On a day when English Premier League strugglers Huddersfield Town and Cardiff City lost to lower-league opponents in the FA Cup third round, there were no problems for Solskjaer’s Manchester United as the interim coach collected a record-tying fifth straight win to start his tenure when his team beat second-tier Reading 2-0. The other four victories came in the league.
Juan Mata — from the penalty spot — and Romelu Lukaku scored the first-half goals for United, allowing Solskjaer to join the great Matt Busby (in 1946) as the only United managers to win their first five games.
Titleholder Chelsea and record 13-time winner Arsenal were among the other Premier League teams to progress to the last 32.
Chelsea had a 2-0 win over second-tier Nottingham Forest.
Spaniard Alvaro Morata scored the goals in the 49th and 59th minutes, with the striker set up both times by crosses from winger Callum Hudson-Odoi.
For a brief time, there was a danger that Arsenal’s match at third-tier Blackpool might be delayed, even postponed, because its bus was unable to set off from the team hotel. A Blackpool fan climbed onto the roof and only came down after a lengthy stand-off.
Joe Willock is glad the game went ahead, as the 19-year-old Arsenal forward netted twice at Bloomfield Road, becoming in the process the club’s youngest FA Cup scorer in nearly a decade.
Alex Iwobi scored Arsenal’s other goal.
In the two surprises of the third round so far, Huddersfield — the Premier League’s last-place team — lost 1-0 at second-tier Bristol City, last season’s English League Cup semi-finalists, while Cardiff were beaten by third-tier Gillingham 1-0.
Nathaniel Clyne made his debut for Bournemouth in the all-Premier League matchup against Brighton & Hove Albion, but was on the losing side, 3-1.
A total of eight Premier League teams advanced on Saturday from the third round, the stage where sides from England’s top two divisions enter the world’s oldest club knockout competition.
Everton won at home to fourth-tier Lincoln 2-1 thanks to goals by Ademola Lookman and Bernard. Marko Arnautovic and his first-half replacement, Andy Carroll, scored for West Ham United in a win over second-tier Birmingham 2-0, and Burnley needed a stoppage-time penalty by Chris Wood to beat third-tier Barnsley 1-0.
Crystal Palace beat fourth-tier Grimsby 1-0 through Jordan Ayew’s 86th-minute goal.
There will be at least two replays, after Newcastle United drew with second-tier Blackburn 1-1, and Southampton were held at second-tier Derby 2-2.
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