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It seems that all that optimism shown by Lactic’s coach Martinez was not so misplaced afterall although perhaps Harry’s buys were suffering from a Champion’s League hang-over, particularly Peter Crouch who managed to score a hat-trick midweek – including two with his head – but not find the target on Saturday.

So, too, a 1-0 scoreline at The Stadium of Light but this time it was the home team prevailing as Manchester City conceded their first goal of the season, a 94th minute Darren Bent minute penalty. This game will be forever remembered though for Carlos Tevez’s miss, who contrived to put the ball over the bar from 12 yards out with no goalkeeper. If Tevez was a Pakistani cricketer the Police would surely be investigating.

Mancini was rightly gutted aware as he is that not winning these games is what cost City 4th spot last year and yet here they go again. They comfortably beat Liverpool one week and then lose to Sunderland the next, despite a 120 million pound summer makeover

That visit from World Cup final ref Howard Webb is obviously working wonders for Steve Bruce’s side – not a single booking in this game. Which is more than can be said for the Wolves Newcastle draw at Moulineux where ref Jeff Attwell dished out 12 yellow cards. Sylvain-Blake opened the scoring for Wanderers and Carroll equalised for Newcastle, and with this coming hot on the heels of his hat-trick against Villa last week there were calls for the striker to be included in the England squad for the upcoming Euro qualifiers. Mind you, it seems that any plaeyer who’s English, fit and wasn’t in South Africa is a potential call-up.

Wolves on 5 points, unbeaten in their first 3 games and although they’ve only played Newcastle, Everton and Stoke, Mick McCarthy must be well pleased with his side’s start to the season.

Wolves sole victory was over Stoke and they had the unenviable task of a trip to Stamford Bridge to face a Chelsea side who had consecutive 6-0 wins under their belts. On that basis, City did well to come out of it with a 2-0 loss. Two penalties for Chelsea: Lampard took the first and it was awful and Sorensen saved quite comfortably; Drogba took the second and scored quite comfortably, so expect a repeat of the ball tug-of-war when the next penalty is awarded to Chelsea.

The result means that both the Blues and the Potters maintain their 100% records, Chelsea 3 wins out 3, Stoke 3 losses out of three, but amazingly Stoke are not bottom of the table, that dubious honour goes to West Ham who conceded 3 for the 3rd straight game, this time to Man Utd, with goals by Rooney (from the penalty spot – interesting take), Nani and an exquisite volley from Berbatov – arguably the most technically proficient footballer in the Premier League since Berkampf. Fortunately for England, he’s retired from international football.

Avram Grant put on his scariest face, which is pretty scary given that his eyes are so far back they appear to be still in his native Israel even when his body is in East London, to assert that now is not the time to panic, that time is after 10 or 15 games. Having only scored 1 goal and conceded 9 in three straight defeats means that Messrs Gold and Sullivan are unlikely to share that timetable and Grant is going to have to get a win in the next 2 maybe 3 games to keep his job.

West Ham’s form not helping Robert Green much as he missed out on call up into the England squad for the Euro qualifiers which seems a little harsh. Does one gaffe take you from being number one choice to not even on the radar? Seems especially unfair when one of his centre-halves in Matthew Upson, has made the squad. Even more bizarre is the fact that WH striker Carlton Cole also got a call-up, despite West Ham only scoring 1 goal so far this season and that was scored by Mark Noble from the penalty spot.

At least Green’s non-involvement means he can have the operation on his hip and still be back in time for West Ham’s next game.

Joining Stoke and WH in the slowest out of the blocks stakes are Everton who have but a single solitary point after their three games and this week contrived to lose to Aston Villa, 1-0. Luke Young scoring a quite brilliant goal for a striker let alone a defender and Everton despite having all the play, had only a Steven Pienaar curler against the post to show or all their domination. David Moyes might say they are playing well but there’s no points for style in this game.

It was a welcome result for Villa after a horror week that started off with the 6-0 drubbing at Newcastle and continued by being knocked out of the Europa by Rapid Vienna. They still need to sort out a manager and Bob Bradley has effectively ruled himself out of the race by singing a new 4 year deal with US national team although perhaps he heard the Villa Chief Exec’s comments that they wanted an experienced PL manager which would also seem to rule out caretaker boss Kevin Macdonald.

The international break offers plenty of time to get this sorted and Villa need their new man in place well before hostilities resume. Initial focus may well be on just getting through the transfer window without losing any more players. There’s at least Spurs hoping to prise away Ashley Young; his departure coming hot on the heels of James Milner would be a huge blow to Villa.

Amazingly, Villa find themselves in 4th spot, a point behind Utd and Arsenal after the Gunners’ 2-1 away win at Blackburn Rovers. Great goal from Walcott who surely has to start for England, and no doubt Arsene Wenger would have been extremely happy with the way his team coped with one of the more physical sides in the Premier League

Blackburn’s goal scored by Diouf who was set up by Diouf – both are Senegalese but not related, so maybe Diouf is the Senegalese equivalent of Smith. Maybe if you open the Senegal White Pages it’s just full of Dioufs – who can all play football. Mame Biran Diouf as distinct from El-Hadj Diouf is actually on loan from Man Utd.

No doubt of much greater cause of concern to Blackburn fans than telling their Dioufs apart is the fact that A666 rivals Bolton Wanderers are 5th, yes 5th in the table which is also of some concern to those who tipped the B Wanderers for relegation.

Owen Coyle’s got this team up and ready and the game against Birmingham was a great example of their team spirit and willingness to battle. 2-0 down after 50 minutes and one man down after 37 minutes when goalkeeper Jaskelinen was sent off for slapping, the Trotters fought their way back to a 2-2 draw with a penalty from Davies and a corker of a free kick from substitute Blake. This was as morale boosting a result for Coyle as it was a gut-wrencher for City boss, Alex McLeish

It was morale boosting stuff at Anfield as well, not the laborious 1-0 win over West Brom, although a win’s a win, but the fact that the winning goal was a well-taken effort by Fernando Torres but what’s more he had several chances and really looked as though he was returning to his old self.

Plenty of comings and goings at Liverpool too with Portuguese midfielder Raul Meireles signed as cover for Mascherano who finally completed his move to Barcelona overnight. That leaves a 6m surplus, some of which looks likely to spent on Paul Konchesky who’ll be joining the Reds from Hodgson’s old club Fulham and Roy is hoping for another signing, a striker, before the end of the transfer window.

And speaking of Fulham, they maintained the Premier League’s other 100% record with a 3rd consecutive draw, this time with Blackpool with an 87th minute Ethutu goal, a lovely little chip over the keeper, denying the Tangerines a first-up home win in the Premier League. Many still predicting that it is going to be a tough season for Blackpool but they certainly seem able to put the ball in the back of the net and that’s always got to be a plus

Bobby Zamora scored the opener for the Cottagers and got an England call-up but will miss the Euro 2012 qualifiers because of a knock he sustained. Likewise there was talk that goalkeeper David Stockdale would have got a call-up if not for an ankle injury he picked up in this game. It’s all backfiring a bit for Aussie keeper Mark Schwarzer and if he doesn’t get his move to Arsenal he could find himself spending more time on the Fulham bench than he had bargained for.

No games this weekend due to the Euro games which are mostly being played on Friday – don’t know who’s bright idea that was, what’s wrong with Sat afternoon?

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Arsenal hit their 6 against new boys Blackpool, the Tangerines floating gently back to earth, just like Skylab. True, they did lose Evatt on 31 mins to a straight red-card but it seems that Blackpool, like a number of clubs in the Premiership are simply not able to go into damage limitation mode. As manager Ian Holloway so eloquently put it: “we went into damage limitation but they [Arsenal] just kept damaging us”.

It was also curious as to why Blackpool felt the need to change their strip? The only thing that their tangerine top clashes with is your mum and dad’s curtains from the 1970s; it certainly wouldn’t have been difficult to distinguish the red from the orange. Surely it’s not just for commercial reasons?

The second 6 was Chelsea, who, of course, have opened up the season with consecutive 6-0 wins, which is quite frankly absurd. What’s more amazing about this win was that they were away, albeit at Wigan, and it was only 1-0 at half-time. In a start that’s full of contradiction the only constants seem to be Chelsea are very very good and Wigan are very very bad.

In fact, Chelsea were so good in this game that, according to the game stats on the BBC website they managed to score 6 goals despite only having 5 attempts on target – now that’s impressive, isn’t it?

Amazingly, Wigan coach Martinez was actually upbeat in the post-match press conference and saw lost of positives in the first half display. Whether he suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or is simply the most optimistic man on the planet is up for debate but perhaps his comments were more for the ears of his chairman rather than the media. Or perhaps he was just pleased to have captain Charles N’Zogbia back in the fold.

Newcastle’s 6-0 hammering of Aston Villa had to be the most bizarre result. The Magpies were well beaten by Manchester United in their opening fixture whilst Villa had been dominant in their comfortable win over West Ham United. Of course they did lose James Milner during the week, the transfer to City finally going through, but that doesn’t explain shipping 6 at St James Park, does it.

Must have been the demoralising blow of John Carew’s horrendous penalty attempt twhen the scores were level.

No doubt it capped off every Villa fan’s weekend to see James Milner setting up Gareth Barry for the first goal in City’s 3-0 win over Liverpool Monday night for a win that was all a little too easy for Roy Hodgson’s liking. Although to be fair to the new Liverpool boss, he felt he had to drop the influential Mascherano who is angling for a move overseas.

Perhaps Blackpool, Aston Villa and Wigan – well perhaps just Blackpool and Villa – can find some solace in the turnaround by Robert Di Matteo’s West Bromich Albion, who, of course, got thumped by Chelsea 6-0 at the Bridge last week but turned it around to beat Sunderland 1-0 at Hawthorns. A rather impressive bounce-back.

Steve Bruce had got Howard Webb up to the Stadium of Light during the week to go over the rules of the game with his players, the Black Cats regularly having the worst disciplinary record in the league and Bruce finally cottoning on that this might be costing them games. Some irony there in that Bruce is constantly berating officials we can only wonder if he thinks that just 2 yellows from this game is an improvement.

Tony Pulis was crossing officials’ names off his Christmas Card list as he felt they missed the ball crossing the line and thus denied his Stoke a late equaliser in the 2-1 home defeat to Spurs. Even Harry conceded that the ball was probably over but that it all worked out okay because the officials had also missed a foul by Huth on Gomez in the build-up to the incident. An away win for Tottenham, 2 goals for hugely impressive Gareth Bale, one an absolute cracker, and actually a pretty impressive result for a Spurs side that lost 5 players to injuries picked up on the plastic pitch in Switzerland, midweek.

Man Utd fell 2 pts and 9 goals behind pacesetters Chelsea by – in Sir Alex Ferguson’s words – dropping silly points in the 2-2 draw at Fulham with Cottager’s Haangeland scoring at the wrong end in the 84th and the right end in the 89th to earn the draw. There may have been a change of manager at Craven Cottage but it doesn’t seem to have affected how Fulham play and the grief they can cause the top sides when playing them at home.

West Ham fans must be wondering much the same – change of manager but the same results despite the same impressive football at times. The West Ham defence conceded 3 again, this time to Bolton and the bottom line is you not going to win many games if leak this many goals. You also have to wonder what this is all doing to Robert Green’s mental state given it was probably already a little fragile after the World Cup and now it’s six goals conceded in the opening two games.

In the other games. Birmingham got off the mark with a 2-1 win over Blackburn, Gardner with a brace there and Everton and Wolves drew 1-1 in a game that Everton really should have won after Tim Cahill gave the toffees the lead.

Still too early to really look at the table, suffice to say that Chelsea and Wigan have consolidated their respective positions.

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Many punters and especially West Brom fans will be hoping that Chelsea’s 6-0 drubbing of the Baggies is down to first day rustiness and not an indication of the gap between top and bottom in the Premier League, although that annoying little voice in your head says otherwise.

Not that West Brom helped themselves much with defending that would have seem them get a pasting in the Championship let alone the Premier League. You’d think if there was one thing that you would set out to do well when playing away at Stamford Bridge it’s defend and getting bodies behind the ball. Or even, line up a wall properly at freekicks. Okay, that’s three things not one but they all seemed beyond West Brom.

And no bookings for West Brom, how can you keep your cool when you are being absolutely hammered? Maybe it’s all part of the Baggies master plan to get an Europa Cup berth through the fair play route.

Thank goodness for Blackpool, then, 4-0 away at DW, a fairytale start but everyone involved with the Seasiders seems to be keeping their feet firmly on the ground. The win saw bookies slash Blackpool’s odds of winning the premiership from 10,000 – 1 to 2,000 – 1 . So if you put a pound on them before the weekend, give yourself a big pat on the back.

As for Wigan, there’s bad starts and then there’s 4-0 home defeats to promoted clubs. This is a far worse result than West Brom’s and how is it that a team can be that under-done at the start oif the season? Perhaps the whole N’Zogbia saga been a distraction – he’s now been fined 77,000 pounds and has gone on strike.

The answer is probably to ship him out but clearly this performance shows that they are in desperate need of the temperamental Frenchman.

One other reason the Lactics might have let in four – no Titus Bramble any more – the popular defender leaving in July for Sunderland. But the Black Cats gave up a 2 goal lead to Birmingham, so perhaps that’s not the answer.

So, that’s Scot Carson, England goalkeeping hopeful, shipping 6 at Stamford Bridge and Chris Kirkland, England hopeful shipping 4 at the DW Stadium, what about former England incumbent Robert Green? Well he saw 3 go past him in the game against Villa. Good win for the Villans considering Martin O’Neill walked out during the week.

James Milner scored and generally had such an outstanding game that the boos turned into a standing ovation at the end of the game. It would be good to see him realise that going to City might not be the best move for his career.

Mind you, it could depend on who takes over the coaching job at Villa. Talk in the last couple of days of Maradonna expressing an interest in the vacant position at Aston Villa, most of it, it has to be said coming from Maradonna’s agent. The only man ever to look good in a shiny suit apparently “loves the english countryside” but given that Argentina’s qualification for the World Cup was fraught, that Maradonna showed no tactical nous when faced with Germany and the English fans still haven’t forgiven him for the “hand of god” goal this has to be a longer shot than Blackpool’s odds of winning the premiership.

Well, it wasn’t just the English goalkeepers who had torrid times at the weekend. Tim Howard inexplicably dropped the ball right at the feet of Blackburn forward Kalinic – although Everton deserve every bit of bad luck they get when wearing possibly the worse kit ever to be let loose on an English football pitch. Unless it’s for charity, men in pink is never a good look.

The other major goalkeeping blunder was Pepe Reina whose mishap in the 91st minute gifted Arsenal an equaliser in a hugely entertaining game at Anfield and if Liverpool fans can put that disappointment to one side (admittedly a difficult task) there are a huge number of positives in this game, not least the continued form of Ngog.

What made Reina’s blunder worse was that he had been solid all afternoon and had pulled off a great save from Tomas Rosicky only a couple of minutes before. But he, like most modern keepers, are really vulnerable with crosses. If that had been Peter Schmeichel coming for that cross there wouldn’t have been a player standing-up within 10 yards of the ball. Why have modern keepers lost the art of coming for the cross?

Is anything to be read into the fact that Hodgson has completed the signing today of 28 year old Australian no 2, Brad Jones? Probably not. It seems pretty obvious that he is going to Anfield as Reina’s back-up.

Not the case for Reina’s opponent, Arsenal’s Almunia. With the Mark Schwarzer transfer still bubbling away it seems that Shay Given might be an Arsenal target as he was relegated to the bench for City’s opening game against Spurs. As good as Schwarzer is, Given would be a far better bet for Arsenal. Younger too.

Schwarzer might just want to quietly go andwithdraw his transfer request

And, of course, it’s unlikely that Given will be getting game time any time soon with Joe Hart bucking the English keeper trend and having a monumental game at White Hart Lane with a performance that left many Spurs fans scratching their heads. Spurs desperately unlucky not to have wrapped up a win by half time but Harry Rednapp more than happy with the performance and Tottenham looking to be in good form going into their Champions League 1st leg playoff against Young Boys in Switzerland.

As for City, Mancini will hope this was just rustiness and not a sign of things to come with his expensive team unable to show the fluidity and cohesiveness of their opponents. And how expensive are Man City? Just look at the bench for Saturday’s game : Given, Zabaleta, Lescott, A Johnson, Vieira, Adebayor and Jo. That’s what money buys you, isn’t it? It’s not necessarily the starting 11 it’s the bench

(And perhaps James Milner might like to talk to Joleon Lescott about how a move to City can impact on your chances of playing for your country.)

Interestingly, City completed the signing of Balotelli but presumably not in time for him to make the teamsheet for Saturday’s game. Adebayor, already on the bench and unhappy with the arrival of a new striker, could possibly join Craig Bellamy (now banned from the City training ground) in leaving Eastlands. Why Mancini would want to risk losing such a proven Premier League striker as Adebayor is baffling.

With takeover talk at Blackburn and a substantial transfer kitty for Big Sam and two weeks left in this window, could we see Adebayor move across Greater Manchester to Ewood Park?

Other results, well Wolves beat Stoke 2-1 in a sort-of derby and Monday night’s game saw Man Utd comfortably beat Newcastle 3-0, again Paul Scholes getting the plaudits but also Berbatov, scoring and seemingly enjoying Rooney’s downturn in form. If both of these players can find form at the same time they could be the scourge of any Premier League defence.

Too early to look at the table (although Blackpool in 2nd does bring a smile to the face) but suffice to say that Chelsea are top and West Brom are bottom and nobody really expects that either of those two teams will move very far away from those positions.

Mark – West Brom, Wolves and he got a bit hazy with the third.

Andrew – Blackpool, West Brom, Stoke

Chris – Blackpool, West Brom, Bolton

Mark – Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool, Spurs

Andrew – Chelsea, Man Utd, Spurs, Liverpool (on goal difference from Arsenal!)

Chris – Arsenal, Chelsea, Man Utd, Liverpool

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We look back on the 2010 World Cup Final and the competition itself, discuss the surprise packages and the flops.

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