Ashley Young’s goal in the third minute of injury time secured a 3-2 victory for Aston Villa over Everton in a dramatic English Premier League clash at Goodison Park on Sunday.
When Joleon Lescott struck in acrobatic style after the 90-minute mark to net his second goal of the game, it seemed as if Everton had done enough to earn a point.
But with just 12 seconds left, Young sped clear to finish in style as Villa went back to fifth in the table, while defeat saw Everton drop down to eighth.
PHOTO: AP
“It’s a brilliant victory,” goal-hero Young told Sky Sports. “I had an opportunity in the second half that I should have taken, so to win the game at the death shows the character of the boys in our squad. We defended brilliantly today and it’s a brilliant feeling to get a goal at the death.”
Villa manager Martin O’Neill said: “I thought it was a wonderful game. Young’s done fantastically — it was a world-class performance by him.”
Everton manager David Moyes said his side should have come away with at least a point.
PHOTO: AFP
“The players didn’t deserve that,” the Scot said. “But there was a wee bit of disarray when we should have seen the game out. I’ve not seen the winner yet — but when we scored and kicked off I thought ‘this must be time up.’”
Steve Sidwell put Villa ahead with the fastest Premier League goal this season from a 25m shot after 31 seconds.
Lescott leveled on the half-hour mark, before Young restored Villa’s lead in the 54th minute.
The game was still in its infancy when a neat passing move involving Young, James Milner and Gabriel Agbonlahor ended with the ball coming to Sidwell, who struck a rising shot past Everton keeper Tim Howard.
Villa might have had a second when Laursen headed over from a corner and it needed a good tackle from Australia international midfielder Tim Cahill to deny Stiliyan Petrov.
But the hosts did get back into the game, with Villa keeper Brad Friedel forced to make good saves from Cahill and Marouane Fellaini. And David Moyes’ men had something to celebrate when Lescott scored from close range after Leon Osman had flicked-on a Mikel Arteta free-kick.
Everton gave O’Neill’s team further cause for concern early in the second half when Fellaini’s header was touched onto the bar by Friedel.
However, that pressure was lifted thanks to an extraordinary error by normally reliable Everton defender Phil Jagielka.
The full-back played a back-pass without first surveying the scene and the rapid Young raced on to the loose ball before shooting past a helpless Howard.
From then on the match entered a relatively quiet phase, with Villa content to play on the break and the Toffees unable to break them down.
It was only in the closing stages that Everton rallied to set up a spectacular finish. The Merseysiders drew level when Jagielka headed the ball into the box, Cahill touched on and Lescott volleyed past Friedel.
Several Villa players lay on the turf dejectedly, but there was still one more twist. From the kick-off the Midlands side attacked and, following a flick-on from Agbonlahor, Young outpaced the defense before shooting low past Howard to score his second and seal a remarkable win.
English Premier League
Team | P | GD | PTS | |
1 | Liverpool | 16 | 15 | 37 |
2 | Chelsea | 16 | 29 | 36 |
3 | Man Utd | 15 | 17 | 31 |
4 | Arsenal | 16 | 9 | 29 |
5 | Aston Villa | 16 | 7 | 28 |
6 | Hull | 16 | -1 | 26 |
7 | Portsmouth | 16 | -4 | 23 |
8 | Everton | 16 | -3 | 22 |
9 | Fulham | 15 | 1 | 20 |
10 | Bolton | 16 | -1 | 20 |
11 | Wigan | 16 | -2 | 19 |
12 | Middlesbrough | 16 | -7 | 19 |
13 | Stoke | 16 | -10 | 19 |
14 | Man City | 16 | 6 | 18 |
15 | West Ham | 15 | -5 | 18 |
16 | Newcastle | 16 | -5 | 16 |
17 | Tottenham | 15 | -4 | 15 |
18 | Sunderland | 16 | -12 | 15 |
19 | Blackburn | 16 | -14 | 13 |
20 | West Brom | 16 | -16 | 12 |
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier