Handbags on the touchline

Last updated : 06 October 2014 By Tony Scholes

Wenger had every right to be upset at the Gary Cahill challenge, and every right to believe it warranted a red card, but his explanation that he was trying to get from A to B and was blocked is a bit of a nonsense. He's not allowed out of his technical area and so B, wherever that was supposed to be, was very much out of bounds.

Still, it was good entertainment, but had it got any tougher then I'd have backed Mourinho to win it and I don't think Wenger would have taken him the distance.

It's not the first time for Arsène of course. A few years ago he got into an altercation with Alan Pardew when the latter was West Ham manager. Now I wouldn't take on Pardew. He goes for Hull players as one of two hobbies, the other one is keeping out of the way of Newcastle fans.

One manager keeping well and truly out of the spotlight right now is Harry Redknapp. With his team bottom of the league he's shut his car windows and is talking to no one. Yesterday, during their defeat at West Ham, he received a call, probably from Sandra asking what he wanted for tea. He even passed the phone to Kevin Bond so as to avoid talking to anyone.

QPR weren't very good at West Ham. Gary Neville on Sky said they were diabolical whilst owner Tony Fernandez took to Twitter to tell the world that his team are not good enough. Having said that, he's not having any criticism and has branded those who choose to as 'armchair fans'.

He's said that changing manager is not the answer because it made no difference the last time they sacked one, they still went down. Fernandez has told fans he's not stupid, he's not a quitter and the buck stops with him. Redknapp meanwhile has questioned the fitness of the players.

Whilst on the subject of managers, I'm still seething at Nigel Pearson and his comments about us last Saturday. I'm sure it upset many from Burnley but at least Sean Dyche has had his team talk prepared for when they visit the Turf.

Some things don't change in football. For weeks we've been able to say that Diego Costa has scored again but Burnley haven't. Our goals put an end to one half of that story but the Chelsea striker just carried on scoring, getting on the end of another excellent pass from Fabregas.

Scoring goals - that's something former Claret Steven Fletcher hasn't been doing much of too recently. Prior to Sunderland's home game against Stoke on Saturday he hadn't found the net all year, his last one coming in December 2013 at Cardiff, and that was just one of three goals in 27 games last season.

It's like the X43 bus service, when one eventually does come there's another one not too far behind. That's what happened on Saturday. He scored twice in their win and that's left us and Newcastle as the only two teams without a win.

Michael Kightly and Ross Wallace are now, along with Scott Arfield, our leading goalscorers this season. Arfield scored on what was his Premier League debut but the other two have played and scored at this level before.

Kightly's last Premier League goal was for Stoke at home to Aston Villa in April 2013. For Wallace we have to go back a bit further, to October 2007. On that day he scored for Sunderland against Arsenal at the Emirates. Unfortunately he was outdone by someone by the name of Robin van Persie who scored twice. Arsenal won 3-2.

There's a familiar look to the Premier League table up at the top now. Chelsea are five points clear but the two Manchester clubs have now made it into the top four with Southampton the current gatecrashers in third place.

Down at the other end, we're next to bottom now, above QPR on goal difference. Newcastle are with us in the relegation positions. We've all got four points with Everton next on six points.

And we've only scored one goal less than Aston Villa whilst only half of the league have conceded less goals than us.

We've got another break now with the next batch of internationals. The results and fixtures from the weekend are below followed by the leading goalscorers, each club's domestic red and yellow card count and the next fixtures in 12 days time.

The Results
Saturday 4th October
ASTON VILLA 0 MANCHESTER CITY 2 LIVERPOOL 2 WEST BROM 1
HULL 2 CRYSTAL PALACE 0 SUNDERLAND 3 STOKE 1
LEICESTER 2 BURNLEY 2 SWANSEA 2 NEWCASTLE 2
Sunday 5th October
CHELSEA 2 ARSENAL 0 TOTTENHAM 1 SOUTHAMPTON 0
MANCHESTER UNITED 2 EVERTON 1 WEST HAM 2 QPR 0

 

The Stats
Biggest Win CHELSEA 2-0 v ARSENAL (home)
HULL 2-0 v CRYSTAL PALACE (home)
SUNDERLAND 3-1 v STOKE (home)
WEST HAM 2-0 v QPR (home)
Total Goals Scored 27 (18 home - 9 away)
Player Scoring Most Goals

2 - PAPISS CISSE, NEWCASTLE (v SWANSEA)
STEVEN FLETCHER
, SUNDERLAND (v STOKE)

Highest Attendance 75,294 - MANCHESTER UNITED v EVERTON
Lowest Attendance 20,622 - SWANSEA v NEWCASTLE
Total Yellow Cards 44
Total Red Cards 0
Most Cards in a Game CHELSEA v ARSENAL (7Y) Ref: MARTIN ATKINSON
MANCHESTER UNITED v EVERTON (7Y) Ref: KEVIN FRIEND
SUNDERLAND v STOKE (7Y) Ref: NEIL SWARBRICK

 

Leading Goalscorers (League Only)
9 DIEGO COSTA (CHELSEA)
5 SERGIO AGUERO (MANCHESTER CITY)
SAIDO BERAHINO (WEST BROM) - includes 2 penalties
LEONARDO ULLOA (LEICESTER) - includes 1 penalty
4 NACAR CHADLI (TOTTENHAM)
PAPISS CISSE (NEWCASTLE)
NIKICA JELAVIC (HULL)
STEVEN NAISMITH (EVERTON)
GRAZIANO PELLE (SOUTHAMPTON)
3 ANGEL DI MARIA (MANCHESTER UNITED)
NATHAN DYER (SWANSEA)
MOHAMED DIAME (HULL)
WAYNE ROONEY (MANCHESTER UNITED)
DIAFRA SAHKO (WEST HAM)
MORGAN SCHNEIDERLIN (SOUTHAMPTON)
RAHEEM STERLING (LIVERPOOL)

 

Hat Tricks
 Date Player & Game
13/09/14 3: DIEGO COSTA - CHELSEA v SWANSEA (home)

 

Disciplinary Record (League and Cup)
Club Y R Y R Club Y R Y R
  League   Total   League  Total 
ARSENAL 19 0 21 0 MANCHESTER UNITED 13 2 14 2
ASTON VILLA 12 0 12 0 NEWCASTLE 14 1 17 2
BURNLEY 12 0 12 0 QPR 8 0 10 0
CHELSEA 14 0 14 0 SOUTHAMPTON 11 0 17 0
CRYSTAL PALACE 13 1 13 1 STOKE 16 0 20 0
EVERTON 12 0 13 0 SUNDERLAND 15 0 19 0
HULL 13 1 14 1 SWANSEA 14 2 17 2
LEICESTER 10 0 11 0 TOTTENHAM 11 1 11 1
LIVERPOOL 13 0 14 0 WEST BROM 14 0 15 0
MANCHESTER CITY 19 1 20 1 WEST HAM 17 1 17 1

 

The Next Fixtures
Saturday 18th October
ARSENAL v HULL MANCHESTER CITY v TOTTENHAM (12:45)
BURNLEY v WEST HAM NEWCASTLE v LEICESTER
CRYSTAL PALACE v CHELSEA SOUTHAMPTON v SUNDERLAND
EVERTON v ASTON VILLA  
Sunday 19th October
QPR v LIVERPOOL (13:30) STOKE v SWANSEA (16:00)
Monday 20th October
WEST BROM v MANCHESTER UNITED (20:00)