HEROES
Everything is proceeding as Jose Mourinho has foreseen. Last year was a transitional season. This year is very different. Good players have left, better players have arrived. But even without Diego Costa, Chelsea look unstoppable. Last season, and we're paraphrasing for the sake of decency, Mourinho accused his players of being anatomically lacking at Selhurst Park. You couldn't level that charge at them this time. There was anatomy swinging all over the place. In front of the Premier League's most partisan crowd, Mourinho's new-look Chelsea fought Palace in the dirt for those points. There will be nothing to stop them this time.
Some players are so consistently excellent that their genius can sometimes go unacknowledged. Manuel Pellegrini described Sergio Aguero as, "one of the three or four best players in the world," and he's absolutely right. But why isn't it said more often? Manchester City's hottest striker hit four goals against Tottenham and it could easily have been more. We'll ignore that watery penalty for the moment. Those goals took him above Carlos Tevez as City's most prolific Premier League striker and there will be many more to come. If he can steer clear of injuries, City might yet have a chance of reining in Chelsea.
He used to look like Harry Styles, his 60th birthday party promised to be so good that Steve Bruce rushed out of the Emirates Stadium to get there on time, and now his club is fourth in the table. This is turning into something of a golden age for Sam Allardyce. Poor Burnley's demise gave West Ham their first
back-to-back wins since March and sent the new-look, tolerably entertaining Hammers soaring up the table. And imagine the high-jinks at that birthday party. If you tell me you wouldn't have given anything to be there, then I shall call you a liar, sir.
It was Bobby Zamora's first start of the season and, from the way he winced, wobbled and limped off the pitch when he was finally withdrawn, it might be his last for a while too. But in the bars and cafes of West London, they will write songs about what he did upon this day. Harry Redknapp could have landed Robert Lewandowski on loan for the day and he would not have been rewarded with a better performance than the one Zamora offered. He bullied Liverpool's defence, overwhelming them with ease. QPR should have wrapped the game up long before his powers faded.
VILLAINS
Where do you start with the Sunderland team? It's possible to excuse Santiago Vergini his astonishing own goal on the basis that it was a spectacular finish that brought joy to millions. It's a lot harder to excuse the way so many players gave up under the onslaught that followed. Some teams would go easy when the game is so clearly won, but Southampton boss Ronald Koeman doesn't believe in that sort of thing. Gus Poyet was right: He did learn a lot about the character of some of his players on Saturday. You would not want to be any of those players at training on Monday.
Mario Balotelli is a divisive chap and, as such, there have been times in the past when he has been unfairly criticised. This is not one of those times and for once, he will have a unifying effect on his critics because no one in their right mind could defend his performance at Loftus Road. From the wretchedness of his first touch to the low earth orbit of his best chance of scoring, this really wasn't one for the scrapbook. It has been said that Balotelli would suffer from comparisons to Luis Suarez. Not at the moment, he won't. They shouldn't even be mentioned in the same breath.
Mike Ashley is not a man who likes to spend money unnecessarily, so if there's one person in the Northeast who's in more trouble than the Sunderland players today, it's whoever installed Ashley's brand-new scoreboard. Referees can't be expected to see everything, but there was no way that Martin Atkinson was going to miss the sight of an enormous piece of hardware flapping in the wind, high above the seats at St James' Park. With the fixture in doubt, Ashley was forced to make a call-out to an emergency crew of hard-hat wearing, spanner-wielding engineers. That won't have been cheap.
Ah, Michael Oliver. So close to the heroes column for being one of the few referees to punish Ryan Shawcross for his penalty-box bear hugs. So destined for the villains column when he undid all that good work with a soft decision at the other end. Angel Rangel barely touched Victor Moses, but having already sanctioned Shawcross, you sensed that Oliver would crack under the pressure to even things up. In fairness, if 30,000 were screaming at me, I'd probably cry, soil myself and award three penalties just to ensure no one set fire to my car.
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