Category: English Premier League

Marcus Rashford was the provider as Marco Asensio’s first two goals for Villa helped them come from behind to take all three points

• Read Ben Fisher’s match report from Villa Park

1 min: Villa get the ball rolling, their players wearing their usual home kit. Their visitors are in – I’m going to say – cream shirts, shorts and socks, with blue and orange trim.

Not long now: Black Sabbath are blaring over the Tannoy and the Champions League qualification hopes of both teams are very much up in the air. Referee Michael Oliver leads both sets of players out on to the Villa Park pitch, their arrival greeted by the thick end of 43,000 supporters, the vast majority of whom will be hoping for a game every bit as entertaining – but slightly less end-to-end and even – as the match between Villa and Liverpool on Wednesday night. Kick-off will be along very shortly.

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National supporters will see their heroes play against each other when Manchester City meet Liverpool on Sunday

The rivalry between Manchester City and Liverpool has grown in recent years thanks to the coaching of Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp turning it into a battle for the title over numerous seasons. The fixture has become significant around the world but in one north African nation it has a new edge as their rising star and their national hero come face-to-face.

Omar Marmoush arrived in Manchester in January after City paid £59m to buy him from Eintracht Frankfurt. The Egypt forward built his reputation in Germany and has added to it in the Premier League after a hat-trick against Newcastle followed some promising performances to indicate he is up to Guardiola’s high standards. Marmoush is a beacon in a disappointing season for City but has some way to go to match his compatriot Mohamed Salah, the man leading Liverpool towards a second Premier League title. From Alexandria to Zagazig, eyes in Egypt will be on the Etihad on Sunday as the country’s heroes do battle.

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Fabian Hürzeler said his only ­disappointment was not winning by more after seeing his side thump Southampton at St Mary’s.

The Seagulls ripped Southampton apart throughout with goals from João Pedro, Georginio Rutter, Kaoru Mitoma and Jack Hinshelwood ­taking them to within three points of the top six. But for some wasteful finishing and a brilliant performance from the Saints goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale, the scoreline might have been even more impressive for Hürzeler’s Europe-chasing side.

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Arsenal suffered a shock home defeat to West Ham thanks to a Jarrod Bowen goal

Bournemouth (4-3-3): Arrizabalaga; Hill, Zabarnyi, Huijsen, Kerkez; Christie, Adams, Cook; Kluivert, Semenyo; Ouattara.

Subs: Dennis, Brooks, Scott, Evanilson, Adams, Sinisterra, Soler, Jebbison, Winterburn.

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Having restored parity from two goals down, Manchester United got a late reprieve when referee Andy Madley overturned his own decision to award Everton a penalty

• Read Andy Hunter’s match report from Goodison Park

Referee: Andy Madley

Assistants: Mat Wilkes and Craig Taylor.

Fourth official: Anthony Taylor.

VAR: Matt Donohue.

Assistant VAR: Derek Eaton.

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A rousing fightback does not camouflage the extent to which Ruben Amorim and Manchester United were reprieved at Goodison Park. The visitors recovered from two goals down to salvage a point against in-form Everton, but only after a penalty awarded to David Moyes’ team was controversially overturned in the 96^th minute.

Bruno Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte, the latter with his first United goal, appeared to have rescued Amorim’s team from a dire first-half performance in which Beto and Abdoulaye Doucouré gave Everton a merited lead. Moyes’ side were comfortable until Fernandes converted a free-kick in the 72^nd minute but were given the chance to regain the lead in stoppage time. After André Onana had saved from Idrissa Gueye, Ashley Young appeared to be impeded by both Matthijs de Ligt and Harry Maguire before he could reach the rebound. Referee Andrew Madley immediately awarded a spot-kick but overturned his decision after being sent to the pitchside monitor by VAR. It was a huge and debatable let-off for United.

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• Scot is preparing Everton to face his former club
• Moyes says he is ‘a bit calmer’ now than earlier in career

David Moyes has said he wanted to “fight the world” when he first joined Everton and Manchester United but his calmer demeanour today should not be mistaken for a drop in passion.

The Everton manager insists it will be just another game when he faces United at Goodison Park on Saturday having competed against his former club several times with West Ham. Moyes was sacked only 10 months after succeeding Sir Alex Ferguson at Old Trafford and described the setback as “part of life as a football manager. You have to find a way back and that’s what I had to do after the disappointment of losing my job at Manchester United.”

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Aston Villa host Chelsea in the Saturday teatime match while Liverpool visit Manchester City on Sunday afternoon

Saturday 12.30pm TNT Sports 1 Venue Goodison Park

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David Moyes faces a former club, Djed Spence’s difficult duel and Chris Wood could haunt his old employers

The winter arrival of Woyo Coulibaly from Parma underwhelmed Leicester fans as the left-back’s CV did not exactly suggest he was able to turn their season around single-handedly. The Frenchman has made four substitute appearances, his latest coming off the bench against Arsenal after James Justin was forced off in the first half, facing up to Raheem Sterling on the right-hand side of Leicester’s defence. If Justin does not recover in time for Brentford’s visit, it seems likely that Coulibaly will once again be thrust into action because Ruud van Nistelrooy has very limited options. Considering the form of Brentford’s Kevin Schade, the French defender can expect to have a difficult afternoon. Still, it is also an opportunity to prove he is worthy of being a Premier League player but if it does not work out, there will be even greater pressure on the much-criticised director of football, Jon Rudkin. Will Unwin

Leicester v Brentford, Friday 8pm (all times GMT)

Everton v Manchester United, Saturday 12.30pm

Bournemouth v Wolves, Saturday 3pm

Ipswich v Tottenham, Saturday 3pm

Southampton v Brighton, Saturday 3pm

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Trent Alexander-Arnold earned Liverpool a point after Villa bounced back from Mohamed Salah’s opener to lead through Youri Tielemans and Ollie Watkins

A bad start to the night for Liverpool.

Arne Slot on Aston Villa’s forward line: “We faced that against Wolves and we are facing that tonight, again, with some great individual players.

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Mikel Merino excelled as a striker for Arsenal on Saturday. Chris Whyte did not have as much joy 40 years ago

By Steven Pye for That 1980s Sports Blog

You didn’t need to be a genius to work out what was coming. Going two transfer windows without signing a centre-forward was always going to be a gamble for Arsenal, especially considering that their one remaining option was clearly out on his feet in recent weeks. The injury to Kai Havertz was depressingly inevitable.

Mikel Arteta had a dilemma before the Leicester match at the weekend. With no strikers available, he opted to play Leandro Trossard through the middle. When that didn’t work, Mikel Merino came on and scored both goals in the 2-0 win. Merino’s timely goals have temporarily halted the debate but, if all else fails, Arteta could throw Riccardo Calafiori up front and get the ball into the mixer.

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The optimism that greeted Jim Ratcliffe’s arrival as owner has given way to even more disappointment, with Sunday’s defeat at Tottenham the latest example

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

Covering Manchester United these days feels a little like being a character in Silent Witness: every week you end up writing a postmortem. Their Sunday defeat at Tottenham was an engaging if bitty affair that finished 1-0 largely because the low quality of defending on show was compensated for by the low level of attacking. It was fun in its way, but it didn’t feel a lot like Premier League football.

It also meant United dropped to 15th in the table, having won just four of 14 league games under Ruben Amorim. Under Erik ten Hag this season, United were taking 1.22 points per game; under Amorim that’s down to 1.00. Nobody was under any illusions about the scale of the task he was taking on, but four months after Amorim took the job it would be very difficult to identify any concrete signs of progress. There has been the resilience of the performance in the league at Anfield, in the FA Cup at the Emirates, and not a lot else.

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Manchester United’s slump deepens, Ryan Christie inspires Bournemouth and David Moyes lets the good times roll

• Premier League top scorers | Latest table | Fixtures

Can winning a game that resembled two lurching drunks swinging at each other at closing time be regarded as vindication for Ange Postecoglou? Perhaps if Manchester United had a more mobile midfield and someone other than Rasmus Højlund at centre-forward – last goal at Plzen on 12 December – flanked by a winger in Alejandro Garnacho who last scored against Bodø/Glimt two weeks before that. It turns out Joshua Zirkzee – who has three goals in the league all season – is United’s most potent forward. The numbers point to this being United’s worst team in decades, and the only good news Ruben Amorim received on Sunday was 17th-placed Wolves’ defeat at Liverpool. Tottenham saw out a second successive Premier League clean sheet for the first time in 16 months but did so nervously. It will take much more than sketchily defeating a crashing clown car to prove Postecoglou’s pronouncement that the true Tottenham would reveal themselves once his injured players started returning. John Brewin

Match report: Tottenham 1-0 Manchester United

Match report: Leicester 0-2 Arsenal

Match report: Manchester City 4-0 Newcastle

Match report: Liverpool 2-1 Wolves

Match report: Aston Villa 1-1 Ipswich

Match report: Fulham 2-1 Nottingham Forest

Match report: Southampton 1-3 Bournemouth

Match report: Crystal Palace 1-2 Everton

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An opportunistic goal from James Maddison gave Spurs their first home victory in the league since early November

A reminder of the teams

Tottenham Hotspur (4-1-4-1) Vicario; Pedro Porro, Danso, Davies, Spence; Bentancur; Kulusevski, Bergvall, Maddison, Son; Tel.
Substitutes: Kinsky, Udogie, Gray, Bissouma, Sarr, Moore, Odobert, Johnson, Scarlett.

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First-half goals from Luis Díaz and Mohamed Salah restored Liverpool’s seven-point lead at the top of the table, though Matheus Cunha’s lovely strike had nerves jangling

So where is the game? I’m certain that Wolves, like every team facing Liverpool, will target the space in and around around and behind Alexander-Arnold who, for all his glorious passing and crossing, lack defensive nous and recovery pace. There could scarcely be a duo better-placed to exploit that than Ait-Nouri and Cunha while, on the other side, Semedo and Sarabia will also feel they can do something against the flagging Andy Robertson, especially on the counter.

Liverpool, meanwhile, will expect to outnumber Wolves in midfield, therefore dominating the ball, targeting the space behind the wing-backs with Jota scavenging in the box. And if all else fails, they can just give it Salah.

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