Goalrush weekend kicks off Premier League

There Premier League season kicked off with a bang this weekend with a host of football goals as well as the most penalties in an opening weekend since the 2002/03 season.

The moment football fans have been waiting for has finally arrived and fans gathered at stadia nationwide in their new football kits. Cardiff fans especially were seen wearing a red football kit after their new owners decided red was better for their international marketability.

The shock fixtures of the weekend came from Premier League mid-table stalwarts Fulham along with Swansea, who are tipped to be relegation candidates after the departure of Brendan Rogers.

Swansea were showing off their new red, white and green colours to highlight their own piece of their Welsh nationality and looked to be in deadly form for new manager Michael Laudrup. Surprise package Michu scored twice in Swansea’s 5-0 thrashing of QPR, justifying his transfer fee of £2m from Spanish club Rayo Vallecano.

Meanwhile Fulham signalled an intention to try and dominate early on by crushing Norwich 5-0, with Mladan Petric proving he his a worthwhile replacement for the injured Clint Dempsey by finding the football nets twice on his debut against a Norwich side that has recently lost Paul Lambert to Aston Villa.

Meanwhile Brendan Rogers had a nightmare opening game at the helm of Liverpool, having to watch his side concede two penalties and watching Daniel Agger get sent off in the first half of their 3-0 loss against West Brom for a reckless shove on striker Shane Long. Andy Carroll will have had a worse start to the season though after he spent the first 79 minutes warming the bench and then came on to do nothing but pick up a booking.

Carroll is facing down the barrel of the end of his football career, not being able to pull up his football socks to play the kind of football Rogers will expect and not being able to move back to Newcastle, the club which introduced him to the Premier League stage.

Defending champions Manchester City had a scare at home against newly promoted side Southampton after coming back from 2-1 with 20 minutes to go to win 3-2 in a repeat of the last game of last season where City came back to win with the same scoreline against QPR and to win that most coveted of football trophies, the Premier League Championship.

Arsene Wenger had to compensate for letting Robin Van Persie go to Manchester United for £24million last week. He had high hopes for French striker Olivier Giroud and German sharpshooter Lukas Podolski. Both seemed to be misfiring on the opening weekend and Wenger will be hoping to avoid the same start that the Gunners were subjected to last season, but a 0-0 draw against Sunderland will not be the ideal start.

Chelsea managed to get their campaign off to a start which will please Roberto Di Matteo by beating Wigan 2-0, Frank Lampard netting a penalty to prove that he can still find the net despite still waiting to be offered a new contract from the Blues, but he will have to keep it up all season to ensure his safety in the team.