A look at the winners and losers for week 22 in the English Premier League.
Winners
Manchester United
Man United have won six of their last games 1-0, have a record-equaling tenth successive clean sheet and are back on top of the Premier League. That is the good news for Manchester United fans.
The potential troublesome point is that this Man United team continues to squander goal scoring opportunities. Against Bolton United had 16 shots and got one goal. Against Middlesbrough two weeks ago, they had 28 shots on goal and again managed only one goal.
At the moment United are managing to win these games, when they play Inter Milan next month, United cannot afford to be so wasteful in front of goal or they will find themselves watching someone else be crowned European Champions.
West Brom
Winning on the road is so difficult in the Premier League that if West Brom has any hope of staying up, they need to turn the Hawthorns into a fortress. With 11 points from their last six games, the Baggies have the 6th best home record in the league during this time period. If they can substain this home form it might be the difference between survival and relegation.
Manchester City
With all the press about the potential Kaka signing this week, it was easy to forget that Man City had a game to play against Wigan. City’s 1-0 win moved them up to five spots and put them within a point of being in the top half of the league.
Roberts & Benni McCarthy
Before he would consider selling Roque Santa Cruz to Manchester City, Sam Allardyce had to find out if he could replace the striker’s goals and presence. With eight goals in four games, Jason Roberts and Benni McCarthy have shown that they can carry the load.
Aston Villa
Villa has now scored in the 78th minute or later in six of their last seven matches.
Competitive Balance
Only three points separates the bottom nine teams in the Premier League. An amazing 12 teams (60%) of all the Premier league teams are within 6 points of the bottom of the table. This will be the closest relegation battle in years, and outside of the top six, any of the other teams could find themselves dragged down into the relegation battle if they were to lose a couple of games.
Losers
Tottenham Hotspur
It’s been 84 days since Harry Redknapp took over at White Hart Lane and Spurs are only out of the bottom three on goal average. At what point does relegation become a distinct possibility for Tottenham fans?
Bolton Wanderers
When they sold Nicholas Anelka last January Bolton never replaced his goals. Now one year later, Bolton have gone almost a month without scoring a goal. There 8 games at home this season has then tied with Sours for the fewest in the Premier League. Unless Bolton can find a goalscorer, it will be a tough second half of the season for them.
Middlesbrough
Boro are without a league win in ten games and with only two points from their last six league games, they have slipped into the bottom three. With games coming up against Blackburn, Wigan and Manchester City Boro are in desperate need of a winning streak.
Hull City
After a great start to the season, Hull have been on a terrible run of form with only one win in their last thirteen games. Hull now sits only six points above the drop zone and with five of their next six games against teams just below them in the table, Phil Brown’s team needs to get back to their winning ways.
Craig Bellamy
When he was told that he was not going to Spurs, Bellamy threw his toys out of his pram and went home, basically going on strike. Bellamy is a good goal scorer, but his spoiled kid act is getting old.
