Rooney stops the rot
EVERTON: ESCAPE DANGER ZONE
Liverpool
Wayne Rooney scored from his own half to haunt his former manager David Moyes with a first hat-trick for Everton in a 4-0 thrashing of West Ham United last night which lifted the Blues out of the Premier League drop zone.
Rooney found the net for the first time in five games by heading in on the rebound in the 18th minute after his penalty was saved by Joe Hart.
Rooney struck again at the near post and piled more misery on Moyes by capitalising on a scrambled clearance from Hart and blasting the ball past his former England team-mate from inside his own half.
Ashley Williams completed the rout by heading home from a corner after conceding a penalty for a foul on Diafra Sakho when the score was 2-0, but Jordan Pickford came to the rescue by turning away Manuel Lanzini’s spot-kick.
Raheem Sterling scored a stunning 96th-minute winner as Manchester City dramatically edged Southampton 2-1 to preserve their eight-point lead at the Premier League summit.
Pep Guardiola’s side looked set to drop points after Oriol Romeu cancelled out Kevin De Bruyne’s opener, only for Sterling to give City a 19th straight win in all competitions and a club-record 12th successive win in the league.
Elsewhere, Mesut Ozil produced a major second-half contribution as substitute Olivier Giroud scored twice in Arsenal’s 5-0 victory at home to Huddersfield Town.
It was the Gunners’ seventh win out of seven at the Emirates Stadium in the league this season and Ozil was influential with two assists and a goal in a four-minute period as the Gunners remained in the top four.
Alexandre Lacazette gave Arsenal an early lead before Ozil set up Giroud and Alexis Sanchez before scoring himself. Giroud then added a late fifth goal which helped his team move up to 28 points.
Chelsea, meanwhile, kept alive their title hopes with a 1-0 win over Swansea. – Reuters, AFP
Other results: Bournemouth 1 Burnley 2, Stoke 0 Liverpool 3.