Ten-man Manchester United suffered a blow to their Premier League top-four hopes with a 1-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion as 10-man Liverpool kept up the pressure with a last-gasp 2-1 win at Crystal Palace on Sunday.
United lost Spain international Juan Mata to two yellow cards inside two minutes midway through the first half and went behind to a sharp goal from Venezuela striker Salomon Rondon on 67 minutes.
Louis van Gaal’s side were unable to fight back and slumped to their first league defeat at The Hawthorns since 1984 to end their recent run of four straight wins in all competitions.
Photo: Reuters
“When you have to play 75 minutes with 10 players, I don’t think we were so uncomfortable,” United manager Van Gaal told BBC Sport. “The loss is a big blow because it was not necessary. When you see the first half it was not necessary, I think.”
United remain sixth, three points adrift of Manchester City in fourth place, with Liverpool breathing down their necks in seventh after fighting back from 1-0 down with 10 men to consign Palace to a 12th league game without a win.
The home side went ahead through Joe Ledley’s low drive just after the break and Liverpool found themselves further on the back foot when they lost James Milner to a second yellow card on 62 minutes.
Yet Juergen Klopp’s men kept pressing and their perseverance paid off when Palace goalkeeper Alex McCarthy lost his footing and scuffed a clearance straight to Roberto Firmino, who fired it past him for the equalizer on 72 minutes.
Then, deep in stoppage-time, late substitute Christian Benteke surged into the left side of the Palace penalty area and went down after a slight contact with defender Damien Delaney, who was sliding on his knees.
Referee Andre Marriner awarded the spot-kick after consulting his assistant and Belgium’s Benteke opted for a stuttering run-up before burying the penalty with virtually the last kick of the match.
“I feel sorry for Palace, but I have just seen the replay in the dressing room and it was a clear penalty,” Klopp told BBC Sport.
“If there was no contact, Benteke would have been in a great position to shoot. He made the move and forced the situation. This is the third league win in a row. I can’t believe how it feels — really good, a big moment for us,” he said.
Former Aston Villa striker Benteke was adamant he had been floored, saying: “I believe he touched me, otherwise I don’t go down.”
However, Palace manager Alan Pardew threw his jacket into the dugout in disgust at the penalty decision and said afterward his side were “robbed.”
“You’ve got to be 100 percent sure,” Pardew told Sky Sports. “In super slow motion the knee touches the foot and he goes over like he’s been shot. The linesman assumes that little touch is a penalty. If you think that touch affects the fall and the way he lands, then you really need to be consulted.”
Palace, who are without a league win this calendar year, are 15th in the table, nine points above the relegation zone.
“I feel like we’ve been robbed a little bit, but again maybe we shot ourselves in the foot a bit,” Pardew told BBC Sport.
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