Steven Bergwijn on Sunday scored a goal on debut that helped Tottenham Hotspur to a remarkable 2-0 win over 10-man Manchester City to breathe new life into their challenge for a top-four finish in the English Premier League.
Jose Mourinho’s men had been completely outplayed for the first hour, but were kept in the game by City’s profligacy and Hugo Lloris’ first-half penalty save from Ilkay Gundogan.
However, Oleksandr Zinchenko’s sending off changed the course of the game as Spurs scored with their first two shots on goal through Bergwijn and Son Heung-min.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The victory lifted Spurs up to fifth place, just four points behind fourth-placed Chelsea.
It was arguably the least anticipated of Mourinho and Pep Guardiola’s 23 meetings as opposing managers, but it resorted to type as the Portuguese set up Spurs to defend, while City monopolized possession.
The visitors could have been out of sight by halftime as in a recurring theme of their season, the champions were wasteful in front of goal.
Bergwijn, signed last week from PSV Eindhoven, capped a dream debut after halftime as he chested down Lucas Moura’s pass and volleyed past Ederson.
“As a little kid I wanted to be here and play in the Premier League, so to score on my debut is unbelievable,” Bergwijn said.
Eight minutes later, Spurs were out of sight when Son, who scored three times in a famous Champions League quarter-final win over City last season, was the scourge of City again with a fine finish.
A sixth league defeat of the season for City saw Liverpool remain 22 points clear at the top and within touching distance of their first English title for 30 years.
“Liverpool are unstoppable. We dropped a lot of points in many games where we played quite similar as today,” Guardiola said. “Always I believe you are closer to win the games if you create more chances and concede few. It happened a few times this season and we have to accept it.”
Earlier, Burnley and Arsenal played out a goalless draw at Turf Moor.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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