One of the most passionately followed soccer tournaments in the world, the Barclays Premier League, is underway with Chelsea taking the early honours.

The Blues looked rather comfortable as they downed Wigan 2-0 without much drama before beating Reading 4-2 at home earlier this week.

Their next challenge will be to beat Newcastle, who also started their tournament strongly by defeating Tottenham at home 2-1 after recovering from a rusty start.

Hatem Ben Arfa was the well-deserved man of the match in that game, setting up the first goal with a clever piece of ball work before slotting home the winning penalty in the 80th minute.

Meanwhile, Fulham showed no mercy on Norwich, crushing them 5-0 at home with debutant Mladen Petric scoring a double and helping to set up a third.

It was a similar story for Swansea City, who deflated the Queens Park Rangers home crowd with four goals in the second half to take the match 5-0.

Manchester City had to fight for their first win of the season against Southampton, despite looking like having one of the strongest rosters in the league.

Carlos Tevez opened the scoring in the 39th minute and Man City would have entered the halftime break feeling confident, but Southampton came back strong with a Rickie Lambert equaliser.

Then came the moment that would have sent a few hearts fluttering as Steven Davis pushed his team in front with a goal in the 67th minute to bring the scoreline to 1-2 for Southampton.

Edin Dzeko was calm under pressure however and equalised with a close range goal less than five minutes later.

Things got tense as both teams fought for ascension, but in the end it was Samir Nasri who was good enough to drill in a shot from 11 metres out and score what turned out to be the match winner.

West Ham and Everton were also able to start their tournaments with a win, downing Aston Villa and Manchester United respectively.

The surprise result of the round came when West Brom shocked Liverpool 3-0 at home after goals from Zoltan Gera, Peter Odemwingie and Romelu Lukaku.

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