Three second-half goals ensured that Manchester City climbed back to second in the Premier League after a 3-0 victory over Aston Villa at the Etihad Stadium yesterday.
City struggled to get going in the first half, with Villa having several chances to break the deadlock in pouring Manchester rain.
However, City wasted no time after regrouping at the interval, as Raheem Sterling latched onto a Gabriel Jesus flick before firing City in front just 20 seconds into the second half.
Photo: AP
Kevin de Bruyne found the net in the 65th minute after his cross eluded everyone and arrowed into the bottom corner and soon afterward Ilkay Gundogan made sure of another three points with a scissor kick finish.
On Friday, Leicester City scored five first-half goals and another four after the break to destroy 10-man Southampton 9-0, equaling the biggest win in Premier League history.
Manchester United beat Ipswich by the same score in 1995, three years after the English top tier was rebranded.
Ayoze Perez and Jamie Vardy scored hat-tricks at a wet St Mary’s Stadium.
“We actually found out at 6-0 when Jonny Evans came sprinting over and said if we carry on doing what we’re doing we can get the record,” Vardy told Sky Sports. “We’ve gone all the way to the end and managed to do it.”
Southampton’s Ryan Bertrand became the first Premier League player to receive a red card after a video review for an incident just before Leicester’s first goal in the 10th minute.
Ben Chilwell scored the opener for the Foxes when he side-footed home after Southampton goalkeeper Angus Gunn could only parry Harvey Barnes’ initial effort.
Southampton quickly received another blow when Bertrand was ejected on review for stretching over the top of the ball with his studs, making contact with Perez’s shin before the goal.
It got worse for the hosts when Leicester broke down the left to make it 2-0 in the 17th minute after Youri Tielemans fired in a low effort from the center of the box following good work by Barnes down the left wing.
Tielemans set up Perez who made it 3-0 inside 20 minutes with his first goal for the club.
Chilwell’s cross picked out Perez, whose impressive strike put the visitors 4-0 ahead in the 39th, and Vardy had time to add a fifth before the break with Southampton jeered off the field.
Perez got his hat-trick in the 57th minute and Vardy triggered an exodus of Saints fans with his second goal a minute later for 7-0, rising to head in Chilwell’s cross.
With the rain continuing to pour and St Mary’s rapidly emptying, Maddison added his name to the scoresheet in the 85th before Vardy scored from the penalty spot at the end.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS