Arsenal 1 Manchester United 1, Chelsea 2 Swansea 0, QPR 0 Reading 0: match reports

Robin van Persie returned to The Emirates for the first time on Sunday since his controversial £24million move to Manchester United last summer, hoping that he would recieve a warm, welcoming reception to a ground and a club that he had shared many good and bad times throughout his 8-year tenure at the club. 

He was proved wrong. Much speculation whether Arsenal would in-fact give newly-crowned champions Manchester United a guard of honour was in-fact observed at 4pm on Sunday afternoon, and the match in general was a spectacle for neutrals. 

Observed: Arsenal give Manchester United a guard of honour before their 1-1 draw at The Emirates.

Arsenal will feel hard done by as they dominated the match and should have scored two or three more goals than they did, while they conceded a goal thanks to a silly mistake by French right-back Bacary Sagna, who many Gunners fans believe his time has come to leave the club after no ambition or passion for the game everytime he plays.

Cool finish: Walcott slots the ball past a helpless De Gea in just the 2nd minute against Manchester United.

Quick out of the blocks: Walcott celebrates his early finish with the home fans, unaware of what is to come next

Guess who: van Persie smashes the ball past Szczesny from the penalty spot to make it 1-1 against his old club

van Persie tries to show respect to his former club by not celebrating his finish, but it did not stop the abuse

Manchester United however will feel happy that they got a point out of a rivalry match they should have lost, especially by a penalty goal which was gifted to them away from home.

They now know that they cannot beat Chelsea's all-time points record of 95 but they can take heart from the fact that this campaign has been a rather comfortable one for them, with the whole team not having to get past "gear 4" in the most part of the season. 


On the other side of London, Chelsea knew that a home win against Welsh club Swansea would move them back up to 3rd place.

Goals from Oscar and Frank Lampard (penalty) gave The Blues a comfortable 2-0 home win against a side that won the Capital One Cup back in February (thus qualifying for next season's Europa League), yet have never played the same since then.

Class: Chelsea's Brazillian playmaker Oscar makes it 2 goals in 2 matches after his header against Liverpool.

Piledriver: Frank Lampard makes no mistake from the penalty spot to double Chelsea's lead.

Almost: Lampard is one goal away from reaching the all-time club record of 202 goals, made by Bobby Tambling.

Encouraging: Mark Clattenburg returned to his official duties on Sunday for the first time in 6 months.

In the early afternoon kick-off, QPR hosted Reading at Loftus Road in an emotional day in this season's EPL. 
Both teams knew that if they did not win, they would both be relegated with 25 points each.

This clearly had an effect on both sides, who were playing tentatively trying to avoid making a mistake which would allow the other to go and score a goal, which then meant neither team was able to score or concede, and the match remained goal-less throughout the 90 minutes, despite a few chances for both sides. 

We are not sure of the last club joining them to the Npower Championship next season, but we now know that QPR and Reading are RELEGATED.

It's quite a shock as far as QPR are concerned, despite a poor start to the season they seemed to have picked themselves up due to the appointment of former Portsmouth and Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp.

They made some big signings in January including Samba and Remy to partner their summer signings of Julio Cesar, Granero and Junior Holiett but this just clogged up the team's wage bill as half the players were more concerned about their wages instead of improving their team performances.

Reading on the other hand were always going to be on the back foot having just been promoted to the "big league", plus the fact they started the season slowly and a poor run of results ended up in their manager (Brian McDermott) being sacked.
It was a culture shock for a boss that had been so influential in taking the side up to the EPL to be knocked over when he was down, and the team never really recovered.

Thanks for reading my EPL Blog today, I apologise for it being late but I have and will be busy over the next couple of weeks but there are a lot of blog posts coming out, I promise! :) 

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