Well today played host to the games that involved the champions and the runners up from last year. Naturally all eyes were on both of these games and with the amount of build up you have to think that anything other than two 6-0 thrashings would not be good enough.
West Brom 1 - 2 Manchester United
This was the first competitive game of the season for West Brom and the first opinion is that they seem like a much better team than last year. Shane Long seems to be a very good signing for them, always causing the defence problems like a good striker should, although his goal today was a little fortunate. Now onto the champions, yes they have an amazing attack force (and it's not easy for me to admit that) but now that Van Der Sar has retired you have to feel that history is repeating itself. After Schmeichel left they had a very hard time trying to replace him, going through keeper and keeper that were not good enough before they god the big Dutchman. Now they have bought David De Gea and so far he has not done anything to impress me, making a huge mistake in the community shield last week and now making another huge mistake this week. Yes he made some good saves as well but goalkeepers are always judged on the errors they make, just ask Gomes for Spurs. I know he is young and that he has time to improve but when Chelsea signed Petr Cech in 2004 he was a year younger than De Gea and already had enough class to play in the first team, which he proved when he won the golden glove the next year. I just think that without someone more experienced to learn from he will not improve too much and they will be forced to buy someone else. After seeing the way West Brom played I think they could end up higher in the table this year, possibly around 7th if they don't have too many problems. United without a doubt will be at the top of the table, either 1st or 2nd.
Man of the match - I'd have to say Ashley Young, he seems to be one of the buys of the summer so far and probably single-handedly saved United from dropping 2 points today.
Stoke 0 - 0 Chelsea
The first competitive match for Chelsea under Andre Villas-Boas, this was built up to be the reform of the blues. However Stoke away is probably one of the hardest games of the season and a draw is actually quite a good result. The most important thing is the way they played and boy did they play, in the second half they looked like a completely different team from last season. It was only the heroics of Asmir Begovic in the Stoke goal that kept Chelsea at bay. One good thing from Chelsea's point of view is that Torres is back, without a doubt the prolific striker is back on form. He may not have scored today but he caused problems all days, especially for Ryan Shawcross who should probably have been sent off. The ref, Mark Halsey, had a shocker today. He missed 2 clear cut penalties for Chelsea and gave fouls against them when they should have been for. I don't think fans can completely blame him though for this being a draw as Huth and Woodgate did defend very well, but their attack never really caused any problems for Cech. Stoke should be up in the top 10 this year if they do sign all of the players they want to but even if they didn't, just due to their new defence, they should improve on last years 13th. All of the pundits seem to think that Chelsea will finish 3rd or below, but I still think they will finish either 2nd or 1st, if they sign a creative midfielder and a winger then they will definitely challenge United for that top spot.
Man of the match - Asmir Begovic put in a good claim with the way he saved everything but it has to go to Fernando Torres. After all of the criticism he had to put up with last year, to come out and perform very near to his best in this game shows huge amounts of character. And the way he played was how we saw him in his first year at Liverpool, he deserved a goal today and I have no doubt he will be a prolific striker at Chelsea these next few years.
Dan
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