Holy shit. Holy shit!
When today's main slate of Premier League kicked off today, the matchups looked, well, kind of meh. Manchester United were home to a talented but overmatched West Brom side. Manchester City traveled south to play Aston Villa, who were without their best player, forward Christian Benteke. Fulham are stuggling, but today they hosted newly-promoted Cardiff City, who did randomly beat Manchester City earlier this season, but hadn't won a game before or since, and probably suck real hard.
At halftime, United and West Brom were scoreless. City took the lead from a corner kick just before half, just as Fulham Bryan Ruiz curled a golazo into the top left corner of the net to equalize following an early Cardiff goal. Then everything went nuts.
West Brom's Morgan Amalfitano shocked the Red Devils with a brilliant individual goal nine minutes after the restart to take the lead. Just as everyone picked up their jaw in time to start celebrating, Wayne Rooney curled in a free kick to tie the game. Still, West Brom, for some reason full of confidence, threw numbers forward and attacked with flair. In the 67th minute, they broke through.
West Brom midfielder Stephane Sessegnon dinked a ball into Amalfitano, who'd made a diagonal run into the box and was closely marked by a United defender. With one touch from the outside of his boot, Amalfitano took the pace off the pass and laid it off perfectly for teammate Saido Berahino. Berahino powered a low shot past United keeper David De Gea for the lead. It was an incredible team move by West Brom, and when the final whistle blew at Old Trafford, it was met with dead silence.
Aston Villa were down at half to City, but showed spirit when midfielder Karim El Ahamdi scored six minutes into the second half. But City were clinical with their corners today, and forward Edin Dzeko lost his man in the box just five minutes later to give City the 2-1 lead. Then, Aston Villa won.
The home side scored two goals two minutes apart to take the 3-2 lead over City. The second goal, shown in the GIF at the top, wouldn't have been possible without hilarious, pitiful defending.
In the 75th, goalkeeper Brad Guzan drove a punt over everyone's head straight to City defenders Vincent Kompany and Matija Nastasic. One should've challenged for the header while the other one dropped off, but both hesitated, and the ball skipped right between the two to forward Andreas Weimann. He poked the ball past the onrushing Joe Hart for the winning goal.
Fulham were level with Cardiff City going into injury time, and it seemed the game would end in a draw. And then Cardiff City midfielder Jordon Mutch did this:
As we wrote a couple weeks ago, this Premier League season is already insane. Results like this, virtually every week, aren't supposed to happen. In today's early game, Tottenham drew Chelsea at home, 1-1. Even at the top of the table, there's parity and no one really has any clue what hell is going on. Defending champions United have already lost thrice, and have only taken seven points from six matches. It's their worst start in 24 years. Southampton beat Crystal Palace today, 2-0, and have now scored just five goals in six matches. They're in fourth.