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" This week saw a glorious hat trick, a shocking upset, and the long-awaited return of Ricky van Wolfswinkel. Crystal Palace: 0 | Arsenal: 2 On paper, this was supposed to be the most lopsided game of the week. The Fragile Yet Incredibly Pricey Palace&amp;#039;s had just let go of their manager Ian Holloway, and are using Keith Millen as a &amp;quot;caretaker,&amp;quot; which, in English football, apparently means &amp;quot;interim manager&amp;quot; and not &amp;quot;guy who puts the tarp over your pool at your summer house.&amp;quot; But, due to various logistical issues, football isn&amp;#039;t played on paper, and \u2014 at least for the first half \u2014 Palace was up to the task, keeping everyone behind the ball and shutting down the middle of the field for Arsenal&amp;#039;s clever playmakers. After halftime, though, they decided not-doing-stupid-things was boring, so Adlene Guedioura slide-tackled the Gunner&amp;#039;s Serge Gnarby in the box, Mikel Arteta slotted home a penalty kick, and that should&amp;#039;ve been it. But alas! Just a few minutes later, Arteta was given a red card for preventing a clear goalscoring chance while fouling Moroccan former Arsenal striker Marouane Chamakh \u2014 whose hair resembles that of a bald man wearing a wig that&amp;#039;s been shifted back on his head 30 degrees \u2014 and Arsenal were forced to play a man down for the last twenty-five minutes. The Palace of Ball-Shaped Objects Traditionally Used By Clairvoyants wasted no time attempting to take advantage of the situation, with Joel Ward hitting the post and then totally underrated Aussie Mile Jedinak getting robbed of a sure goal of the week volley by Arsenal keeper Wojciech Szczesny. But a few minutes later it was all over, as Aaron Ramsey alley-ooped a chip to French Adam Levine (Olivier Giroud), who slammed home a header, and everyone in North London went home and happily drowned their bacon sandwiches in HP brown sauce. Aston Villa: 0 | Everton: 2 In the battle of U.S. National Team keepers with shaved heads, Tim Howard defeated Villa&amp;#039;s Brad Guzan, and had one of the strongest performances I&amp;#039;ve ever witnessed, and I once saw him play Canada. In the first half he made a trifecta of ridiculous saves highlighted by his stopping Belgian Christian Benteke&amp;#039;s penalty try with one hand, while Guzan robbed Everton&amp;#039;s Belgian Romelu Lukaku, who then yelled in frustration, &amp;quot;I am deeply alarmed by this American embargo on Belgian-produced goods!&amp;quot; Lukaku broke through said embargo in the 68th minute and then Englishman Leon Osman finished a fine pass from Gareth Barry with ten minutes left to seal it for the Toffees, who have proven hard for opposing teams to, um, chew or something. Liverpool: 4 | West Bromwich Albion: 1 Holy Luis Suarez. First, he pretends to be fouled in the box, which makes people angry. Then he nutmegs a West Brom defender (i.e. puts it through his legs, the most humiliating thing you can do to a defensive player), which hilariously/inexplicably makes NBC soccer analyst Kyle Martino exclaim, &amp;quot;Ahhh, it&amp;#039;s so delicate&amp;quot;; then he buries a shot in the corner. Then he scores on a header from the top of the 18 yard box, which is essentially impossible in the EPL, especially for a guy under six-feet tall. Then scores another header. Then Daniel Sturridge is like, &amp;quot;No one told me we were doing all this scoring&amp;quot; and scores on a glorious chip. Then Suarez decides to strike a bicycle kick against the crossbar, just to show the world that he could also score that way if he wants, but he&amp;#039;s chosen not to for personal reasons. With Suarez and Sturridge up top, Liverpool are going to be hard to beat, much like the Skyworld levels on Kid Icarus. Norwich City: 0 | Cardiff City: 0 In the 87th minute, Ricky van Wolfswinkel subbed into the game for Jonathan Howson. Those are the only notes I have from this contest. Your browser does not support iframes. Manchester United: 3 | Stoke City: 2 I was so excited for this game, mostly because every team that fancies themselves a Top Four contender fears playing Stoke, for reasons we&amp;#039;ve previously discussed, and Mancheverton are in a precarious state. So excited, in fact, that I took lots of notes, so here we go: 3min into the game, Stoke left back Erik Pieters crossed the ball in for 6&amp;#039;7&amp;quot; Peter Crouch \u2014 a.k.a. the EPL&amp;#039;s version of Shaun Bradley (except slightly less tall and slightly more skilled) \u2014 and Crouch managed to go-go-gadget his leg out, and deflect in a goal, leading the announcer to say, &amp;quot;Stoke have sprung a surprise! Not just by taking the lead at Old Trafford, but by scoring a goal!&amp;quot; Right before the end of the half, Van Persie countered, but then Man U&amp;#039;s Phil Jones decided to pick this day to play the worst and committed an awful foul right outside the box, which Marko Arnautovic skillfully knocked right under the bar on the free kick. More awesome announcer calls: &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a theater of dreams for Stoke City all right. But it&amp;#039;s a theater of nightmares for Manchester United!&amp;quot; In the seventy-eighth minute, Rooney, off a RVP corner kick, directed a header into the far corner of the goal from the near corner of the box, which he definitely wouldn&amp;#039;t have been able to do with that padded fanny pack on his head. Two minutes later, Patrice Evra crossed the ball to substitute Javier Hernandez on the back post, who dunked it home, and the crowd freaked out as if the Red Devils had just won the league. Fair play to Stoke though, who didn&amp;#039;t really play like Stoke, aside from getting six yellow cards and employing East German center back Robert Huth, who looks like one of the bad guys Jason Statham fights in Crank just to keep adrenaline pumping through his body. Sunderland: 2 | Newcastle: 1 (Reviewed in poor high school French to honor Newcastle, the Frenchest of EPL teams.) Oh mon dieu. Cela at-il vraiment arriv\u00E9? Sunderland n&amp;#039;a r\u00E9ellement gagner un match? Contre NouveauCh\u00E2teau? Dans un derby? Oui. Merci \u00E0 Fabio Borini, qui a lanc\u00E9 la balle si bien qu&amp;#039;il a fait vieux hommes cri et tr\u00E8s jolie danse des dames de la musique hip-hop urbain. D\u00E9sol\u00E9, Greg Lalas, peut-\u00EAtre Worcester ne gagnera pas si facilement. Southampton: 2 | Fulham: 0 A lot of people keep asking me, &amp;quot;Kevin, what is it like to see your former team off to their best ever start in the Premier League, with a stifling defense that has given up the second fewest goals in any of the five major European professional leagues, and a high pressure system that flummoxes all but the most talented passing teams in the EPL?&amp;quot; But, crazily enough, Southampton&amp;#039;s success isn&amp;#039;t (completely) about me, though it is an absolute glory to watch live, especially against Fulham a.k.a. New Stoke. This match was never close. Southampton took twenty shots to Fulham&amp;#039;s two, kept the ball nearly seventy percent of the time, and, when they didn&amp;#039;t have the ball, their high-pressure style forced Fulham to play kick and pray, which is never going to work against a team nicknamed the Saints. Rickie Lambert, one of my favorite players in the League, scored the first on a top-shelf header, which led to a discussion of Lambert&amp;#039;s bio by the English announcers in which they described him as &amp;quot;Kurt Warner-esque&amp;quot; and told the tale of how he used to train at night with a Football League Two (the lowest English pro league) team while putting the lids on beetroot jars for $30 a day. Then, as if on cue, Lambert re-directed a header to Jay Rodriguez, and the Saints went up 2-0, and were never threatened, even by Darren Bent playing in his 356,234th game for his 289th club. Chelsea: 2 | Manchester City: 1 In a battle of Billionaire Russians versus Billionaire Arabs, both employing former Real Madrid managers, ze Russians took this one, thanks to Fernando Torres, who previously seemed like he&amp;#039;d sworn to never score in a meaningful EPL match. I would tell you more about it, and detail how you should watch Segio Aguero&amp;#039;s strike, and acknowledge how awesome he&amp;#039;s been this year, but I kind of hate both these teams and gave up pretending to be objective for Lent. Swansea City: 0 | West Ham United: 0 The glorious hipster darling Swans&amp;#039; total football style was nullified by driving rains, and West Ham&amp;#039;s plan to play without a striker and keep everyone back to clog Swansea&amp;#039;s passing lanes and make everyone bored. Soccer hipsters everywhere reported being &amp;quot;bummed out&amp;quot; by the &amp;quot;gross, lame, and Republican&amp;quot; tactics used by the Hammers, and vowed to burn off their anger by riding their reclaimed aluminum fixies down to the Farmers Market to get some &amp;quot;locally grown organic star anise.&amp;quot; Tottenham: 1 | Hull City: 0 You know what&amp;#039;s not a big deal? The Spurs winning on a Soldado penalty kick in the 80th minute. You know what is a big deal? Me finally receiving my Robbie jersey from Tiger Leisure. Everything is forgiven, online and retail administration manager [redacted]!! Check back here every Tuesday to get a fresh batch of Americanized Premier League roundups \u2014 the rest of which are here. Follow Kevin on Twitter (@KAlexander03) to keep apprised of those stories and other Ricky van Wolfswinkel news.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/news/a25491/english-premier-roundup-102813/>