Last week it was a story of Premier League defeats for the Irish; this past weekend, it was one mostly of draws. Newly promoted Hull City had not been defeated at home while Keith Andrews’s Brentford had not lost away, and those two records were extended as the sides contested an entertaining 1-1 draw at the MKM Stadium.
First blood for the Tigers, as Caoimhin Kelleher was adjudged to be mostly to blame for a penalty kick being awarded against him in the 24th minute. His unwise pass to Aaron Hickey, with the Bees playing out from the back, led to the defender losing control of the ball and fouling Tim Iroegbunam. Oli McBurnie made no mistake from the spot.
The Cork-born ‘keeper made amends, though, with a top-shelf save from Mohamed Ali-Cho in the second half to keep it 1-1. Earlier, in the 63rd, Dango Ouattara equalized from close range for the visitors, who improved greatly to become mostly dominant after the break.
John Egan was solid as ever in the middle of Hull's three-man central defense. The Corkman, who turned 34 last week, was flanked by the 19-year-old Lucas Herrington, who impressed for Australia during the World Cup, and the 32-year-old Nigerian Semi Ajayi, who was deemed man of the match.
No sign of a return for the injured Nathan Collins for Brentford, but that other club captain who plays for the Republic, Dara O’Shea, led an Ipswich fightback for a 1-1 home draw to Nottingham Forest on Friday night.
We speculated last week if Everton’s Jake O’Brien would get any minutes away to champions Arsenal having been a perennial 2nd-half substitute before not getting any game time at all in the home defeat to Chelsea. In fact, he played the whole game as a central defender, but with the same 2-0 result as the Gunners capitalized on Manchester City’s stumble to draw level on points at the top of the table.
The backdrop was that O’Brien, a starter last season at right-back, made a demand during the transfer window that he be moved to his preferred center-back position, which he played in France. No transfer happened, but nor did a change of position. However, with Jarrad Branthwaite being briefly unavailable, O’Brien was chosen to replace him ahead of former Republic underage star Michael Keane.
After the game manager David Moyes said, “Jake did well, he did a lot of good things. He’s got pretty big competition as Jarrad Branthwaite is an excellent player and Tarky [James Tarkowski] is a bit of a leader for us and trains every day like a beast and gets himself ready for all the games and prepares himself.
“There’s competition there. He didn’t do himself any harm today in some of it, [but] he’s got lots of things he has to improve on for him to step up.”
So a mixed review but one in which the Scottish-born boss is taking seriously the Corkman’s claims to a center-back role.
Premier League results: Aston Villa 2, Manchester City 1; Arsenal 2, Everton 0; Chelsea 0, Spurs 2; Coventry 0, Fulham 1; Crystal Palace 0, Newcastle Utd 2; Hull City1, Brentford 1; Ipswich Town 1, Notts Forest 1; Liverpool 2, Brighton 0; Manchester Utd 0, Bournemouth 3; Sunderland 0, Leeds Utd 0.
