Cardiff (United Kingdom) (AFP) – Manchester City handed the initiative in the Premier League title race to Liverpool after slipping to a shock home defeat by Crystal Palace on Saturday, as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer began his reign as Manchester United manager with a buccaneering 5-1 win.
Chelsea lost 1-0 at home to Leicester in another surprise result, with Jamie Vardy’s winner allowing Arsenal to move level on points with their fourth-place London rivals after a 3-1 win over Burnley.
United are eight points back in the race for a top-four finish as goals from Marcus Rashford, Ander Herrera, Anthony Martial and a Jesse Lingard double in the Welsh capital meant that for once this season it was a good day for the red half of Manchester.
Liverpool opened up a four-point lead at the top with a highly impressive 2-0 win at Wolves on Friday to extend their unbeaten start to the campaign.
And City failed to cut the gap as they dropped points at home for the first time this season in a 3-2 defeat at the Etihad despite going ahead through Ilkay Gundogan’s header.
Jeffrey Schlupp levelled for Palace against the run of play just after the half-hour mark and two minutes later Andros Townsend thumped a stunning volley into the top corner from well outside the area.
Pep Guardiola summoned Sergio Aguero from the bench soon after the break but City had a mountain to climb when Kyle Walker chopped down Max Meyer and Luka Milivojevic dispatched the resulting penalty.
“We cannot concede the penalty we conceded,” said Guardiola. “We have to try and avoid it. Football is like this. Three shots on goal and three goals.”
Kevin De Bruyne was also thrown on to try and turn the game around and his intended cross that flew in off the post brought City back into the game five minutes from time.
But despite incessant pressure, the champions could not find an equaliser, handing Liverpool a huge boost ahead of their trip to City on January 3.
“You don’t produce that sort of performance by waving a magic wand or having a five-minute team talk,” said Palace boss Roy Hodgson. “There’s a lot of work that goes into that structure and we were excellent.”
– Man Utd transformed –
The axe finally fell on Jose Mourinho’s time in charge of United on Tuesday with the 20-time champions 19 points off the top after just 17 games and the decision to sack the Portuguese was justified by a transformation in performance from the side beaten 3-1 at Liverpool last weekend.
from World Soccer Talk http://bit.ly/2BBt9dP
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