United's injuries: perhaps not really much of a crisis

Manchester United are having an injury crisis rather than a personnel crisis. To lose one first-choice back four (Wes Brown, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Rafael da Silva) plus your only decent goalkeeper looks unfortunate; to lose another one (Gary Neville, Jonny Evans, John O'Shea, Fabio da Silva) looks, not just like carelessness, but also like you're going to end up with Michael Carrick (midfield stroller) and Patrice Evra (a feisty 5ft 8in) growling and doing unconvincing muscle poses at the heart of what is perhaps the least physically intimidating central defence United have ever fielded.

But Sir Alex Ferguson will only be so worried. They kept a clean sheet against West Ham United and have conceded just once in three Premier League games. Plus this is a good time to have an injury crisis (United's next Premier League opponents are Aston Villa at home, followed by Wolves, Fulham, Hull and Wigan). Perhaps the most interesting thing is the chance to see top-class footballers playing in unfamiliar positions, which is often fascinating, and it would take a particularly hard heart not to hope Carrick has at least one amusing fish-out-of-water moment of Eddie Murphy-in-a-fat-suit proportions if he continues at centre-back in midweek and maybe beyond.

Players often either sink or swim out of position: Rio Ferdinand got sent off for clattering Robbie Savage as a central midfielder. Paul Warhurst got an England call-up as an emergency striker. Carrick will probably be somewhere in between. But it might be fun to watch.

Chelsea lose unluckily rather than winning luckily

It's always tempting to read too much into one result. Chelsea could quite easily have beaten Manchester City on Saturday. But the result shows that City are at a stage where they can raise their levels against the top teams; and the performance tells us that Chelsea remain a very powerful team with a great deal of craft. But, if you wanted to look for a flaw, you could say they don't have an excess extreme, explosive qualities within their team, players who produce the kind of Ronaldo/Rooney-style spectacular moments – uncontrollable pace, trickery on the ball, game-changing moments of isolated brilliance – that will win difficult matches from nowhere. Didier Drogba can do this, but he's off to the African Cup of Nations soon. Chelsea will rely on Nicolas Anelka and a cast of supporting midfielders in his absence and hope to carry on winning by collective endeavour and all-round excellence.

The result on Saturday doesn't mean a great deal. But perhaps it's a sign of a team that might occasionally appear unlucky, where the more volatile attacking brilliance of Manchester United over the past two seasons made them seem at times the opposite.

Liverpool are now Match of the Day also-rans

When was the last time Liverpool were the last game on Match of the Day? Suddenly a 0-0 draw against Blackburn sounds less like two points dropped in one of the results of the day and more like just a quite boring match. Glen Johnson says Blackburn play "an ugly game well". People used to expend quite a lot of time and energy saying the same about Liverpool.

The tide has turned for Gary Megson

Desperate times for Gary Megson who until now has concentrated on backing his players and directing his post-match sad and disappointed face in the direction of the people who boo him regularly from the stands. Defeat at Wolves changed that. Bolton are in the bottom three and look a tentative side compared to the swaggering anti-heroes of recent seasons. Plus, Megson has now started muttering about his players having to "go out there and perform", which may be true, but it also means turning, albeit mildly, on the few friends he's got left around the Reebok.

Bolton's remaining opponents this year are Man City, West Ham, Wigan, Burnley and Hull. Which could be five games to save, if not their season, then perhaps their manager.

Bobby Zamora is off to the World Cup (kind of)

Bobby Zamora reads "too many blogs", according to Roy Hodgson. Hence his sweary goal celebration in front of the section of Fulham fans identified by Fulham's centre-forward as most likely to contain people with virtual aliases like "Zamorahata1973" and "Bobbyzatw@".

Excitingly, this means he might also be reading this one. Bobby, if you're there: don't you think it's a sign of how plasterboard-thin England's pool of players is in some areas when a 28-year-old striker with six goals in 47 Premier League matches is being tipped by his manager – and then actually reported as having been tipped – as an outside shout for the World Cup squad?

Do you think if England picked you, Emile Heskey and Carlton Cole they could gain an immediate edge over their opponents next summer by instructing the three of you to lift heavy objects – tractor wheels, hay bales, small cars – and perform frightening muscle-bound human pyramids on the pitch before kick off?

While it might be a non-starter of a story, it is still nice to see World Cup madness already infecting even the most regulation of 1-0 home wins.