpool upends Man U to highlight premier league action

In the first “heavyweight matchup” of the English Premier League season, Liverpool scored a come from behind victory over visiting Manchester United by a 2-1 score. The victory was Liverpool’s first in the last six meetings between two of England’s traditional powerhouses. In other EPL action, Arsenal and Chelsea took three points in their respective matchups.

For Liverpool team manager Rafael Benitez, it was a long time coming. He was winless in nine tries against Man U during his tenure with the club. In the early going it appeared that his frustrations would continue as Carlos Tevez scored at the 3 minute mark to stake the visitors to an early lead. After that, however, it was all downhill for the defending EPL champions. Liverpool drew level when Wes Brown was charged with an own goal at the 26 minute mark at the first half ended with the teams dead knotted at one goal apiece.

In the 2nd half, Liverpool applied relentless pressure and Man U experienced considerable difficulty keeping the ball out of their end. The Liverpool onslaught eventually hit paydirt as substitute Ryan Babel scored the eventual game winner at the 77 minute mark. While the nature of the first goal and the final margin makes the game appear close, the rest of the statistical tally strongly favored the home team: Liverpool outshot Man U by a whopping 22-8 margin and held a decided 54%/46% time of possession edge.

With the victory, Liverpool pulled into a first place tie with Chelsea while Man U fell to the middle of the table with a 1-1-1 mark in their first three EPL contests.

Chelsea, meanwhile, earned another solid victory prevailing by a 3-1 margin over Manchester City. City opened the scoring with a spiffy free kick goal from their big money free agent Robinho at the 13 minute mark. After that promising start, however, it was all Chelsea the rest of the way as they scored three unanswered goals and sent Manchester City to their 7th straight loss in the series. Ricardo Carvalho drew his team level at the 16 minute mark with a score of a rebound from his header try. Chelsea blew the game open early in the 2nd half, with Frank Lampard scoring at 53 minutes and then put the contest away with Nicolas Anelka’s tally at the 69 minute mark.

Despite Chelsea’s success and first place tie with Liverpool, the hottest team in the EPL at the moment is clearly Arsenal who won again in dominant fashion with a 4-0 thrashing of the Blackburn Rovers. Since their upset loss to Fulham in the 2nd game of the season, the Gunners have been a team possessed. They’ve since played 2 EPL games along with a UEFA Champions League contest and in that 3 game stretch have outscored their opponents by a combined 11-0 mark. Rob Van Persie netted the first goal for Arsenal at the 8 minute mark, and Emmanuel Adebayor earned a hat trick as he scored once near the end of the 1st half, once on a penalty kick at the 81 minute mark and added yet another in stoppage time.

The big name matchups continue next Sunday, when Chelsea hosts Man U at Stamford Bridge. Liverpool will take on cellar dwellers Stoke City and Arsenal plays a struggling Bolton Wanderers side.