EPL wrap: Arsenal keep winning in spite of injuries

In their first game of the season, in the warmth of August and with a seemingly straightforward-looking fixture against Aston Villa to deal with, Arsenal got it all horribly wrong.

The defence was a shambles, as it had been for much of the previous season, Laurent Koscielny was sent off, and a knee injury stopped Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in his tracks at half-time. Oh, and Villa won 3-1. At The Emirates.

Fortunately, the problem with “The Ox” was with the medial ligament, rather than the infamous anterior cruciate which generally takes around half a year to get over. All the same, Oxlade-Chamberlain, the strong but skilful young midfielder who had just turned 20 and already showing glimpses of far greater maturity, took much longer to get match-fit than the three-month prognosis.

Happily for him, and the manager who thinks so highly of him, Arsenal have done a lot of winning in the interim. And in a perfect piece of symmetry it was in the return fixture against Aston Villa that Oxlade-Chamberlain finally made his re-appearance. It was only for four minutes plus injury time and with Arsenal just needing to hang onto a 2-1 lead. But he was back, and will surely play an important role for the remainder of the season as Arsenal bid to push Manchester City and Chelsea all the way in the fight for the Premier League title.

I’m not sure any team in the league has had as bad a run of injuries as Arsenal have endured. Whenever it’s got to the stage that you think a few are due to return from enforced spells on the sidelines, another one or two key players picks up a relatively serious knock. In the FA Cup victory the previous weekend, against Tottenham, Theo Walcott injured his anterior cruciate. He joined Sanogo, Vermaelen, Ramsey, Arteta, Bendtner and Diaby in the sick bay.

In an ideal world, Arsene Wenger would probably like to have been able to rest key players like Mesut Ozil and Olivier Giroud from time to time - or at least have the option of doing so now. That’s because over the last quarter of the match at Villa Park, in which time a comfortable 2-0 lead was dented by Christian Benteke’s goal, the Gunners were clinging on. They were not enjoying the experience much towards the end. But they won, and on the evidence of the first hour and a bit anything else would have been something of an injustice.

Arsenal thus completed a notable weekend for the statisticians in that all seven teams in the English top flight won their games, and for some it was easier than others.

For Liverpool, it should have been a rout – instead it was a 5-3 rollercoaster. They collected a couple of soft goals early on, before a fine Peter Crouch header and a catalogue of mistakes in defence made it 2-2 at the break in Sunday’s match at Stoke. The old Liverpool would have probably accepted a draw or tried to nick a win with a counter-attack but that is not Brendan Rodgers’ way. The midfielders continued to press Stoke remorselessly and the impressive Raheem Sterling won a penalty which Steven Gerrard converted, either side of a Luis Suarez goal assisted by Daniel Sturridge and a Sturridge goal set up by Suarez. Yup, Sturridge was back after an injury break and his fast reactions and intelligent decision-making served Liverpool well. But Rodgers has to sort out the defence. Liverpool won but conceded three goals, too many against almost any opponent.

The main talking-point in Manchester City’s away win at Newcastle came about 20 minutes after Edin Dzeko’s opener for the visitors, when Cheick Tiote’s long-range strike was ruled out because the referee deemed Yoan Gouffran to be in an offside position. The complexity of the offside rule is such that it would take a committee of Harvard graduates to sort out some decisions. In reality, football relies on an out-of-breath official running around with a whistle in his mouth to make the right call on the spot – and although the majority of armchair pundits felt Mike Jones had made the wrong call, a few suggested the referee was right.

Chelsea, Everton, Tottenham and Manchester United all recorded thoroughly comfortable 2-0 wins, but the importance of United’s success simply cannot be overstated. If they had lost at home to Swansea it would have been their first experience of four defeats in a row since 1961. United were solid, with the exception of Adnan Januzaj who was excellent. Robin van Persie remains unfit while Wayne Rooney, who missed the Swansea match, could come back in time to take on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday. In theory, that game should be the pick of next week’s contests.