Week 17: part two

As I said yesterday, I'm working through this week in two parts. I actually kind of like it this way but it does involve be being a loser and staying in saturday and sunday night. Yesterday we saw Liverpool, Man U and Arsenal draw. Villa take forth with a win against bolton and city lose again against a striker-less Everton. Half past one gave us Pompy Newcastle but we will first look at the Chelsea West Ham game. Chelsea started without Drogba. We can get to that later. Chelsea have been impressive away. 100% record. At home they are usually solid but have hit a blip over the last few weeks. I haven't been kind to Zola, I don't think he has perform very well so far. Like many of the leagues best players he seems to rise to the big game. Given his history of playing Chelsea they don't get much bigger.

A win today would give Chelsea the top spot after Liverpool's draw. By half time things weren't going their way. 0-1. On comes Drogba and soon it's all level via Anelka after about 5 minutes. West Ham would have to fight for a point after having a chance of three. And they did. 1-1, final score. So because everyone dropped points everything is the same at the top. Except for arsenal being replaced by Villa. Big smile

Newcastle traveled to Pompy and I predicted a 2-1 win for the home side. The game was an absolute cracker. Real end to end stuff. It was newcastle to score first. I was confident that this would see the visitors sit back and try and protect their point. They didn't, the game stayed very open. 2-0. Well that shows what I know. 3-0 just before full time and I'm shocked. Newcastle, like Portsmouth and many other teams in the league, have a problem with their form. Hot and cold, very hard to predict. But it was their third clean sheet away.

This is the question of the week. Is away the new home? For a bit of last season Pompy were fantastic on their travels but struggled to score at home. Now it seems Newcastle, and more importantly Chelsea, have been infected by the same illness. Not so much of an issue for the former, 40 points, home or away, are all they need. For the latter things are a bit more tricky. If they want to make a realistic effort for the league then their home form has to be almost as impressive as their current away form. Well that is if the others can sort themselves out too.