BPL Gameweek 3 Round-up

Five out of ten (%50 for you math majors)...I'll take that, I suppose. A couple of things I've taken from this weekends games.

1. In a season where any team can drop points to any other team, the referees may play a bigger role than anyone would like. Of particular note, in the Liverpool v. Chelsea match, Rob Styles awarded a penalty to Chelsea that even the Chelsea players where surprised to see. In the replay, Malouda was clearly just trying to jump over and "dummy" the ball so it could roll through to Drogba. In the process, he collided with the Liverpool defender and went down. To exacerbate his problems, Styles later seemed to award Chelsea's Michael Essien with a second yellow card, but failed to send him off. The latest reports claim that after his performance, Mr. Styles will be dropped from the next match. Then there was the Fulham v. Middlesboro debacle where a shot from Healy seemingly carried the goalkeeper and ball over the line, but was no ruled a goal by the linesman and referee. These are two clear cut examples of points lost due to referee blunders, so lets make note: Liverpool -2, Fulham -1 and see how this affects things late in the season.



2. Manchester United continues their run of bad luck. New signings Tevez and Nani where relied upon up-front, but failed to capitalize on numerous opportunities. Meanwhile, Manchester City took one of their few chances and with the help of a slight deflection, continued their run of 3 consecutive wins. City fans have defender Micah Richards to thank for many of their league leading 9 points as he put on another brilliant performance.
   


3. Tottenham relieve some pressure off of manager Martin Jol by putting 4 past Derby County, while Sammy Lee and Bolton continue to struggle--failing to capture a single point in their first three matches.
   


4. Goal Keepers seem to be a little off their game. Particularly, Arsenal's Jens Lehman and Fulham's Tony Warner. In two league games, Lehman has managed to gift two goals to the opposition and cost his team 2 points. Meanwhile Warner after a brilliant performance against Arsenal in Fulham's first game has equalled Jens' tally at 2 points.

Hat's off to Manchester City and Wigan for their great starts this season, meanwhile traditional powers Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool are lurking just off in the distance. Here is a look at the table after gameweek 3: