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Here’s What We Learnt This Weekend #5

So after the fifth week of the Premier League season, here’s what we learnt this weekend:

Firstly we’ve learnt that even the best strikers in the division can miss sitters and turn into Emile Heskey at any given moment. Fernando Torres’ miss against Manchester United at the weekend was a miss so bad that regardless of whether he can be a success at Stamford Bridge or not, is one that he is going to be reminded about almost every day of the rest of his life.

It was an incredible miss by the former Liverpool man and one that could in the end have cost Chelsea a point, as had he took the chance after rounding David De Gea to make the scoreline 3-2 then the Blues no doubt would have felt confident of grabbing an equaliser and sending their fans back happy on the long train journey back into London.

We’ve learnt that Wayne Rooney can’t score hat-tricks every week. After scoring treble’s against Arsenal and Bolton in recent-weeks, the boy they call Roo could only score just the one (which isn’t bad is it really?) in United’s 3-1 victory over Chelsea at the weekend.

He could have though had another hat-trick, but lost his footing (ala John Terry in Moscow) when taking a penalty and somehow could only drag a shot inside the six-yard box onto the post from Patrice Evra’s cross minutes before Torres’ miss. Still though United’s no.10  is looking better than ever and the signs are that (barring injury) he’s going to get at least 25-30 goals this season if he continues to play as well as he is at the moment.

We’ve learnt that just when Arsene Wenger thought his side had hit rock-bottom in his side’s 8-2 defeat at Old Trafford, that things are not beginning to get any better for his side. After conceding a late equaliser away in Germany to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League and only managing to beat promoted Swansea City 1-0 at the Emirates thanks to a cock up from Michel Vorm.

The Gunners performance at Ewood Park to Steve ‘Yes Man’ Kean’s Blackburn was absolutely diabolical and despite the fact that they missed chances to wrap the game up, their defending was nothing but shambolic. The likes of Andre Santos and Per Metersaker will come good for Wenger though, but may have 2-3 more difficult afternoons like that until they are able to adjust fully to the demands of the English game like Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic did for United in 2006.

We’ve learnt that Spurs fans are about as fickle as they come when it comes to their treatment of their latest signing Emmanuel Adebayor. The former Arsenal man was treated dreadfully (that’s an understatement by the way) by their fans for a number of years because he had a habit of scoring goals against them.

Now though that he’s playing in the White of Tottenham, they seem to love him and it’s almost like they don’t want to admit the fact that he ever played for Arsenal in the first place or admit  to their child-like behaviour earlier this year when their side faced Real Madrid in the Champions League. Either way the big Togolese striker looks be exactly the kind of forward that lovely chap Harry Redknapp has been screaming his chairman to sign for the last 2-3 years.

We’ve learnt that despite Kenny Dalglish making some good signings this summer, that still defensively Liverpool have problems. This was no clearer to see than in their 4-0 defeat to an Adebayor-inspired Spurs on Sunday. Jamie Carragher is still a fantastic defender for them but doubts still remain over Daniel Agger (fitness) and Martin Skrtel (is he good enough?).

Sebastien Coates (pronounced ‘Ko-ar-tez’ not Coat’s) doesn’t look a bad player and impressed for Uruguay in the Copa America, but at 20 doesn’t quite look good enough at the moment to step into the heart of Liverpool’s defence. I may be tempting fate here, but if Dalglish wants to buy a young defender to improve his defence then surely he should try and get Gary Cahill in January. He’s young, would be available for around £15m and would be perfect for them.

Lastly we’ve learnt that Joey Barton despite his move to QPR is still one of the least liked footballer’s in the country, that Norwich have a knack of conceding penalties, that the new Franco Di Santo is continuing to score goals, that Brendan Rodgers is one of the most sincere managers in football and deserves every bit of success he gets, that perhaps a new pay-deal inspired Luka Modric to score over the weekend, that Manchester City’s defence isn’t quite as good as Roberto Mancini thinks it is and that Yakubu can still score goals much to the relief of Blackburn fans!

By Adam Dennehey  @ADennehey87

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