EPL & European Domestic League Round-up

14th January 2020

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Another week and another win for Liverpool and now they are breaking records. In beating Tottenham 1-0 in a closely fought battle Liverpool reached 61 points from a possible 63. That set a record for the best ever start by a team in the major top 5 leagues in Europe. Now we could argue all day about the great sides of football, from Real Madrid's in the 50s, Ajax in the 70s and Barcelona in the 2000s, but it is Liverpool who, at least, statistically are ruling the roost.

Talking of records, a certain Argentinian broke a few too. The peroxide blonde one Sergio Aguero scored a hat trick as Manchester City destroyed Championship bound Aston Villa 6-1. In doing so Aguero has now scored the most hat tricks in the Premier League with 12, but better than that he is now the most prolific foreign striker in Premier League history passing Arsenal great Thierry Henry. With hints that this could be his last season in England Aguero will get nowhere near the top goalscorer record still held by Alan Shearer but one would expect that won't bother him too much given how many trophies he has won.

The victory was incredibly important for City as it finally moved them back to 2nd place as Leicester were shocked at home to Southampton. The same Southampton who crumbled 9-0 at home to the Foxes less than 90 days ago, what a strange game football can be. Saints manager Ralph Hassenhutl has done a spectacular job since the whitewash and the club are unbeaten in their last five games winning 4 of them. On form they would be in 3rd place. A big mention has to go out to Danny Ings who has been on absolute fire for the last six weeks and he has scored 14 goals this season, and will be eyeing top goalscorer. Currently Jamie Vardy has 17 goals, Marcus Rashford, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Danny Ings have 14 each and Sergio Aguero has 13.

Top Goalscorer Odds: Jamie Vardy 2.00, Sergio Aguero 8.00, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 9.00, Mohamed Salah 11.00, Marcus Rashford 11.00, Danny Ings 12.00

 

Arsenal are still seemingly suffering from away day blues as they could only draw against Crystal Palace with the game ending 1-1. True a point away can be seen as a good result, but does it still look good when you were leading the game? Time and time again this season we have seen the Gunners take the lead only to be pegged back. Mikel Arteta really does have a job on his hands. It was excellent how Arsenal beat Manchester United 2-0 at the turn of the year, but after four games in charge Arteta has only 1 win.

There was also a blow for Arsenal as striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang who scored against Palace was sent off. He will now miss 3 games and he has been the one usually getting on the score sheet for the club, how badly will that affect the north Londoners?

David Moyes' West Ham were brought back down to Earth with a thud and a little annoyance from VAR. After the highs of beating Bournemouth 4-0 in Moyes first game back in charge of the Hammers they predictably lost away to Sheffield United in their next match. However the club were unlucky not to have got an injury time equaliser but hawk eye VAR spotted a handball in the build up. It looked unintentional but VAR is going to stick with the rules and oust common sense. If that is the case then surely the rules need to be amended. West Ham play…. wait for it, Moyes old club Everton next weekend!

 

In Spain the four big teams did not play league football. Instead the Spanish FA flew the teams out to Saudi Arabia to play the Spanish Super Cup. In case you don't know this is the English equivalent of the Community Shield. This has usually meant the league winners (Barcelona) facing the Copa del Rey cup winners (Valencia) which should have taken place last August. Except when there's money to be made….. So Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid and Valencia played a mini cup competition in the heat of Saudi Arabia in the middle of a tough football season. Ironically the two teams that made the final, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid really had no business being there at all, and Real won the competition on penalties. Oh how hearts must have sank when it was no longer possible to have a Barcelona-Real Madrid final. One poke in the eye for corporate greed.

 

Finally in Ligue 1, PSG and Monaco played out a quite terrific game of football. Easily the most entertaining this season as the teams drew 3-3 in Paris. Robert Moreno, the new coach of Monaco and former one of the Spanish national team, has really stamped his philosophy on this Monaco side who attacked from the first minute. It's rare to see PSG drop points at home and the French media are in a buzz that Marseille could win the league this year. They are currently in 2nd place and 5 points behind PSG, though the champions have a game in hand. And who is that game in hand against? You guessed it away to Moreno's Monaco on Wednesday!



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