City rout Watford 8-0, just fall short of EPL record
MANCHESTER: With his team leading 5-0 after 18 minutes and threatening Premier League scoring records, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola sat with his arms folded in his dugout and might even have looked a little guilty.
Whether it’s in the FA Cup final or just a run-of-the mill league game, Watford just do not know how to handle the most free-scoring team in England.
City ended up romping to an 8-0 win on Saturday, falling just short of the heaviest margin of victory in the Premier League era (since 1992)—Manchester United’s 9-0 win over Ipswich in 1995.
It came four months after City beat Watford 6-0 in the FA Cup final at Wembley to complete an unprecedented domestic treble last season. The previous season, Guardiola’s team won 6-0 at Watford’s Vicarage Road.
Bernardo Silva scored a hattrick and there were also goals for David Silva, Sergio Aguero, Riyad Mahrez, Nicolas Otamendi and Kevin De Bruyne at Etihad Stadium.
Disappointingly for City’s fans or those hoping to see records tumble, City only scored once in the final half-hour of an embarrassingly one-sided match. It was the best goal of the match, though - a powerful drive from De Bruyne into the roof of the net.
LEICESTER STUN SPURS AMID VAR DRAMA
LEICESTER: James Maddison scored a brilliant winner to help Leicester City come from behind and beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 in the Premier League on Saturday in a match dominated by VAR drama.
The Video Assistant Referee was heavily involved early on after Wilfred Ndidi had bundled the ball into the net, only for the effort to be ruled out for offside.
There was no question over the opening goal in the 29th minute as Harry Kane fired a stunning strike past Kasper Schmeichel to give Spurs the lead.
Serge Aurier thought he had doubled the visitors’ advantage only for VAR to intervene again, much to the home fans’ delight, with Son Heung-min adjudged offside in the build- up.
That proved crucial as Ricardo Pereira levelled things up in the 69th minute from 12 yards, swinging the momentum in the home side’s favour.
Maddison completed the turnaround with a superb strike from 25 yards five minutes from time, drilling the ball past the despairing dive of Hugo Lloris to move Leicester up to provisional second in the table.
KLOPP UP FOR TEST FROM ‘YOUNG’ CHELSEA
LONDON: Jurgen Klopp warned Liverpool on Friday to brace for a fierce fight with the Chelsea youngsters that remind him of the thrilling Borussia Dortmund sides that took Germany and Europe by storm.
Klopp, whose Premier League leaders take on Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, built a dynamic team in his seven years at Dortmund fuelled by gifted prodigies including Mario Goetze, Nuri Sahin, Shinji Kagawa and Robert Lewandowski.
He sees more than a few similarities between Dortmund teams that won the Bundesliga in consecutive seasons and reached the Champions final in 2013, and the way Chelsea boss Frank Lampard has put his faith in the Blues’s kids.