Ivorian forward Arouna Kone netted a clinical hat-trick as Everton demolished Sunderland 6-2 in the Premier League on Sunday, while Southampton overcame south-coast rivals AFC Bournemouth 2-0.
Sunderland had been buoyed by a 3-0 victory over derby rivals Newcastle United in their previous fixture, but despite hitting the post twice in the early stages and coming back from two goals down to make it 2-2, Sam Allardyce’s struggling side were well-beaten at Goodison Park.
Goals by Jerman Defoe and Steven Fletcher allowed Sunderland to level after Gerard Deulofeu and Kone had put Everton 2-0 up, but a Sebastian Coates own goal and a Romelu Lukaku effort restored the hosts’ control in the second half before Kone completed his treble.
Photo: Reuters
Everton manager Roberto Martinez praised Kone for fighting back from a career-threatening knee injury sustained in 2013, saying: “His attitude, his focus never changed and he never chose to blame anyone and anything. He is a sensational example to any young footballer facing adversity.”
Kone’s performance had the added bonus of triggering an appearance clause in his contract that will see his deal automatically extended for a further 12 months at the end of the season.
His treble helped Everton score six goals in a league game for the first time since a 7-1 win over the same opponents in November 2007, as Martinez’s side climbed to ninth place in the table.
Sunderland remain second from bottom, two points from safety, and new manager Allardyce, who switched to a three-man defense for the game, said his players had paid the price for a lack of positional discipline.
“We had 17 attempts on goal and 12 on target,” he said. “At the top end, we can score a goal and create chances, but until we get into the habit of defending better out of possession, it is worthless how many goals we score if we defend like that.”
At St Mary’s, Steven Davis and Graziano Pelle scored neatly constructed first-half goals as Southampton beat local rivals Bournemouth to move up to seventh place, four points below the Champions League berths.
Davis volleyed in a cross from Ryan Bertrand in the 31st minute and Dusan Tadic teed up Pelle to head home five minutes later as Ronald Koeman’s team extended their unbeaten run to five league games.
Southampton’s Kenyan midfielder Victor Wanyama was sent off in the 78th minute after receiving a second yellow card for upending Lee Tomlin, but the 10 men emerged unscathed.
“The first 45 minutes was the best football so far this season. Good movement and great goals,” Koeman said. “Always, an opponent will give a reaction and you have to deal with that. We lost balls and had no control. We need to do that better.”
Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth, beaten 5-1 by Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City on their two previous league outings, remain a point above the bottom three in 17th place.
“I thought the second half was everything we wanted the first to be,” Howe said. “We were off the pace first half and Southampton played well. It was a reverse in the second, but the only thing missing were goals.”
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