Premier League Weekend Winners and Losers

Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

At look at the winners and losers of another weekend of Premier League action.

Winners

Chelsea

Chelsea is the best team in Europe at the moment. That doesn’t mean that they will win the Champions League or the Premier League, it simply means that they are playing better than anyone in Europe at the moment.

Chelsea has picked up nine victories from their opening 11 games, which projects out to 93 points over the course of the season. If achieved, it would be Chelski’s highest total in five years.

Next up for the Blues is Manchester United on Sunday. A win here will mean that the title is Chelsea’s to lose.

Manchester United

While a lot of the media attention gets focused on the games between the Big Four, it is usually the records against the bottom half of the table that determines who wins the league.

So it is not surprising to find that the defending champions have not dropped a point against a bottom-half team in more than a year (since the opening weekend of last season when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Newcastle United).

United’s last loss to a bottom-half team occurred almost two years ago at the Reebok in November 2007 and their last home defeat to a team that finished the season in 11th or lower was the final-weekend loss to West Ham in May 2007.

Losing on Sunday to Chelsea will put the Blues in the driver’s seat, but if Man United can continue their record against teams in the bottom half of the season then you cannot discount their title challenge.

Cesc Fabregas

It was a typical north London derby (Arsenal beat Spurs ), and the star of the show was Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas. His goal, 11 seconds after Robin van Persie’s sealed the game, and will be a candidate for goal of the season. If Arsenal is to challenge for the title this season, they will need this sort of dominating performance every week from Fabregas.

Carlton Cole

Continues to confound the critics with 13 league goals since Boxing Day. Can Capello possibly leave him out of the England squad against Brazil ?

Portsmouth

I am slowly coming around to the job that Paul Hart is doing at Portsmouth

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