With one team scoring after just 18 seconds and another after 21 seconds, the Premier League on Tuesday made an explosive return following the competition’s winter break.
Arsenal left it much later for their goals in a win that kept the pressure on Liverpool at the top of the table.
Just when it looked like being another frustrating match for Arsenal’s often-profligate attack, Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka scored in the second half to help them beat Nottingham Forest 2-1, jump into second place and trim the gap to Liverpool to two points.
Photo: Reuters
Arsenal might be able to maintain a title push heading into the final months of the campaign, but can Aston Villa?
Unai Emery’s team have been the big surprise this season, but a 3-1 loss at home against Newcastle United slowed their bid for a finish in the UEFA Champions League places, with Villa staying in fourth place.
There were five games in total and 16 goals scored, three of them to Luton Town striker Elijah Adebayo in a 4-0 thrashing of Brighton & Hove Albion that lifted his team out of the relegation zone.
Photo: Reuters
Adebayo’s first came after just 18 seconds and it was barely the quickest of the night, with Ben Brereton Diaz scoring after 21 seconds for Sheffield United in their 3-2 loss against Crystal Palace.
Fulham and Everton drew 0-0 in the other match on the opening night of the league’s midweek round.
Jesus has been criticized by some for not being the clinical finisher Arsenal might need to end their 20-year wait for a Premier League title.
Photo: Reuters
The Brazil striker was enduring another frustrating match, heading over in the first half and smashing a shot against the post just after the restart, before being the inspiration behind the win.
In the 65th minute, he received a throw in from Oleksandr Zinchenko, drove toward goal at an acute angle and sent in a shot that deflected into the net off the heel of Forest goalkeeper Matt Turner — a former Arsenal player.
Jesus then turned provider as he led a counterattack and passed the ball across to Saka, who took a touch and shot right-footed into the bottom corner from just inside the area in the 72nd minute.
Photo: Reuters
Substitute Taiwo Awoniyi scored in the 89th minute for Forest.
Liverpool had a chance to restore their five-point lead by beating Chelsea at home, with that game scheduled to begin after press time last night.
Villa had not lost at home since February last year before getting beaten for the second time this season by Newcastle United.
Photo: AFP
Two goals in four first-half minutes from Fabian Schar put Newcastle United in control before Alex Moreno’s own-goal just after the break. Ollie Watkins grabbed a consolation for Villa, who were at risk of dropping to fifth place after the Tottenham Hotspur-Brentford game, which was also to be played after press time.
Newcastle had lost six of their previous seven league games to slip away from the top four, but victory lifted them to seventh place, although still 11 points behind Villa.
However, Emery said that Villa should be proud of going 17 Premier League matches unbeaten at home and try to gain some perspective after the loss.
“The loss has to come one day and Newcastle deserved it overall,” said Emery, who has turned the club’s fortunes around since replacing England great Steven Gerrard in October 2022. “I’m very proud for our supporters and very proud of the players of the way we did [the unbeaten run]. It’s finished because we lost after a very long time being successful here.”
“Always when you are losing it’s a little bit frustrating for the players and supporters, but we have to try to get the perspective we have now with everything we were doing,” he said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with