Manchester City on Sunday survived a scare at Luton Town to end their four-match winless run in the English Premier League with a 2-1 victory, while Chelsea’s problems mounted with a 2-0 defeat at Everton.
Tottenham Hotspur won for the first time in six matches as Richarlison’s brace inspired a 4-1 rout of dismal Newcastle United.
With star striker Erling Haaland absent due to injury, City trailed to Elijah Adebayo’s goal late in the first half at Kenilworth Road, but, after squandering a host of chances, Pep Guardiola’s side finally clicked into gear with two goals in three minutes after the break.
Photo: AFP
Bernardo Silva equalized and Jack Grealish bagged the winner to give City a much-needed first victory in five league matches.
After their lethargic 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa on Wednesday, which followed draws with Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs, City were in danger of falling out of the title race. Liverpool’s win at Crystal Palace on Saturday had moved the leaders seven points clear of City, but they responded with a gritty display to close the gap on Liverpool to four points.
City still have work to do to regain control of their bid for an unprecedented fourth successive title and Haaland’s fitness scare could not have come at a worse time.
Haaland, who had started all of City’s league matches this season, was sidelined with a foot injury that could impact his availability for the treble winners’ hectic Christmas schedule.
“The most important thing to change the dynamic is winning games. That helps a lot,” Guardiola said. “We didn’t get results sometimes when we deserved, but that’s what it is. Today was a good test. We did it perfect.”
Everton continued to shrug off the impact of a 10-point deduction as victory over Chelsea took the Toffees four points clear of the relegation zone.
Abdoulaye Doucoure opened the scoring at Goodison Park before Lewis Dobbin’s first Everton goal imposed another damaging defeat on Chelsea coach Mauricio Pochettino.
Without the penalty for breaching financial rules, which Everton are appealing, Sean Dyche’s men would be four points above Chelsea.
Pochettino shuffled his pack after a dreadful display in losing 2-1 at Manchester United last week, but the Argentine is struggling to solve his side’s lack of a clinical edge up front, despite the club having spent £1 billion (US$1.25 billion) on new players in the past three transfer windows.
“This was a game to win. It’s a problem we need to check. We need to talk and to try and improve in the next transfer market,” Pochettino said.
Since topping the Premier League after beating Crystal Palace on Oct. 27, Spurs had lost four of their next five games to squander the momentum from their blistering start to the season.
Ange Postecoglou’s attacking tactics were branded as naive during that losing run, but the Australian stuck to his guns and was rewarded with a goal-spree at Newcastle’s expense.
Destiny Udogie put Tottenham ahead in the first half in north London and Brazil striker Richarlison doubled the lead before halftime.
Richarlison netted again in the second half and Son Heung-min converted a late penalty as fifth-placed Spurs moved within three points of fourth-placed Manchester City.
Joelinton’s goal in the final seconds was no consolation for outclassed Newcastle.
“Our attacking play was as good as it has been for a while. You can see Newcastle are running on fumes. We’ve gone through that and hopefully we are coming out the other side,” Postecoglou said.
Fulham ran riot for the second time in a week as they thrashed West Ham United 5-0 at Craven Cottage.
Just four days after Fulham beat Nottingham Forest by the same scoreline, Marco Silva’s side turned on the style again.
Raul Jimenez opened the scoring to take his personal tally to four in five games. Willian and Tosin Adarabioyo netted before halftime, with Harry Wilson and Carlos Vinicius completing the derby demolition.
“We keep getting in the right areas. We were doing that earlier this season, but maybe the runs weren’t there or we weren’t filling the spaces,” Wilson said. “It has been a big week and we’ve taken confidence from scoring three at Anfield [in a 4-3 loss against Liverpool] and not winning into our home games. We have to make this place tough to come to.”
Additional reporting by Reuters
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