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In my years of watching the beautiful game, i have seen real bizarre things. Today was really one of the most bizarre happenings on the field of play. I really feel sorry for Liverpool because they could ill-afford what befell them today at the hands of Sunderland.

A Darren Bent short hit a red beach ball that had Reyna fooled into diving to save the beach ball,instead of the deflected ball that ricocheted into the net for the only goal of the match.

This incident raises a lot of questions concerning referees and the decisions they sometimes allow to stand. In my opinion, the goal should never have been allowed to stand. Its so unfair.

A fourth defeat of the league season will only add to the question marks over Liverpool’s title credentials after they were outplayed without injured midfielder Steven Gerrard and striker Fernando Torres.

Ahead of a week in which they face a crucial Uefa Champions League tie against Lyon and host Manchester United, they only added weight to critics who label them a two-man team.

Liverpool were lethargic and looked at unease with a 5-4-1 formation manager Rafael Benitez had opted for as he tried to cope with injuries and tiredness after the recent internationals.

Benitez was probably hoping that full-backs Glen Johnson and Fabio Aurelio, as well as wingers Ryan Babel and Yossi Benayoun, would have more of an impact going forward.

But Sunderland, with a near-capacity 47,000 crowd behind them, did not let Liverpool settle and aggressively took control of the game before being rewarded with the lead in somewhat fortunate circumstances.

Bent’s shot went in off a beach ball and, to compound Liverpool’s misery, it was one punched on to the pitch by one of their own fans. A clear case of one causing one’s own downfall you might say..

Oh! for the records, Chelsea were beaten by Aston Villa, while Manchester United and Arsenal both won at home respectively.

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I had my heart in my mouth as City equalize goal after goal scored by Manchester United. I knew the match was going to be very thrilling, but not  what we had today. It was a blockbuster and i was certainly very relieved when Michael Owen came on and scored the winner.

Before this math, two things were on my mind. We needed to get the maximum points but we also needed to confirm that we rule the city of Manchester when it comes to football.

If we drew or perhaps lost, Manchester City fans would have bragged that their big money spending were paying. But if you asked me though, i would tell you that Man City should now be taken very seriously in the premier league. But what a goal by Owen

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In my last post, i did talk about Emmanuel Adebayo scoring against his former club, he not only score today but he also enjoyed himself.

Adebayo scored the third goal of their 4-2 rout of a harpless Arsenal. And i would say that Man City also played very well in the second half after a rather lack-luster first half.

I had earlier said that the traditional top four in the English Premier League were under a real threat from City, and they have started looking like the team that spent well in the transfer market.

Okay, so they have beaten Arsenal, let’s wait and see how they cope when they play Champions Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool during the season. They are really getting their money’s worth.

Just to remind you guys that Chelsea also won today to maintain their 100% start to the season, Malouda scoring deep in injury time to give the Blues all three points at Stoke who played valiantly.

Win also for Liverpool 4-0 at home to Burnely with Benayoun scoring a hat-trick.

What a season this is turning into, and we are hardly into it.

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So the world cup qualification weekend has come and gone, and it is time to face the important matter that is the Premier League.

Arguably the match every body wants to see is the first match Emmanuel Adebayo and Kolo Toure will play against their former team-mates at Arsenal at the city of Manchester stadium.

Manchester City have started so very well this season with Adebayo himself scoring in every match so far this season. Arsenal lost their last match to Manchester United before the international break.

Will Adebayo continue scoring to give City another win or will this be a match too far the world’s richest football club. We will wait and see….

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Football’s governing body handed out a ban until 2011 after they found the Blues guilty of inducing Gael Kakuta to break his contract with Lens in 2007.

But Chelsea could get a reprieve if they delay lodging any appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

Cas has indicated that if Chelsea take the full 21 days to appeal, their ban may be frozen while a decision is made.

“It depends on the filing date of the appeal,” Cas secretary general Matthieu Reeb told BBC Sport.

“If we have an appeal within the next week, it seems realistic we will have a hearing in November and a decision in December.

“If it goes a little longer, we’d have to wait until next year but then we’d have a problem with the January transfer period.

“So there is a possibility of Chelsea requesting a stay of the Fifa decision so it is frozen until the final decision of Cas is rendered.

“This means the enforcement of the Fifa decision would not be immediate. It could be postponed and then if the sanction was finally confirmed by CAS, the suspension would be postponed to the next transfer window.”

As it stands, Chelsea are barred from registering any new players, nationally, or internationally, during the January or summer 2010 transfer windows.

The Blues have already confirmed that they will launch the “strongest possible appeal” and they have 21 days to do so from when they receive Fifa’s full decision.

The Cas decision can be appealed only before the Swiss Supreme Court.

Manchester United could also face an investigation after it emerged that another French club, Le Havre, are going to ask Fifa to look into Paul Pogba’s move to Old Trafford last month.

Fifa say they are yet to receive any complaint over the transfer of the 16-year-old midfielder.

United told BBC Sport last month that Le Havre’s accusations that they had stolen the French youngster were “complete nonsense”.

A French football agent, who wishes to remain anonymous for professional reasons, told BBC Sport: “If Lens or Le Havre were legally able to sign the two players to contracts they would definitely have done it already.

“But French law prevents players from signing contracts if they under 16 and haven’t achieved the requisite level at school.

“The clubs can make agreements with these players that say they will give them a contract when they have attained the right educational qualification of turned 16.

“It is a pre-contract. It is called an ‘accord de norm sollicitation’ in French. It is a written agreement between club and player.

“That is what Kakuta and Pogba had. Fifa is clearly now saying these accords are as good as contracts, while Chelsea and Manchester United are saying they are not.”

Fifa punished Switzerland’s FC Sion for a similar offence to Chelsea’s in April and the club was told it could not sign players until the 2010 off-season.

Sion have appealed to Cas, which has frozen the sanctions while it considers the case, allowing the club to trade before the current season began. A ruling is expected later this year.

Italian club Roma were banned from signing players for two transfer windows in 2004, over their move for Auxerre’s Philippe Mexes, after they appealed to CAS and their suspension was reduced to one window.

The arbitration panel will be made up by one judge selected by Chelsea, one by Lens and the chairman will be CAS.

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Chelsea have been banned from signing any new players until January 2011.

The punishment was meted out by world governing body Fifa after the club was found guilty of inducing Gael Kakuta to break his contract with Lens in 2007.

A Fifa statement said the Blues would not be able to register new players in the next two transfer windows.

Chelsea insist they will “mount the strongest appeal possible” and say the sanctions are “totally disproportionate to the alleged offence”.

A statement from the Premier League club, who will make their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas), added: “We cannot comment further until we receive the full written rationale for this extraordinarily arbitrary decision.”

Fifa’s dispute resolution chamber (DRC) ruled French winger Kakuta, now 18, must also pay compensation of 780,000 euros (£682,000), for which Chelsea are “jointly and severally liable”.

Lens lodged a complaint with world football’s governing body after Chelsea signed the winger two years ago.

Now the DRC has ruled Kakuta breached his contract with Lens and that Chelsea induced him to do so.

Fifa’s statement continued: “The French club had lodged a claim with Fifa seeking compensation for breach of contract from the player and requesting also sporting sanctions to be imposed on the player and the English club for breach of contract and inducement to breach of contract.

“The DRC found that the player had indeed breached a contract signed with the French club. Equally, the DRC deemed it to be established that the English club induced the player to such breach.”

Chelsea must pay additional “training compensation” of 130,000 euros (£114,000) to Lens, while the player has been banned from playing in official matches for four months.

Kakuta ended 2007/8, his first season with Chelsea, as the youth team’s top scorer and was voted the academy’s player of the year.

He played five times for the youth team and twice for the reserves in his second season before it was brought to an abrupt end in February when he suffered a double fracture of his ankle.

The Lille-born youngster has never played for Chelsea’s first team, although he is back to full fitness and has been featuring in the reserves this season.

Fifa’s decision to ban Chelsea means they will not be able to sign players in the January and summer 2010 transfer windows.

Former Chelsea player Pat Nevin thinks that could mean problems for Blues manager Carlo Ancelotti.

“He’s got a number of worries going ahead,” said Nevin, who played for Chelsea between 1983 and 1988.

“He’s going to lose a number of players to the African Cup of Nations around January-February time.

“Then there is the World Cup coming up. After a World Cup, your players are tired, and many of the Chelsea players will be involved. They’ll need to replenish their squad and, if they fail with this appeal, they won’t be able to.”

Lens president Gervais Martel said he felt the judgement was fair and would send out a warning message to larger clubs like Chelsea who break the rules.

“We expected this kind of decision. The player was under contract with us and they came and stole him away from us,” he said.

“Chelsea didn’t follow the rules. They contacted the player when he wasn’t even 16 and while he had been contracted to our training group from the age of eight.

“The financial sanction isn’t over the top given the nature of the infringement, but it’s really quite significant when it comes to not being able to recruit players.

“It’s an important message given that protecting up and coming youth players who are contracted to clubs is an issue being followed closely by Uefa president Michel Platini.”

Fifa punished Switzerland’s FC Sion for a similar offence in April and the club was told it could not sign players until the 2010 off-season.

This was punishment for luring Egypt goalkeeper Essam El Hadary in 2008 before his deal with Al-Ahly had expired.

Like Kakuta, El Hadary received a four-month ban from playing.

Sion have appealed to Cas, which has frozen the sanctions while it considers the case, allowing the club to trade before the current season began. A ruling is expected later this year.

Meanwhile Uefa, European football’s governing body, is keen to introduce a rule preventing the international transfer of players under the age of 18 after member associations, clubs, leagues and players agreed to the principle.

Speaking in March, Uefa president Platini: “The question of minors is above all a moral and ethical issue. We have a duty to take concrete steps to protect young players and training clubs.”

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A not so convincing display, but nonetheless, the win secures 3 vital points for United, and puts the first dent on the Gunners otherwise cool start to the season.

But one just wonders what might have been the outcome had the penalty not been given, or Diaby’s late own goal. Anyhow, somebody had to win the match and i am glad that it’s Man Utd that won it.

Other results of note are that of Spurs’ 2-1 win over Birmingham to keep their 100% start to the new season, their best in years.

Liverpool finally came good today beating Bolton by 3-1, delight for Benitez, and of course Chelsea’s 3-0 win over Burnely. End of a fairytale two weeks for Burnely you would say.

Rooney's moment

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Aston Villa produced an outstanding defensive display to secure their first win against Liverpool in eight years as Rafael Benitez’s side continued their stuttering start to the new Premier League campaign.

Villa had been heavily criticised after losing their opening home game to Wigan Athletic and slumping to defeat in the Europa League against Rapid Vienna – but they answered all the questions in emphatic fashion at Anfield.

Liverpool faded after a bright start, and have now lost as many league games as they did last season following losses against Spurs and now Villa.

Anfield was left frustrated as Liverpool wasted the opportunities that came their way, but ultimately they were reduced to running up blind alleys, and out of ideas, in the face of Villa’s resilience.

Villa were set on their way after 34 minutes when Lucas deflected Ashley Young’s free-kick into his own net, and they grabbed a second on the stroke of half-time when Curtis Davies headed in Nicky Shorey’s corner at the near post.

Liverpool surged forward after the break, but met a white wall of resistance as Villa defended their precious lead, with Carlos Cuellar outstanding and goalkeeper Brad Friedel a commanding presence.

Fernando Torres gave Liverpool hope with a close-range strike after 72 minutes, but any hopes of a dramatic revival ended three minutes later when Steven Gerrard brought down Nigel Reo-Coker and Young scored from the spot.

Villa boss Martin O’Neill was elated – and rightly so as his side got their season up and running with a landmark victory.

For Liverpool, they will now simply have to produce better – and more creative – performances as they chase their first title in 20 years.

One just wonders what will happen to the much touted acclaim by a lot of people that Liverpool’s wait for the premier league title could be over this season.

Quite frankly, i don’t see the Reds picking it this season with such displays, and with the other big boys and Manchester City started so well already.

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Spurs for me have always been one of the best ball playing sides in the English Premier League. They are fast and can be very deadly on the counter.

My problem with them though is that they are very inconsistent. Much like Arsenal, they knock the ball around very well but in contrast to the Gunners, score goals easily.

With all of these in mind, i wander why they don’t at least finish in the top four of the league table. Maybe that is about to change as they have started this season so very well and now lead the league table.

Early days yet, but i think Spurs have got what it takes to hang on to top spot at least till December.

Aaron Lennon kept up Tottenham’s 100% start to the season as he grabbed his side’s winner at West Ham.

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As if to say that their win over champions Manchester United in mid-week was no fluke, Burnely again beat Everton by a lone goal. What strikes me most is the way they play, and not the win actually.

They have a free flowing style of play and i just wander if they can  keep playing like that come December. Its not so often a small team that just gained promotion into the elite division have the confidence to play their own style of football.

It just makes me remember Hull City last season when they stayed for a couple of weeks in the top half of the premier league table, only to fall way down the table when the tough got going.

But i guess its a case of making the most of the opportunity you are presented. If the big teams won’t beat you, then beat them and get your points. It helps you stay in the league you know.

Oh! Saha missed a penalty. I thought these big players are not supposed to miss spot kicks. At least Everton could have gotten a draw.

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