English Premier League: Is there any truth in Koscienly’s claims?
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Laurent-Koscielny-c21742 has come out in aggressive fashion and touted Arsenal as Manchester United’s final remaining challengers in the race for the English Premier League title.
Manchester United currently find themselves at the summit of the Premier League table. It is interesting to see Koscielny come out with such a boast on the eve of the next weekend’s round of English league matches.
The most fascinating of the ties on the upcoming weekend is undoubtedly going to be played at the Stamford Bridge between Liverpool and Chelsea.
Chelsea, who are the current English Premier League champions, will be hoping to gain all three points against a resurgent Liverpool who now have Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll in their ranks.
For Chelsea, the tie against Liverpool gains utmost significance as they are already 10 points behind Manchester United and any loss of points against the Reds will definitely end Carlo Ancelotti’s bid to retain the Premier League
title.
Both Manchester United as well as Arsenal will be looking forward to a Liverpool win as a favorable result in Sunday’s tie as the last thing both the competitors want is to have Chelsea right behind their back in the Premier League
title race.
Arsenal have hardly been convincing themselves whereas Manchester United have yet to hit top gear on their away form. Both the top two teams of the English Premier League have found it hard to perform against the lower ranked sides
in the league, perhaps signaling an overall rise in the league’s standards.
However, some might see this as deterioration in the levels of performances and the respective squad strengths for the top four of the English Premier League namely, Tottenham, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea.
Nonetheless, it will be naive to rule out Chelsea just yet, if they do gain all three points at the weekend against Liverpool. They will not only gain a significant boost in the title race by closing the gap on the third placed
Manchester City but also see themselves on a new high as far as morale is concerned.
The weekend also holds a crucial tie for Arsenal at Newcastle United, who are still seething from the loss of Andy Carroll. Newcastle United have already gained crucial results against http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chelsea-c38786 in the present Premier
League season at the Saint James’s Park so anything but a full strength Arsenal side might face substantial obstacles against the Magpies.
Samir Nasri’s injury means that he won’t be included in Arsene Wenger’s plans for the weekend which means extra responsibility falls upon the shoulders of Cesc Fabregas and http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Andrei-Arshavin-c5771 in the midfield area.
Fabregas has been in the news for all the wrong reasons after his outburst at the referee during Arsenal’s win against Everton at the Emirates stadium in the mid-week round of Premier League matches.
Additionally, Arshavin’s lackluster performances have incurred the wrath of Arsenal’s impatient fans time and again, thus the Russian will be under the spot light once again when Gunners take on Alan Padrew’s men.
Alternatively, Manchester United travel to the Molineaux stadium to face Wolverhampton Wanderers. One might expect this matchup to be an unbalanced one as the odds tilt in favor of the Red Devils but it should be remembered that
Sir Alex Ferguson’s team have been absolutely dreadful on their travels in the 2010-2011 Premier League season.
Granted that the Red Devils are still unbeaten in their last away Premier League fixture against Blackpool, United have to fight back from a two goal deficit in the final 20 minutes of the match to win by three goals to two.
In total, Manchester United have drawn eight of their eleven away league matches up till now in the Premier League. Ferguson’s veterans have only won three on their travels. No doubt http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Wolves-c40952 are in relegation troubles of their own
but Manchester United are definitely there for the taking if Mick McCarthy’s men are up for it.
All in all, the weekend is brewing up nicely after the gigantesque financial deals of the January transfer window and maybe…just maybe Laurent Koscienly’s claims will be vindicated by the results that come out of next round of
Premier League matches.
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