Premier League Table 2014 Week 30: Updated Standings Following Matchday 29

There may have only been five matches this week in the Premier League, but there were still plenty of exciting moments, huge results and storylines to follow. 

The Premier League table is a bit hard to judge at the moment, as many teams hold several games in hand on their competitors, making the races for the league title, Champions League spots and relegation zone still a bit muddled. 

With that in mind, let's take a look at the updated table and a look back at this week's results.

Table

POS	TEAM	PLD	W	D	L	F	A	GD	PTS
1	Chelsea	29	20	6	3	56	22	34	66
2	Liverpool	28	18	5	5	73	35	38	59
3	Arsenal	28	18	5	5	52	28	24	59
4	Manchester City	26	18	3	5	69	27	42	57
5	Tottenham Hotspur	29	16	5	8	37	37	0	53
6	Manchester United	28	14	6	8	46	31	15	48
7	Everton	27	13	9	5	38	27	11	48
8	Newcastle United	28	13	4	11	37	39	-2	43
9	Southampton	29	11	9	9	39	35	4	42
10	West Ham United	28	8	7	13	31	35	-4	31
11	Aston Villa	28	8	7	13	31	38	-7	31
12	Stoke City	29	7	10	12	29	43	-14	31
13	Hull City	28	8	6	14	30	35	-5	30
14	Swansea City	28	7	8	13	37	41	-4	29
15	Norwich City	29	7	8	14	22	44	-22	29
16	Crystal Palace	28	8	3	17	19	38	-19	27
17	West Bromwich Albion	28	4	13	11	31	42	-11	25
18	Cardiff City	29	6	7	16	22	50	-28	25
19	Sunderland	26	6	6	14	26	42	-16	24
20	Fulham	29	6	3	20	29	65	-36	21

Results

Home	Score	Away
West Brom	0-3	Manchester United
Cardiff City	3-1	Fulham
Crystal Palace	0-1	Southampton
Norwich City	1-1	Stoke City
Chelsea	4-0	Tottenham

Recap

Rui Vieira/Associated Press

Boy, did Manchester United need that win.

Behind goals from Phil Jones, Wayne Rooney and Danny Welbeck, the Red Devils stormed past West Brom 3-0. Marouane Fellaini earned WhoScored's Man of the Match distinction with an 8.9 rating, while Rooney came in just behind with an 8.8 rating, adding an assist to his goal as well.

Juan Mata, Rafael and Chris Smalling also played quite well for the defending champions, who earned a vital three points.

Meanwhile, Oliver Holt of the Daily Mail offered a pretty scathing and humorous critique of Robin van Persie after the match:

Van Persie, of course, complained after United's 2-0 loss to Olympiakos that his teammates "are sometimes occupying the spaces I want to play in." 

You can imagine that that didn't go over well with his teammates. Days later, Javier Hernandez posted the following picture on his Instagram account with the caption, "Without your teammates you can't be somebody in football, always be thankful..."

But all was apparently well on Saturday.

Enough of the United soap opera. After all, there was the little matter of Chelsea hosting Tottenham in the Premier League's match of the week. It didn't quite live up to that hype, however.

Tottenham gifted the game's first goal to Samuel Eto'o, saw Younes Kaboul sent off after Eto'o flopped to set up the game's second goal and handed Demba Ba a late brace with two more turnovers, as Chelsea romped, 4-0.

So much for Chelsea's striker woes, huh?

Eto'o pounced on a turnover to get Chelsea on the board, and followed it up with a brilliant celebration that poked fun at Jose Mourinho, after the manager was caught on tape doubting just how old the striker was. From BBC Sport:

He then set up the second goal with a nice flop in the box, and Hazard stepped up and easily slotted home the game's second goal. 

Ba would come on late and earn two goals on turnovers from Sandro and Kyle Walker. After Tottenham's shoddy effort at the back, it's hard to say if Chelsea won this game or Spurs simply handed it away.

In other action, Cardiff City earned a huge 3-1 win over Fulham behind Steven Caulker's brace, a game with huge implications in the relegation zone. That pushes Cardiff City up to 18th and only goal differential behind West Brom, though the latter does have a game in hand.

Southampton kept Crystal Palace uncomfortably close to the relegation zone, beating them 1-0 behind Jay Rodriguez's somewhat fortuitous 37th-minute goal. Rodriguez beat keeper Julian Speroni to a 50-50 ball near the edge of the box and managed to swipe the ball into the empty net after.

Charlie Crowhurst/Getty Images

Finally, Stoke City and Norwich City played to a 1-1 draw, a game that will probably be remembered for Jonathan Walters' awful, awful challenge on Alexander Tettey that resulted in the Stoke man being sent off on a red card.