Category: Football (Soccer)

After three straight defeats, City’s manager says he will use the international break to reassess. Their problems may go beyond tactics

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Enzo Maresca seemed, if not quite baffled by his side’s Saturday defeat to Nottingham Forest, then at least a little put out. After seven straight wins from the start of the season, that’s now three straight defeats, a pattern so unusual that it’s been recorded only once before in top-flight English history, by Sheffield Wednesday in 1904-05. The three defeats were all different, Maresca said, although in all of them City had had more possession and more chances.

In the 2-1 defeat at Aston Villa two weeks ago, City had 63% of the ball and had 15 chances to Villa’s eight. In the 1-0 home defeat to Brighton last weekend, they had 62% possession and 21 chances to seven. At the City Ground, it was 79% possession and 12 chances to 11. So Maresca is right in one way: City could look at basic statistics and say they had been unfortunate – although Forest could equally point to the fact that they went into that game third top of the expected goals table but second-bottom of the actual table.

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Delap’s talents resurface in style, Gómez delights Brighton with more fireworks, and hair-pulling confusion at Everton

It would have been very easy for Oliver Glasner to lose patience with Liam Delap. The forward is still only 23, yet the days when he was rattling in 12 in a Premier League season for Ipswich have come to seem a very long time ago (and his six games for Manchester City even longer). A season at Chelsea had left him bereft of confidence, an odd mix of diffidence and overaggression, devoid of composure in the box, arms flailing like a broken windmill. But the old gifts have not left him. Both goals on Saturday were the result of great muscular surges and if the first finish seemed essentially about hitting the ball as hard as possible on target, the second was a precise – and still powerful – finish in off the far post. After games such as this it’s possible to imagine him as England’s long-term replacement for Harry Kane. Jonathan Wilson

Match report: Nottingham Forest 3-1 Manchester City

Match report: Manchester United 4-4 Aston Villa

Match report: Brighton 2-0 Brentford

Match report: Arsenal 1-0 Hull

Match report: Sunderland 1-0 Chelsea

Match report: Leeds 1-0 Tottenham

Manchester United came from two goals down – twice – to salvage a 4-4 draw with Aston Villa at Old Trafford

Sunderland have clung on to beat Chelsea 1-0, which is a great result for them. And yet another embarrassment for Man United. They now have fewer wins than any other team in the Premier League – just the one, against Ipswich, back in August.

A draw today will take them above Sunderland on goal difference, but they’ll still be in the bottom three. To lift them out of the relegation zone, and the league doldrums, only a win will do. If they manage it, they will go roaring up to 16th.

Does this late, late comeback draw keep Michael Carrick in his job? He urged United to back Tuesday’s breathless Roma comeback victory by building momentum and they did – kind of, by avoiding defeat.

Patrick Dorgu’s 96th-minute equaliser went off his head and in: this made it 4-4 to follow Joshua Zirkzee’s own added-time finish as Aston Villa were somehow pulled back by Carrick’s chaotic unit.

Another Evanilson goal helped fire Marco Rose’s Bournemouth to an eighth straight victory with a hard-fought 2-1 win at Ipswich.

Evanilson failed to score in his first six appearances of the season but found the net for a fifth consecutive Premier League match and made it seven goals in eight after five minutes at Portman Road.

Sunderland beat Chelsea to move off the foot of the table, Brighton beat Brentford to go second, while Liverpool are fourth after beating Crystal Palace

A disastrous goal for Ipswich! Chris Walton, the home side’s keeper, tries to take the ball past the onrushing Evanilson, fails, is dispossessed, and the rest is a formality!

A glimpse of goal for Palace, as Mitchell’s driven cross is met by Strand Larsen, but he can’t do much more than get a foot to it, and he deflects it limply wide of goal, from where it’s cleared for a throw-in.

Noah Okafor grabbed the only goal of an intense battle at Elland Road, as Jayden Bogle did well to escape red

A different fanfare for the common man – the Last Post – sounds poignantly. Silent, solemn remembrance of the fallen. After which Tottenham Hotspur get the ball rolling.

The teams emerge from the tunnel, so …

Thierno Barry scored twice as Everton roared back impressively to win, though Coventry were unhappy with three separate VAR calls

Pre-match postbag: Evertonians Telling It As They See It edition. “Greetings from almost liberated California. The thrashing of a certain ‘orange’ gentleman has allowed me to have zero anxiety about today’s Everton tilt. I’m happy no matter what happens” – Mary Waltz

“I admire the optimism of Everton potentially going into fourth with a five-goal margin of victory today. I watch almost every single game and I struggled to recall the last time they scored five in the league; turns out it was the famous 5-1 win at Brighton in May 2023 that helped them stay up that season. At home, we have to go back to September 2020 when they beat West Brom 5-2 behind closed doors at Goodison. The last time in front of home fans? Their 6-3 win over Bournemouth in February 2017 when Romelu Lukaku scored four. Let’s just say Everton aren’t generally banging in goals for fun” – Matt Burtz