City extend lead as league puts on show of unity
IN A stadium in northwest England, two Ukrainian footballers on opposite teams embrace prior to kickoff, before being brought to tears as teammates line up for a match wearing tops displaying the Ukraine flag and the message: ‘No War.’
An hour earlier in west London, fans of Brentford and Newcastle unite to applaud the return to competitive football of Christian Eriksen, eight months after he suffered a cardiac arrest during a European Championship game.
It was a touching, emotional and at times uplifting day in the Premier League on Saturday, marked by messages of solidarity across the country from players and fans toward those in - and from - Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.
Nowhere more so than at Goodison Park, where the football - Manchester City beat Everton 1-0 to move six points clear at the top – felt somewhat insignificant as City’s
Oleksandr Zinchenko and Everton’s Vitaliy Mykolenko, two Ukraine internationals, greeted each other during the warm-ups and hugged.
And at Brighton’s Amex Stadium, Matty Cash scored the goal that sent Aston Villa on its way to a 2-0 win and marked it by taking off his jersey, revealing a message to a teammate in the Poland national side who plays his club football in Ukraine.
‘Tomasz Kedziora + family,’ it read, ‘stay strong my bro.’
Meanwhile, Eriksen came on as a 52nd-minute substitute for Brentford in its 2-0 loss against Newcastle, marking a return to competitive action.
City left it late to beat Everton, with Phil Foden scoring the winner in the 82nd minute. The champions opened up a six-point gap to secondplace Liverpool, whio have a game in hand.
Meanwhile, Harry Kane and Son Heung-min are now the most lethal combination in Premier League history.
When Son ran onto an exquisite long pass from Kane and produced a great finish to crown Tottenham’s 4-0 win over Leeds, it was the 37th time the pair had combined for a goal in the league.
That took them past the 36 goals that Frank Lampard and Didier Drogba combined to score for Chelsea in the Premier League.
Ireland’s Matt Doherty, Dejan Kulusevski and Harry Kane scored in the opening 27 minutes and Leeds’ players were booed off at halftime and full time.