• Premier League: Villa suggest this title race could be the best one ever
  • As for Leeds, they are thriving under Marcelo Bielsa in their first Premier League season since 2003-04 and they won this game without injured midfielder Kalvin Phillips.

Since Patrick Bamford curled in a stunning left-foot shot to seal a 19-minute hat-trick and put Leeds United 3-0 up against Aston Villa, the craziest season in Premier League history took yet another remarkable twist.

The super clubs such as Liverpool and Manchester United wanted to split up the Premier League scene with their audacious, and neglected, Project Big Picture plan, but Leeds are another of those famous old clubs that are biting back and forth showing they are ready to fight every inch of the way to ensure that England’s top-flight never becomes a closed store to all the largest, wealthiest and most powerful. And they piled out that message in Villa thanks to goals scored by a player who was chewed up and spat out from the Premier League so many occasions he deserves credit for bouncing back together with Leeds.

Bamford, the prior Chelsea kid who had scored only one goal during his prior efforts to prove himself in the Premier League with five different clubs (Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Burnley, Middlesbrough and Norwich City),’d taken his tally for the season to six aims for Marcelo Bielsa’s group — degree with Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and one supporting Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Son Heung-Min. However, Bamford’s abrupt transformation into a Premier League hot-shot in the age of 27 is a mere sub-plot in the narrative of the season up to now.

If it continues like this, we’re on course for the most open Premier League year for a quarter of a century, and also Leeds are set to be a fundamental part in the story.Leeds, having ended the club 16-year Premier League exile by winning promotion from the EFL Championship last year, are now third in the top-flight following this victory at Villa Park.Their triumph refused Villa, who had won four from four before this game, the chance to maintain top spot, just 3 months later avoiding relegation on the back of a late surge of shape at the conclusion of the coronavirus-affected 2019-20 season.

So after failing to grasp the opportunity to go top, Villa should now settle back and see Everton try to open up a three-point direct with a triumph at Southampton on Sunday.Yes, the Premier League leading three at late-October is Everton, Villa and Leeds. Leicester City are also in the shake-up for the best four, as are Wolverhampton Wanderers. Liverpool are still the favourites to complete the season as winners, but not because the mid-1990s have we noticed a Premier League campaign with numerous unfamiliar names in the very top end of this table.

After Manchester United won the first Premier League title in 1992-93, Villa ended as runners-up with Norwich in third. Blackburn came fourth, one place ahead of Queens Park Rangers.A year afterwards, Blackburn and Newcastle finished second and third respectively behind winners United, together with Leeds fifth and Wimbledon sixth.Nottingham Forest ended third in 1994-95, when Blackburn pipped United to the title, but because those heady days of a wide-open contest, the heavyweights have tended to control the top four, with only Newcastle, Everton, Leeds and Leicester able to upset the hierarchy in the years since.But would the 2020-21 season, made even stranger by the lack of fans because of the pandemic, end up as a throwback to the Nineties, when every club had a shot at breaking into the top ?

Everton have put a marker down using their unbeaten start under Carlo Ancelotti along with the Merseyside club are strong contenders to finish in the top four due to the proven quality of their supervisor and a squad enhanced by players like James Rodriguez and Allan.However, Villa and Leeds both showed in this game that they have the players to maintain a top six push at least.Villa, who invented Liverpool 7-2 before this year , were defeated in the end, but Jack Grealish had a shot cleared off the line and was denied a first-half penalty before he almost scored a contender for goal of the year, with a lengthy, mazy run, prior to Bamford’s 55th-minute opener.Grealish, Chelsea loanee Ross Barkley, striker Ollie Watkins and former Arsenal goalkeeper Emi Martinez are gamers capable of making a difference against any staff and they’ll ensure that Villa bounce back from this defeat.