The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
40-yard lob gives Saints victory as Liverpool labour to Anfield win over Villa
Che Adams ended his long wait for a Premier League goal as he hit a stunning long-range effort to give Southampton victory over Manchester City.
The 23-year-old, signed from Birmingham last summer, brilliantly lobbed the ball over Ederson from 40 yards to give Saints a 1-0 lead they battled valiantly to maintain.
Adams, named in a Premier League starting XI for the first time in 2020, may grab the headlines for his fine strike but Southampton goalkeeper Alex McCarthy and former Dundee United and Celtic midfielder Stuart Armstrong also played a huge part in the win.
Criticised for his error in the recent defeat to Arsenal, manager Ralph Hasenhuttl has kept faith in McCarthy, who made a string of good saves.
For City, this was a huge comedown following their 4-0 thrashing of newlycrowned champions Liverpool on Thursday.
Pep Guardiola made six changes from that game, dropping Kevin De Bruyne to the bench as the City boss slipped to a third consecutive away league defeat for the first time in his managerial career.
City launched wave after wave of attacks looking for an equaliser, but Gabriel Jesus, Bernardo Silva and De Bruyne squandered their best chances as the hosts held on.
Southampton boss Ralph Hasenhuttl told Sky Sports: “We showed a lot of passion and we got what we deserved.
“The goal means a lot to Che and also to us. He has really deserved this goal and he worked hard throughout.
“Sometimes, it’s not possible to get something and I don’t just want to talk about one player as there were a lot of good performances.”
City boss Guardiola said: “It was a really good performance but it was a resume of this season. We made a mistake and they punished us.
“We’ve lost a lot of games like this, and if you do that you can’t compete to win the Premier League.”
“We’ve scored the most goals in the Premier League, but we’ve lost a lot of games. It’s hard even for me to find a reason why, but we have to look at the way we play and try to concede as few as possible.”
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp insisted breaking records is not the club’s target this season after a 2-0 victory over Aston Villa took them a step closer to more landmarks.
Sadio Mane’s sixth goal in as many games against Villa and a maiden
Premier League strike from teenager Curtis Jones, who signed a new fiveyear contract on Saturday, came in the final quarter of a laboured win for the new champions over their relegationthreatened visitors.
It put them within 11 points of equalling Manchester City’s 100-point tally for a season while also bringing up their 17th successive home league win this season and 24th in a row in total.
After Thursday’s 4-0 defeat at City, Klopp’s title winners were looking to prove that a first championship in 30 years had not dulled their senses, but they once again struggled to find their fluency.
What transpired was a scrappy, disjointed, low-tempo display in which they did not register a shot of any kind until the 37th minute, with their only two pieces of quality producing goals for Mane and substitute Jones in the final quarter.
Villa, still a point from safety and now without a win in nine matches, had created the better opportunities up to that point but failed to take the openings offered to them.
Klopp agreed that his side had been tested by Villa and that the triple substitution that saw the introduction of Roberto Firmino, Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum boosted his tiring squad.
“They made it really tricky for us,” he told Sky Sports.
“The wind made it tricky for both teams but it was really hard today to play normal football. We had to stay on track and do the right things more and more, especially in the second half.
“We made three changes in decisive areas, which was important from a physical point of view, you could see we needed a little bit to get used to it but then we did in the last 20, 25 minutes. We are where we are because we’ve won difficult games. Tonight was a difficult one but we won it.”
Jonjo Shelvey denied West Ham a crucial victory in their fight for top flight survival as Newcastle twice came from behind to snatch a point in a 2-2 draw.
The Hammers, who boosted their hopes with a hard-fought 3-2 win over Chelsea in midweek, led 1-0 and 2-1 at St James’ Park, but eventually emerged with only a point to show for their efforts.
With five games remaining, they sit four points clear of the relegation zone and, while boss David Moyes is confident they can stay out of trouble, he knows it could go down to the wire.
He said: “We came to Newcastle, who are in a decent run of form and in a good