Patrice Evra has told reporters of the pain that him and his United teammates are feeling following their 2-0 loss to rivals Liverpool. United were defeated by a Fernando Torres goal, and a late David N'gog goal added salt to United's wounds.

"Normally when United play we create at least five or six clear chances, but we only had the one when Valencia hit the crossbar.

Another Premier League weekend is now in the books, and with some key match ups and exciting derbies now past us, here are the things that we learned from this weekend of Premiership action.

10Boring as Hull. Anyone who watched the Hull City v Portsmouth match on Saturday will know exactly what I mean.

Wolves will host Aston Villa this week at the Molineux this Saturday on ESPN2 (for all of you US viewers) in what should prove to be a hard fought match between two local rivals. This big derby match-up will aim to please a near-capacity crowd that will be flooding into the Molineux.

Team News:

• Manager Mick McCarthy will be hoping his team shuts down Richard Dunne as he tried to sign him over the summer.

Lyon's 2-1 Champions League victory at Anfield on Tuesday night sparked mass hysteria amongst the Liverpool faithful. While almost everyone points the finger at the absence of Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres in recent weeks, even more people are blaming manager Rafa Benitez. There is no doubt about it: people are calling for Rafa Benitez's head.

They call him Mr. Chelsea, and Blues skipper John Terry certainly lived up to that billing when he recently decided to take control of the financial aspect of the women's football team at Stamford Bridge. The economy certainly hit the Chelsea ladies very hard as a significant portion of their funding from previous years was slashed this season.

With the Ballon d'Or nominations finally releasing this weekend, the headlines have mostly been devoted to the fact that world champions Italy have no representation whatsoever. But why blame the press for paying excessive attention to an irrelevant detail? After all, the award itself is destined to be heading Lionel Messi's way, which means very little is there to be talked about in terms of debating the winner, right?

While Arsenal skipper Cesc Fabregas has clearly enjoyed his Spain side cruise to the World Cup 2010 finals with a perfect record (and no goals conceded at home), he has spoken to Arsenal.com to offer some backing to a couple of his teammates who won't be appearing in the showpiece event next summer.

Sweden striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic has become the latest Barcelona star to egotistically pronounce the treble winning club's's dominance over their global rivals. Following Sweden's bitter loss to Denmark this weekend, where the spotlight was stolen away from him thanks to Nicklas Bendtner's scintillating performance for the Danes, Ibrahimovic has taken his frustrations out on former club Inter Milan.

Beyond the nation's borders, Italian football has certainly faded into the background in recent years. A devastating match-fixing scandal in 2006 bitterly overshadowed the country's World Cup triumph that year while the domestic league has clearly become a one-horse race ever since. Reigning champions Inter Milan have shown no signs of a slip up in the Serie A for the last three seasons and that trend continued with their strong start to the current season as well.

Patience is a virtue, and for two of the Premier League's best players, that patience has finally paid off. The crazy thing about it all? These two players are on the same team! And the lucky team is Sunderland.

It was just last season that Sunderland were in the heat of the relegation battle.

Daniel Agger is generally known to Barclays Premier League fans as a technically gifted Danish defender whose progress has often been halted by injuries. Similarly, Alberto Aquilani is usually perceived by English fans as an immensely creative Italian midfielder who has often been deceived by his proneness to injuries.

With the first quarter of football almost over in most leagues around Europe, now is a good time to measure the current progress of some of the giant clubs on the continent. Actually, analyzing the success or failure of clubs in general won't be nearly as exciting as identifying a more specific object of analysis.

Barcelona may be the treble winners last season. In addition, they may also be the side with arguably the most potent attack in Europe, comprising of the likes of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thierry Henry, Bojan Krkic, and FIFA World Player of the Year hopeful Lionel Messi. On top of that, they also possess one of the most powerful midfield combinations in the continent in the form of Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez.

The title to this article might suggest that I am providing some late coverage on Arsenal striker Nicklas Bendtner's recent car accident while driving to practice in his Aston Martin. In reality, though, this article is written in vehement defense of the player, who has certainly had more than his fair share of critics, to put it bluntly.

In what could be the most obvious Wednesday Wonder to date, Robbie Keane is this week's pick after his stunning performance on Saturday against Burnley. I'll admit that I've overlooked a hat-trick for the Wednesday Wonder before and picked somebody else, but there is something special about that fourth goal.

As the Olympiacos team bus got closer and closer to the Finsbury Park area, I am sure veteran goalkeeper Antonios Nikopolidis began to relive some of the greatest moments of his career at the highest level. From his invaluable contribution in Greece's historic Euro 2004 win to his consistency during his club's league triumph over the last three years, Nikopolidis is no stranger to success at a grand stage.

Given the title of this article, I could be about to tell you about how the strike duo of Darren Bent and Kenwyne Jones will be leading Sunderland to new heights in the Premier League this season, but we will save that for a later date. I'd rather make a bold statement and talk about the bottom of the table at the moment.

With yet another exciting Premier League weekend in the books it's time to review this weekend's winners and losers.

Robbie Keane emerges from this weekend as the biggest winner. The Tottenham striker has had a relatively quiet start to the season, oftentimes playing second fiddle to the red hot Jermain Defoe.

Antonio Cassano has reinvented himself. Not only has he changed his physical approach by losing weight, he has changed his mental approach too, becoming not only more mature, but also a leader. He is now someone who visits hospitals and gives signed shirts to sick children. He is now someone who can carry a team on his back, provide assists for his teammates, and entertain the crowd.

With the arrival of the weekend, football fans across the world are returning to following their respective teams in another series of cracking fixtures. However, excitement is going to reach a whole different level next weekend, when the much awaited FIFA 10 releases in Australia (October 1) and Europe (October 2).

While he was honored as Estonia's best player in the past half a century by the nation's football association, Mart Poom could not earn even remotely the same kind of respect on club level. Despite boasting a variety of Eastern European and English clubs on his resume during his early days as a player, the legendary former Estonia goalkeeper is best remembered for an extremely inactive spell as a back-up keeper at Arsenal F.

The Hammers were out to get over a dismal start to the season. Liverpool was ready to steady a shaky ship say that five times fast and improve on their 4-0 win over Burnley from the week before. Both teams came to play at Upton Park on Saturday, and neither time gave in throughout the entirety of the match.

Rewind back to 2003 and you'll see that Jonathan Woodgate had everything. From critical acclaim to a huge fan following, he had all the essentials required to go down in the Newcastle folklore as one of the very best defenders of all time. However, the only obstacle that could stop him injuries came into play very early into his career at St.

When the Carling Cup Round 3 draw was first made, it was very difficult to imagine West Bromwich Albion providing much of a competition to Arsenal at The Emirates. Granted, Arsene Wenger uses the competition to provide some first-team action to his reserves, but even those teenagers usually prove to be a handful for the opponents.

Real Madrid striker Ruud van Nistelrooy returned after a long spell on the sidelines to provide an assist and score another in his side's emphatic 5-0 victory over La Liga minnows Xerez. While the focus of the game initially remained on another former Manchester United star, Cristiano Ronaldo who scored twice to make it six goals in his four appearances it was his Dutch teammate who eventually created most of the headlines.

Edin Dzeko is back with a bang! The Bosnia international striker, who spent most of the summer pushing for a dream move to AC Milan, has finally underlined his commitment to Wolfsburg with an outstanding decisive brace away to Schalke 04.

After experiencing a promising start in the top flight by defeating the current Premiership champions, Burnley's form went crashing down with two heavy road defeats at the hands of Chelsea and Liverpool, 3-0 and 4-0 respectively. Now, they have to defend their perfect record at home against Sunderland, who come pumped and ready after thrashing Hull City 4-1 at home.

There is no denying that Liverpool F.C. is the form team in the Barclays Premier League at the moment. Rafa's Reds have defied all odds to overcome a frustrating start to the campaign and surprisingly, the Steven Gerrard - Fernando Torres pairing isn't exclusively responsible for leading the revival.

The first defeat of the season is always the most tricky one to deal with. Perhaps that explains why some feel that the earlier it comes, the better. At the beginning of the 2007-08 season, a determined young Arsenal squad made a typically flying start to the campaign.

After experiencing a promising start in the top flight by defeating the current Premiership champions, Burnley's form went crashing down with two heavy road defeats at the hands of Chelsea and Liverpool, 3-0 and 4-0 respectively. Now, they have to defend their perfect record at home against Sunderland, who come pumped and ready after thrashing Hull City 4-1 at home.

There is absolutely no doubt that Fulham's gritty displays of late are deserving of their newfound reputation as the people's club in the Premier League. The masses can relate to their mid-sized squad and down-to-earth players while tourists from all over the world simply cannot resist the amazing atmosphere at the conveniently located Craven Cottage.

Arsene Wenger's rapidly increasing dependence on youngsters within his squad reached new heights this midweek when he chose to start off the Champions League group stages with rookie Italian goalkeeper Vito Mannone between the sticks.

With the commencement of the UEFA Champions League group stages this midweek, an important piece of news was relegated to the back of most reporting outlets. Perhaps another reason behind the lack of coverage for the story in question was the refusal, on part of most football lovers, to recollect any part of the uninspiring internationals break.

Stoke City may be a small club, but that never seems to faze them when they walk out in front of the crowd at The Britannia. Saturday was no different.

Chelsea was visiting, and they brought their undefeated record with them, too. Stoke was ready for a battle, though. It's pretty hard to describe how different Stoke is as a team when they are playing at home.

Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has announced the Premier League's plans to instate a home-grown players rule. The rule will be effective beginning next season and throws a whole new wrench into the under 18 transfers debate.

The Premier League's ruling means that Premiership clubs can have no more than 17 non-homegrown players.