Sky usually call football on Sunday's as Super Sunday and it lived up to that name yesterday. First we saw St.James' Park host it's first Premier League fixture for two seasons against the team that virtually sent them into the Championship to season's ago, Aston Villa. As the norm has been hit six or nothing, that's exactly what we were given. Villa started the game off brighter and could've had a dream start when Ashley Young was fouled by keeper Harper and getting Villa a penalty. However what seems to be the weekend of missed penalties ensured that John Carew blasted his penalty into the second tier of the stand. Typically a missed chance like that normally comes back to haunt you and it certainly did; Joey Barton smashing a 20+ yard shot into the top corner just three minutes later. However if Friedel had been wearing a cap he maybe should've saved it. Kevin Nolan made it 2-0 just after the half-hour mark and from there Aston Villa just seemingly collapsed and Newcastle's new number 9 Andy Carroll made it three just three minutes later.
Hopes of a Villa revival were dwindling as every minute went by with no sense of fight left in the Midlands club. Any remaining hopes were dashed when Carroll got his second and Newcastle's fourth in the 67th minute. Twenty minutes later Nolan grabbed his second after yet more shocking defending from the Villa side and Carroll rounded it off with his hat-trick in injury time. Villa most definitely need to tighten up defensively otherwise their campaign in the Europa League may be short lived again and their fight for Europe in the League may also fade away.
The second game of the day say Manchester United travel to their bogey ground Craven Cottage to play against Fulham who have beaten them in the previous two seasons here. However it looked that the hoodoo was going to vanish as United came out on top and dominated possession, they took the lead just after ten minutes with a Paul Scholes special from a corner from outside the box, finding the bottom corner to get his 150th senior goal for Manchester United. Fulham did carry a threat from breaks with Zamora and as long as it stayed at 1-0 they always had a chance. Berbatov was back to his old self it seemed after wasting another hat-full of chances.
The second began with more United pressure but they somehow had lost all defensive power and Fulham caught United on the break just before the hour mark; Duff somehow got past Evra like he wasn't even there allow the Irishman to run down the wing before putting in a low cross which beat all the defenders and Simon Davies was on hand at the back post, unmarked, to guide the ball into the bottom corner. United restored their lead with six minutes to play when a corner unfortunately bounced off Hangeland's shin and rolled into the net. The Norweigen made up for his accidental error when he rose unmarked from a corner and bulleted his header home with a minute before stoppage time to give the Cottagers the point and keep their ground a bogey ground for Manchester United.
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