Sunday saw three games take place in the Barclay's Premier League, with one on yesterday. To join in with the festive spirit, football threw up two big local derbies and other tricks and treats on the pitch. Super Sunday kicked-off with the most dirty derby (allegedly) between Newcastle and Sunderland. Unfortunately the Tyne-Wear derby wasn't available last season due to Newcastle being in the Championship, but this one more than made up for it. St. James' Park witnessed one of the best derbies in a long time (unless you're a Sunderland fan) and saw the first hat-trick in this tie since Peter Beardsley. Newcastle were on top straight from the start and went ahead thanks to Kevin Nolan after 26 minutes. Nolan doubled his tally eight minutes later with a great piece of improvisation with a crouching bicycle kick. It got worse for Sunderland as Newcastle were to go into half-time 3-0 ahead after Shola Ameobi dispatched a penalty. If you thought it couldn't get even worse, it did when Titus Bramble received a straight red card in the 53rd minute. Newcastle took full advantage with Ameobi getting his second with twenty minutes to go and Nolan got his hat-trick and Newcastle's fifth five minutes later. Darren Bent got a consolation in injury time but the score still finished 5-1.
The other two Sunday games weren't of the same quality with the untelevised three o'clock kick-off being the Midlands derby between Aston Villa and Birmingham. It ended goalless. The four o'clock kick-off saw Bolton entertain Liverpool at the Reebok Stadium. It was a fairly tight affair that both Bolton and Liverpool were holding to in periods. Liverpool's period of sustained pressure came late on and a cheeky flick from Torres allowed Maxi Rodriguez through one-on-one with Jaaskelainen, which the Argentine scored with only three minutes remaining.
Monday Night Football saw Blackpool host West Brom in a game that was made to be over before it started, although it nearly wasn't the case. West Brom were down to ten men after just eleven minutes when Pablo Ibanez was judged to have been last man and therefore harshly sent off. Captain Charlie Adam took the resulting penalty for Blackpool and tucked the ball away to give the Tangerine Army the lead. West Brom were then down to nine men just before the half hour mark when Gonzalo Jara went in two footed and was lucky not to harm his opponent. Blackpool didn't take great advantage of this and missed a host of chances but Luke Varney doubled their lead after 62 minutes. West Brom did set up a nervy final five minutes when Mulumbu capped off a good move on the 85th minute. But Blackpool held on to claim their first home win of the season.
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