Liverpool piled on the pain for Manchester City with a 2-0 victory at Anfield to open up a nine-point lead at the top of the English Premier League on Sunday after Manchester United’s new manager Ruben Amorim enjoyed an emphatic first league win.
Mohamed Salah supplied a goal and an assist as Liverpool eased to a victory which ended with the home fans taunting City manager Pep Guardiola about “getting sacked in the morning.”
Liverpool lead Arsenal by nine points after 13 games while champions City have now lost four successive Premier League games for the first time since 2008 and are down in fifth place.
Photo: Reuters
Amorim’s first Premier League home game could not have gone any better as Marcus Rashford and Joshua Zirkzee both scored twice in a 4-0 drubbing of lowly Everton.
Chelsea continue to thrive under Enzo Maresca with a 3-0 home win against a struggling Aston Villa the latest evidence that the Italian might have found the right formula at Stamford Bridge. His side are joint second with Arsenal on 25 points.
Tottenham came back down to earth from their 4-0 rout of Manchester City last weekend as they could only draw 1-1 at home with Fulham who ended the match with 10 men.
Photo: Reuters
Fragile City looked ripe for the taking as they headed to Anfield and so it proved as the home side dominated.
Salah set up Cody Gakpo for a tap-in after 12 minutes.
They eventually doubled their lead in the 78th minute when a terrible mix-up in City’s defense ended with their keeper Stefan Ortega taking out Luis Diaz and Salah slotted the spot kick.
Photo: Reuters
It was manager Arne Slot’s 18th win in 20 games in all competitions as his dream start as Liverpool’s new manager continued.
“These teams — like City, I saw Arsenal yesterday and I saw Chelsea today — they are all capable of getting the same winning streak as we have,” Slot said. “So, let’s not get carried away by one or two wins.”
The Dutchman is right not to get ahead of himself but a nine-point gap with the form his side are showing already looks like a huge challenge for the chasing pack.
United are nowhere near being title contenders but Portuguese Amorim has quickly spread some joy around Old Trafford. Sunday was United’s biggest victory margin in a league game since a 5-1 win over Leeds United in 2021 and lifted them three spots to ninth in the table after 13 games, only four points behind fourth-placed Brighton & Hove Albion.
SERIE A
AP, MILAN, ITALY
The Italian league title race did not seem so important on Sunday after a player collapsed on the field during a Serie A match.
League leader SSC Napoli had won 1-0 at Torino earlier in the day and was waiting to see how its rivals would fare, especially ACF Fiorentina and Inter, which were playing each other later Sunday and were just four points behind.
However, Fiorentina midfielder Edoardo Bove fell to the ground in the 16th minute of the match, which was abandoned shortly afterward with the scoreline at 0-0.
The 22-year-old Italian was swiftly stretchered off to an ambulance and taken to hospital, where he is in a medically induced coma.
Fiorentina said initial tests have “ruled out acute damage to the central nervous system and the cardio-respiratory system” and that Bove would be re-evaluated in the next 24 hours.
Fiorentina players were distraught on the field and were comforted by staff members as well as Inter players. Several were openly sobbing before both teams filed off the field.
Napoli ended the weekend still top of a tight Serie A table.
Scott McTominay scored the only goal of the match in the first half as Napoli pulled away from one of its closest rivals as SS Lazio lost 3-1 at relegation-threatened Parma.
Lazio stayed on 28 points along with Atalanta BC, Inter and Fiorentina, while Napoli moved onto 32. Atalanta was to play against Roma yesterday after the press time.
Juventus has 26 points after substitute Ante Rebic leveled in stoppages to snatch a 1-1 draw for US Lecce.
LA LIGA
AP, MADRID
Kylian Mbappe made some peace with Real Madrid’s fans.
Mbappe scored in Madrid’s 2-0 win over Getafe in the Spanish league on Sunday to help ease the pressure on the France star.
Mbappe, who has been criticized by some supporters because of his disappointing performances since joining the Spanish powerhouse this season, found the net in the 38th minute to seal Madrid’s victory at Santiago Bernabeu.
Jude Bellingham, also the target of some fans’ criticism for recent poor play, had put Madrid ahead at the Bernabeu by converting a 30th-minute penalty.
The win moved Madrid within a point of league leader Barcelona, which lost 2-1 to Las Palmas on Saturday. Madrid, the defending champion, has a game in hand.
Madrid was one point ahead of city rival Atletico Madrid, which won 5-0 at Valladolid on Saturday.
Also Sunday, Villarreal drew 2-2 with visiting Girona after leading 2-0 and eventually conceding an equalizer seven minutes into stoppage time.
Athletic Bilbao rallied to win 2-1 at Rayo Vallecano with a pair of second-half goals by Oihan Sancet, while Athletic’s Basque rival Real Sociedad defeated Real Betis 2-0 at home.
‘SU-PENKO’: Hsieh and Ostapenko face a rematch against their Australian Open final opponents, the same duo Hsieh played in last year’s Wimbledon semi-finals Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Latvian partner Jelena Ostapenko on Wednesday survived a near upset to the unseeded duo of Sorana Cirstea of Romania and Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, setting up a semi-final showdown against last year’s winners. Despite losing a hard-fought opening set 7-6 (7/4) on a tiebreak, the fourth seeds turned up the heat, losing just five games in the final two sets to handily put down Cirstea and Kalinskaya 6-3, 6-2. Nicknamed “Su-Penko,” the pair are next to face top seeds Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic and Taylor Townsend of the US in a reversal of last
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Outside Anfield, the red sea of tributes to Diogo Jota and his brother, Andre Silva, has continued to grow this week, along with questions over whether Liverpool could play at Preston today, their first game since the brothers’ tragic loss. Inside Anfield, and specifically a grieving Liverpool dressing room, there was no major debate over the pre-season friendly. The English Premier League champions intend to honor their teammate in the best way they know how. It would be only 10 days since the deaths of Jota and Silva when Liverpool appear at Deepdale Stadium for what is certain to be a hugely
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