Chelsea back in third as Liverpool falter against Swansea City

The ball swung in from the corner. Three defenders converged on it, including the world’s most expensive. Van Dijk did get his head to the ball, but his clearance went only about a millimeter for each of the 75 million Liverpool paid for him a month ago. The ball fell to the feet of Alfie Mawson, Swansea’s leading goalscorer with whopping five goals. Make that six goals.

Probably not the Premier League debut for his new club that Virgil might have envisioned. Oops.

It was classic Liverpool, brilliant one week, hilarious the next — from ending Manchester City’s unbeaten bid in stellar style to failing to score against the worst team in the league. A goalless Salah was shocking enough, but then Liverpool hilariously hit the post in the final minute, too, and then failed to put home the rebound from three yards out.

Their loss means that Chelsea are back in third, three points ahead of the Reds and three points behind the Red Devils, who took care of business at Burnley by the narrowest of margins before concluding a rare and sensational swap deal for Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez (with Henrikh Mkhitaryan going the other way). Alexis becomes one of the five best-paid players in the world and United become a better team. Time will tell however just how smart or risky this move turns out to be (i.e. some players are clamoring for better contracts in light of Alexis’s near half-million (before taxes) weekly paycheck).

There was good news further down the table as well, with Spurs only managing a draw yesterday away to Southampton, leaving them five points adrift of Chelsea. Spurs can do themselves and us a favor next week when they host Manchester United on Wednesday (it’s a midweek round after the weekend’s FA Cup action).

Arsenal and Manchester City both won this past weekend, so no change at either end of the top six.