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Influence of the unknowable may be only lesson from Moyes’s success at West Ham | Jonathan Liew

Moyes’s second spell at the London Stadium is confounding popular sentiment at the time of his appointment and possibly his own expectations, but wider lessons are hard to come by

“The game has changed immeasurably in the two decades since Moyes first started,” an idiot wrote in these pages two years ago. “And so in he shuffles, a man who neither improves teams nor greatly degrades them but will simply be there, right until he isn’t. He won’t take you in the wrong direction because he doesn’t take you in any direction.”

As West Ham United sit fourth in the Premier League after a stirring cultural revolution that has transformed the club’s psyche and taken them into Europe, it turns out that one of us had been elevated to a position for which he was grotesquely and demonstrably unqualified, but it wasn’t David Moyes.

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Salah’s crowning glory for Egypt in sight after feats for club and continent | Ed Aarons

The Liverpool forward is the highest-scoring African player in Premier League history after his hat-trick at Old Trafford

“The new KINGS on the block,” wrote Didier Drogba on Twitter in response to a picture of him with Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané. Less than 24 hours after Salah’s scintillating hat-trick at Old Trafford propelled him past Drogba to become the highest-scoring African player in the Premier League, his former Chelsea teammate also retweeted a cartoon in which he places a crown on the Egypt forward’s head.

With Liverpool leading 2-0 against a ragged Manchester United on Sunday and Salah tied with Drogba on 104 goals, there was a sense of inevitability that the big moment would arrive for the player from the small town of Nagrig in the Nile Delta. It was fitting that the assist for the record-breaking goal in the 38th minute came from Guinea’s Naby Keïta, with Salah making it 106 seven minutes later before rounding off the rout by becoming the first visiting player to score a hat-trick at Old Trafford since Real Madrid’s Ronaldo in 2003 and the first in the Premier League.

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A new dawn for the Derby d’Italia but the same old story for Inter | Nicky Bandini

The bitterness between Inter and Juventus goes way back and a late VAR intervention at San Siro led to more

These were the nights we longed for during football’s behind-closed-doors season: a storied rivalry playing out before a passionate crowd in one of Europe’s most evocative arenas. And these were the moments we didn’t miss: a refereeing controversy to overshadow it all.

Although Sunday’s game between Inter and Juventus was far from a classic, it did feel like a true Derby d’Italia at last. The stands were not full at San Siro – Italy’s Technical and Scientific Committee on the Coronavirus has recommended for now that stadiums operate at no more than 75% of capacity – and there was no pre-game choreography on the Curva, but 56,532 fans were enough to create a fierce atmosphere.

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Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action

Nuno seems scared of his Spurs bench, Manchester United players must stand up and Joshua King haunts Goodison Park

Substitutions have been permitted in English league football since 1965, but maybe nobody told Nuno Espí­rito Santo. The Tottenham manager has been curiously reluctant to use his well-stocked bench in recent weeks, and even as his side sleepwalked to defeat at West Ham, he waited until the 84th minute to make changes. Even if the likes of Dele Alli and Steven Bergwijn have hardly sparkled of late, a worrying gulf is opening between the first XI and the rest. Meanwhile, Nuno’s continuing stubbornness – “The game was under control,” he explained curtly – is hardly likely to endear him to the fanbase. Jonathan Liew

Match report: West Ham 1-0 Tottenham

Match report: Arsenal 3-1 Aston Villa

Match report: Brentford 1-2 Leicester

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Paulo Dybala’s late penalty snatches point for Juventus at Internazionale

  • José Mourinho sent off in Roma’s 0-0 draw with Napoli
  • Luis Suárez scores twice in Atlético’s draw with Real Sociedad

Juventus snatched a last-gasp draw at champions Internazionale on Sunday after Argentinian forward Paulo Dybala scored a penalty following a VAR intervention.

Juventus travelled to Milan having won their previous six games in all competitions, but soon found themselves behind as Inter striker Edin Dzeko fired home after Hakan Calhanoglu’s shot had hit the post in the 17th minute. The visitors piled on the pressure in the second half as they searched for an equaliser, but looked set to be frustrated after failing to create any clear cut chances.

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