Five things learnt from the Premier League

Manchester United’s poor run continues in Premier League

It is never a dull weekend where the Premier League is concerned, with late goals, good form, bad form and relegation battles the key talking points.

Leicester City went into the weekend as the top side in the Premier League, but it wasn’t the Foxes who were the surprise package on Saturday afternoon, but rather AFC Bournemouth.

More woes for United

A second-minute Junior Stanislas goal stunned Manchester United on the south coast, before their equaliser was cancelled out by 54th-minute Joshua King strike to secure their second consecutive win, after stunning Chelsea at Stamford Bridge last weekend.

However, while the Cherries were celebrating victory, Louis Van Gaal’s Red Devils are struggling and have now not won any of their last three Premier League matches, causing some concern for the United board as they sit three points behind top of the table and local rivals Manchester City after Saturday’s action.

The Red Devils had fell out of the Champions League just four days earlier and are struggling for goals in the league, heaping pressure on Van Gaal to turn their fortunes around as they prepare for the Europa league in 2016. Their next two fixtures on winnable ones on paper, but neither Norwich or Stoke are pushovers, so Van Gaal’s uphill task won’t be made easy for him.

Cherries taste success

While United may be suffering, the same can’t be said of Bournemouth recently. Despite Chelsea being out of form, the Blues were expected to at least win, even if not comfortably, against the newly-promoted side who have been hit by several long-term injuries this season. It looked as though all their hard work in winning promotion was to meet automatic promotion, when Tyrone Mings, Callum Wilson and Max Gradel all suffered long-term injuries, but the Cherries’ victory over the Blues was to be followed up with success at home to United.

If Van Gaal has been losing sleep over United’s form recently, it wasn’t about to get any easier when Junior Stanislas netted after two minutes, before Marouane Fellaini’s equaliser was ruled out by Joshua King’s 54th-minute winner. Two back-to-back victories for boss Eddie Howe, against top-four opposition would likely have been laughed off by the Cherries manager at the beginning of the season, but here they were again defying the odds.

Bournemouth may be just three points off the relegation zone, but they do sit 14th – still a point and a place ahead of last week’s victims Chelsea, even if they do have a game in hand over the Cherries, with the Blues heading to in-form Leicester on Monday.

Swansea suffer late heartbreak

Just when Swansea thought they had finally overcome their recent daemons, with an injury-time strike by Bafetimbi Gomis, Kelechi Iheanacho replied immediately with a goal to steal the points for the home side and move them, temporarily at least, to the top of the Premier League, with Leicester having the chance to return to the top on Monday.

Alan Curtis thought he had steered Swansea City to a well-deserved point at the Etihad when Gomis struck late on, as he took temporary charge of the Swans who had sacked boss Garry Monk on Wednesday. But their fight for safety suffered a late set back when Yaya Toure’s deflected effort hit Iheanacho and sailed in.

Swansea are now without a win in six games, with their last victory coming away to Aston Villa back in October. Since the Swans’ promotion to the Premier League in 2011, this is arguably the toughest period they have had to deal with, after impressing the league with their style of football and earning many admirers in recent years.

It is now up to the new boss to get them back into winning ways with immediate effect, whoever that may be, to ensure they don’t slip into a serious relegation battle.

Lukaku the next Vardy?

With Romelu Lukaka scoring the opening goal in Everton’s 1-1 draw at Norwich City on Saturday lunch time, it seems the Belgium international is targeting the record Premier League goalscoring streak recently broken by England international Jamie Vardy.

The Leicester man scored in 11 consecutive games to beat Manchester United legend Ruud Van Nistelrooy’s 10-game record, and now the Everton frontman looks as though he wants a taste of record breaking, himself – having scored in six consecutive games.

He may well have some way to go, but it is his impressive goalscoring form that has helped the Toffees to within six points of a Champions League place and six games unbeaten in the league.

Big Sam set for big relegation battle?

Sam Allardyce had a successful spell in east London with West Ham until joining the Black Cats this season. But, it seems even the greatness of Allardyce may not be enough to save Sunderland’s season.

Ok, the Black Cats are six points off the bottom of the table, to the horror of Aston Villa not even in double figures for the season, but the fact of the matter is that after 16 games Sunderland have 12 points and look far from likely to be leaving the bottom three any time soon.

Newly-promoted Watford at home would have been looked at before the game as one of the games they had to win. However, a fourth-minute strike from Odion Ighalo put Sunderland on the back foot early on and would be an understatement to say they face an uphill task from here.

The Black Cats have won three times this season, winning back-to-back games once in a recent spike in form. However, one of those wins was against bitter rivals and fellow strugglers Newcastle and again, are not showing signs that they can find any sort of form to avoid big Sam sinking with the Black Cats to the Championship next season.