But some semblance of luck has remained with the Black Cats, since their opening weekend position is one they'd likely settle for at the final final whistle come May, ie 17th, courtesy of their solitary consolation strike.
Sunday saw a sort of reverse fixture as Newcastle visited Highbury (ie North East coming to London) and once again the away side went a man down, probably a bit harshly, though I couldn't help wondering if Jenas was ill advised to try to make this sort of impression on Arsene Wenger if he wanted to persuade him to up his transfer offer. Subsequently, and without even the benefit of a goal start, the Toon were overwhelmed by wave after wave of increasingly intricate but mostly ineffective Arsenal attacks which finally produced an end product as Thierry Henry just about slotted home a debatable if very obviously rightly awarded penalty. There was nothing dubious at all about the brilliance of Robin Van Persie's finish for the second Arsenal goal, however, apart perhaps from the attempted retort from the travelling Newcastle fans, who briefly tried singing “you're supposed to be in jail”. Briefly, that is, both because the final whistle wasn't far off, and because I think they belatedly realised their attempt to seize the moral high ground was untenable on the jailbird issue so long as they had Lee Bowyer in midfield for their own side.
Other bits of colour from this match that you maybe won't have picked up from highlights broadcast later on were… the white-capped streaker, who after a few forward rolls, a brief dance with an embarrassed looking Kolo Toure, and a couple of bodybuilder poses, trudged off disconsolately when it became apparent no Police or stewards were going to come out onto the pitch after him. So much for the heightened security measures we'd been told about before the match, I though to myself. Oh, and how the artisan groundsmen had managed to put Salute to Highbury logos onto the billiard table smooth grass by carefully cutting it in different directions – very impressive, but also very frustrating to see such perfection and artistry as I'm still struggling to tame my new house's lawn.
Back to the footie itself, and the East End had been full of 'appy 'ammers on Saturday after the newly promoted Irons blew more than bubbles past a pretty ragged looking Blackburn side, whose own red card for Dickov couldn't even be used as an excuse for the scoreline since it was awarded for a blatant offence immediately following the home side's third goal. As a result, Sunday evening's table finds Alan Pardew a much more popular figure than could reasonably have been expected after limping into promotion via the playoffs, the old Sheringham warhorse being called in from pasture one more time and depositing West Ham in an automatic Champions League spot. Well, I did say it was early days, didn't I?
Since we have come to the point of mentioning Champions, title defenders Chelsea went to Wigan on Sunday to contest the last of the opening weekend's Premiership matches, this fixture on paper therefore the greatest of its mismatches, and with earlier results having meant that Jose Mourinho had the chance, and indeed was expected, to make it a clean sweep of the Champions League places for London clubs. Well, it didn't quite turn out that way as the match went into extra time goalless and, to my eye at least, Wigan looked the likelier to score a winner at the death. Until, that is, a tiring Wigan defence kept Hernan Crespo onside long enough to receive and dispatch the ball past the otherwise largely untroubled home goalkeeper. Time on the clock? Two and a half of the three minutes injury time gone, and therefore quite a dramatic victory for Chelsea in their first match defending the trophy, which a pretty bemused looking Roman Ambramovic had shown up to savour in person (this being more than could be said for Chelsea's non-billionaire fanbase, who had returned 3,000 of their ticket allocation to Wigan unsold, and whose remaining area only seemed to be half full). I almost choked on my drink as I heard Jose say on camera afterwards that Chelsea had been rubbish and hadn't deserved to win, but for once I couldn't fault his analysis. What I was worried out instead was the fact that I'd chosen Wigan over Sunderland as my sweepstake pick for 20th spot in the Premiership, and they looked a lot better than that, despite finishing with no points to show for their performance.
Chelsea having failed to make it into the top four, then, the fourth spot was taken, purely on alphabetical grounds, by Man United, themselves 2-0 winners away at Goodison on Saturday. Everton's woes look pretty deep set if this result is anything to go by, and it doesn't set them up too well for the already pretty daunting away trip to Spain to overturn a first leg Champions League qualifier deficit to Villareal, but Man United for their part looked likelier to run a better challenge this season on the evidence of Rooney and in particular van Nistelrooy's goals.
Goals were not at all in short supply at Villa Park on Saturday, where Bolton and the home side shared four in the opening ten minutes of the game, but where the resulting Desmond perhaps had a weird psychic effect and absorbed the goal potential from matches elsewhere as Fulham-Birmingham, Man City-West Brom and Boro-Liverpool all ended without score (the last of these games in particular seeming to display signs of a hex or two, as superhero Gerrard contrived to fashion and then waste a good half-dozen full-blooded chances at a winner, never mind what the rest of his team could come up with).
And then we come to Spurs' win at Pompey, which I feel justified in leaving to last given the relatively modest circulation of this commentary compared to the millions who will have tuned in to hear noted libel trial defendant Gary Lineker on Match of the Day hailing the coming of the new age of Lilywhite dominance. Maybe there's something in the BBC tea, because I couldn't quite see the new era dawning myself, even if I find it curiously difficult to dislike Martin Jol. OK, so he's the current Spurs manager and therefore has an automatic place for himself (and his mother) in one of the North Bank's favourite songs, albeit one that's currently a bit stymied for lyrics by the decision to ditch the red and white kit. But to me it seems that he's treating the job as something he's just passing through, having fallen into by accident (which is I suppose a pretty good way to look at his replacement of Santini), and in a few weeks he'll be quite happy to have gone back to being a genial Amsterdam taxi driver again. Top approach to a job you can't really take too seriously, I guess, and the same seems to have been true for a few of the Pompey players who rolled over and let Spurs tickle their tummies after the own goal that gave the visitors a lead.
Coming up in the week ahead and, mind you, after just one competitive Premiership match per club, we already have some International disruption to clubs, but this is more than compensated for by the prospect of next weekend's standout match, Chelsea v Arsenal.