Chelsea beat Crystal Palace 4-0 at home in the Premier League yesterday as Ben Chilwell marked his league debut for the Blues by scoring a goal and creating another for fellow defender Kurt Zouma before Jorginho sealed the win with two penalties.
Palace had stifled Chelsea in a goalless first half, but Chilwell punished them for a rare defensive error, firing home from close range in the 50th minute after Mamadou Sakho fluffed a clearance, allowing Cesar Azpilicueta to line up a cross.
Chelsea doubled their lead in the 66th minute when the visitors failed to clear a corner and Zouma rose above everyone in the box to meet a cross by Chilwell and send a header past Vicente Guaita.
Photo: AP
Jorginho made sure of the win when he converted two penalties in the space of five minutes late in the game.
Chelsea coach Frank Lampard will be as happy with his team’s first clean sheet of the season as the four goals they scored.
LIGUE 1
Photo: AP
AFP, PARIS
Neymar scored twice for Paris Saint-Germain on Friday in a crushing 6-1 win over Angers SCO as the French champions continue to build up momentum following a poor start to the Ligue 1 season.
Alessandro Florenzi, Julian Draxler, Idrissa Gana Gueye and Kylian Mbappe were also on target at the Parc des Princes for PSG, who claimed their fourth consecutive victory after starting the campaign with two straight defeats.
Photo: AP
“Scoring goals gives us confidence. It is a great victory,” PSG manager Thomas Tuchel said.
Florenzi opened the scoring with a lovely goal in the seventh minute. The rightback, who remains PSG’s only new face for this season so far after joining on loan from AS Roma, controlled the ball before netting with a delightful volley into the far corner.
Mbappe then cut the ball back for Neymar to score off the underside of the bar.
Neymar was starting after avoiding punishment following allegations of verbal abuse in an ill-tempered defeat against Olympique de Marseille last month.
The league’s disciplinary committee on Wednesday ruled that it did not have sufficient proof to take action against the Brazilian or Marseille defender Alvaro Gonzalez, who Neymar had accused of calling him a “monkey.”
The world’s most expensive player scored his second and PSG’s third goal on the night just after halftime, finishing first-time as the ball broke to him in the box.
The goals were his first two of the new season after a start to the campaign disrupted by a positive COVID-19 test and a suspension.
Ismael Traore pulled one back for Angers with a back-post header, but Mitchel Bakker crossed for Draxler to make it 4-1 and Gueye added another with a deflected strike.
Mbappe completed the scoring by converting from a Pablo Sarabia assist six minutes from the end, and PSG look to have definitively put their defeat by Bayern Munich in the Champions League final in August behind them.
Tuchel will now hope to see more new faces arrive before tomorrow’s transfer deadline, with a busy schedule lying in store once the Champions League group stage begins later this month.
PSG are to start their Europe campaign at home against Manchester United on Oct. 20 before also facing Istanbul Basaksehir and RB Leipzig, who they beat in last season’s semi-finals.
“It is a very difficult group with Leipzig as the third seed,” Tuchel said. “We know how strong they are. We will need to be at our best to go through.”
BUNDESLIGA
AP, BERLIN
Former Germany striker Max Kruse on Friday launched Union Berlin to a 4-0 rout of FSV Mainz 05 for their biggest-ever Bundesliga win and first of the season.
Finland forward Joel Pohjanpalo also scored, just seconds after coming on for his debut, to wrap up an unhappy start for new Mainz manager Jan-Moritz Lichte.
Former assistant coach Lichte on Monday took over Mainz on an interim basis when the club fired Achim Beierlorzer after losing their first two games and players boycotted a training session in support of a demoted player, Adam Szalai.
Kruse opened the scoring in the 13th minute with his first goal on his first start for the club. Sheraldo Becker crossed from the right and Kruse’s powerful header set off celebrations among the socially distanced supporters in attendance.
In the second half, Union captain Christopher Trimmel had plenty of space to cross for Marcus Ingvartsen to convert from close range.
Marvin Friedrich scored with a header to a free-kick in the 63rd minute and Pohjanpalo made the most of more lackluster defending when he scored a minute later.
“We were there at the right moments,” Union coach Urs Fischer said. “Now we have to keep our feet on the ground.”
Four-time NBA all-star DeMarcus Cousins arrived in Taiwan with his family early yesterday to finish his renewed contract with the Taiwan Beer Leopards in the T1 League. Cousins initially played a four-game contract with the Leopards in January. On March 18, the Taoyuan-based team announced that Cousins had renewed his contract. “Hi what’s up Leopard fans, I’m back. I’m excited to be back and can’t wait to join the team,” Cousins said in a video posted on the Leopard’s Facebook page. “Most of all, can’t wait to see you guys, the fans, next weekend. So make sure you come out and support the Beer
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was