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And for once, the league was greater than its hype.

It was a goal junkie’s dream. It was a day when teams crammed full of foreigners played with such a devil-may-care sense of adventure. A day when Manchester United was felled by the bottom-dwelling Wolverhampton Wanderers; when Arsenal lost a four-goal lead and drew, 4-4, at Newcastle; when Everton won, 5-3, and Wigan emerged on top, 4-3.

A day when five of the nine games were won or tied by teams who were spurred on, rather than daunted, by going a goal down.

The wild weather had something to do with it. When it is hard to keep a footing and hard to judge the swirling wind, and when packed crowds bay for goals, there comes a time when professionals programmed to play it safe abandon orders.

Where to begin? Louis Saha might be a good name to kick off with. A product of the French school of Clairefontaine, the 32-year-old Saha’s better days might be behind him. But he scored four times in Everton’s comeback victory against Blackpool. He was robbed of a fifth by a wrong call by the referee.

King Louis has had days before when he can seem unplayable. He has had more than a few days when he gets out of bed, feels a twinge somewhere in his body and calls in sick.

That is why he plays for Everton and no longer for Manchester United. Every manager who has tried to motivate Saha describes him as being a top mover and goal scorer between his bouts of injuries and self-doubt. He joined Everton two years ago on a pay-per-play contract that meant he received his match fee only when fit.

On Saturday he was fit, elusive, unstoppable. It helped that the opposition was Blackpool, the shoestring upstart that refuses to engage in anything other than a have-a-go mentality.

Blackpool came up to the Premiership last summer with the almost recklessly old-fashioned theory that soccer is just a game. Attack, and be damned.

Entertain at all costs.

That philosophy stimulates even an essentially cautious team like Everton to trade goals. And though Blackpool led, 3-2, with an hour gone, it eventually paid the consequences and set the bar for the goal rush going on up and down the country.

Almost beyond belief, Newcastle came back from a four-goal deficit to deny Arsenal a victory. After 26 minutes, Newcastle was a bewildered, spiritless, seemingly sunken home team.

Arsenal was in another league. Not on a par with Lionel Messi and Barcelona, who transcend the league in Spain, but in movement, pace, quality and finishing, Arsenal was far too clever for Newcastle.

Or so it seemed to the many Newcastle supporters who left the stadium, disillusioned, halfway through the contest. You do wonder if, as they descended from St. James’ Park into the town, they heard the roars as Newcastle came back again, and again, and again.

The match turned on a red card shown early in the second half to Abou Diaby, Arsenal’s French midfielder. He feared a brutish tackle of him by Newcastle’s Joey Barton might threaten to break him, as previous tackles in English soccer have done. But his retaliation, pushing Barton to the ground by the scruff of the neck and also pushing another player, gave the referee no choice other than to eject Diaby.

The perpetrator, Barton, profited. He scored twice from penalty kicks, and Newcastle overpowered and overwhelmed Arsenal. The crowd got behind its team — as Newcastle at its best does — and ultimately, Arsenal was lucky to get out of there with a point.

The final goal, an audacious stroke of brilliance from Cheik Tiote, evened the score. He volleyed the ball just above the ground with his left foot, his first-ever goal in the Premiership and a far, far cry from the Ivory Coast where he played barefoot until he was 15.

Later Saturday, another unheralded man, George Elokobi, shook the composure out of Manchester United.

Elokobi looks like a linebacker in the National Football League or a weightlifter. He has muscles that are of little use in soccer, but, clearly, a heart of gold. Wolves plays in gold shirts, and when the team was down, it was Elokobi who led the charge.

He muscled in to score with a header. He and Ireland’s Kevin Doyle collided, and between them they forced the winner in another crowded goal mouth. And Elokobi, a Cameroonian who started in semiprofessional soccer in England and overcame a career-threatening knee injury, was fundamental to United’s first league defeat in 30 matches.

Alex Ferguson, the United manager, had warned it could happen. He knows that he does not have anything close to a vintage Manchester United this season, and that perseverance had at times held the team’s unbeaten run together.

In fact, Ferguson said moments before the match Saturday that the Wolves were a better team than the league standings indicated. “We will lose sometime,” he said on television. “And Wolves could be the team to do it.” His premonition was perhaps provoked by the knowledge that Wolverhampton had already beaten Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool. So the Wolves’ first victory over United in seven years was in the cards.

And in the wind and the rain, it seemed almost as if the early United goal was the spur that got the Wolves going.

At the end of it, the Wolves’ team almost took a lap of honor. The fans bayed as if they were winning a cup final. And the home team manager, Mick McCarthy, was as puzzled as the next man.

“I’ve just told the players there’s a perversity about us,” he said. “We keep beating the best teams, but we can’t keep losing to those around us.

“I’ve just been in to see Sir Alex. He told me I was a lucky so-and-so.

“I’ve waited it seems a hundred years to hear that, because I’ve never had anything off United before,” he said, “but he said it with a smile on his face.”

A bemused smile, no doubt. For this was a day that the winds blew and teams that normally tread in fear of defeat turned the league on its head.

Labels: England, Something, Strange, Times