Another week of Premier League action has been completed, and as always it gave us many talking points. Nearly every team up and running this season Despite having played only 3 games so far this season, it is worth noting that nearly every team has won at least one match following this weekend's results. In fact, during this weekend - seven teams claimed their first win of the season, leaving only two teams still winless, Wolves - who are still unbeaten - and Watford, who themselves are yet to get a point. It has to be said that such an achievement is quite unusual, as a few teams tend to take longer than three games to get their first win of the campaign. This may be viewed in two different ways: either that the teams in the league are all of a very high standard and thus anyone is able to beat anyone, or else that few teams are consistent enough and thus drop too many points during the campaign. Man City and Liverpool prove they are the teams who will challenge for title, United brought back down to earth In a weekend where many of the big sides slipped up, two teams - Liverpool and Manchester City - who last season fought tooth and nail for the title, both overcame their opponents this weekend. After 3 weekends have now been completed, it has clearly proven that the race for the title will once again be between Manchester City and Liverpool, as they are the two most consistent sides and boast quality in abundance. After a 4-0 opening day win at home to Chelsea, some fans suddenly thought that Manchester United would be title contenders for the season. Any such talk was simply premature with such fans getting massively carried away, and their defeat at home to Crystal Palace last Saturday only served to confirm this. Manchester United are rebuilding the team slowly after a disastrous few years since Sir Alex Ferguson retired, however, it is a process which will need time, as well as patience and trust in manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Aston Villa finally prove they belong in the Premier League once again After 3 years which brought lots of suffering for supporters, as well as financial turmoil and a couple of managerial changes along the way, Aston Villa finally returned to the Premier League in May 2019 as they beat Derby County in the play-off final. During the summer, they spent a lot of money in order to strengthen the squad so to bring it up to Premier League standard. However, their start to the season had so far been disappointing as they suffered two defeats in their opening two games against Tottenham Hotspur and AFC Bournemouth. Despite that, both performances were pretty promising and they showed potential in each of their two games - in fact, rather than poor performances it was individual mistakes on both occasions that cost them. On Friday night, potential was converted into results as they deservedly beat Everton 2-0 at Villa Park. After a poor opening two displays, club-record signing Wesley grabbed his first goal for the Villans which set them on their way to victory, and it must be emphasised how much confidence that goal gave him as from then onwards his performance improved massively. Manager Dean Smith also handed a first start to right-back Frederic Guilbert and right-winger Jota, with the latter in particular performing very well and offering something very different. Smith was also wise to sub off Jota when he saw that he was getting tired and replaced him with Anwar El-Ghazi, who eventually sealed a 2-0 win. It is of course still very early days, though Aston Villa have shown that, whilst they can compete in this division, it is important that they get the results to show for it. VAR proves controversial this weekend This season the Premier League decided to go ahead with the introduction of VAR (Video Assistant Referee), and during the first two weekends it went relatively well and did make a few key decisions, most notably disallowing Gabriel Jesus' late winner against Tottenham in week 2 after a handball by Aymeric Laporte in the build-up. Despite its use, not too many decisions have been overturned so far and in fact so far not one penalty has been given via the intervention of VAR. However, it could be argued that this weekend numerous penalties could have been given through the VAR - namely a foul on Anthony Martial in the penalty area by Martin Kelly which was not given, whilst on Sunday there was a possible penalty that could have been given for Manchester City after Jefferson Lerma inadvertently trodded on David Silva, and Tottenham Hotspur too could have been given after a coming-together between Jamaal Lascelles and Harry Kane. It could be said that so far the VAR has been useful, though so far, unlike in for example the World Cup or Champions League, they have not asked the referee to view the screen in order to reflect on a dubious decision to ensure that it would be correct - thus should VAR intervene a little bit more in certain refereeing decisions?
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