Premier League Roundup: Casemiro's indiscretion, relegation battle heats up

Premier League Roundup: Casemiro's indiscretion, relegation battle heats up as only three points separate Bournemouth and Crystal Palace

Casemiro will miss four games after his second straight red card on Sunday against Southampton. The game ended goalless. (Photo credit: GOAL)

The weekend proved again why the Premier League is the best in the world: nothing stays the same, and there are no guarantees by pedigree, history, or form.

You have to earn your stripes; ask them at Liverpool.

Beating Manchester United mercilessly one week and then losing to Bournemouth the next is what a certain Portuguese manager would call "football heritage," and this is why we love the game.

Ask them at Manchester United, and they will tell you it is harder than it looks on paper.

Or, how do you explain the fact that they needed a big win at home to forget about what happened at Anfield, but then threw it all away because Casemiro made a bad tackle?

Speaking of Casemiro, how did he go from playing hundreds of games for Real Madrid in La Liga without getting sent off despite how bookings fly in that zone to getting sent off twice already in the space of one month?

He also received a game suspension for accumulating yellows recently; what’s going on?

Manchester United labored to a goalless draw against bottom club Southampton.

And on the balance of play, they were the luckier side, with the Saints going close many times; denied by David De Gea and then the woodwork, United could have lost.

That point is huge, but the Saints still stay at the bottom of the league.

It’s really interesting down there, with up to nine clubs at the mercy of the relegation pool.

Only three points separate Bournemouth in 18th and Palace in 12th; how strange!

You look at that pool and you wonder what the likes of West Ham and Leicester are doing there, but you get what you work for.

The quality in their respective squads should get them over the line, but the earlier they climb out, the better for them; no one is here to play.

What does Chelsea have to do to leave the tenth position?

Two back-to-back wins in the league, and they’re still rooted to the tenth position.

There can even be daylight between them and Brentford if the Bees beat Palace in midweek, although the Blues also have a game in hand on Fulham, who sits in eighth.

To be cont’d…