Sports News from Sri Lanka: Manchester City succumbed to a first Premier League defeat since January in amazing fashion to the newly promoted Norwich 3-2 on Saturday as Liverpool opened up a five-point lead at the top of the table by beating Newcastle 3-1.
Tottenham and Chelsea bounced back to form respectively with extensive victories over Crystal Palace and Wolves, while Manchester United had a 1-0 win over Leicester for a much-needed three points.
Liverpool, however, was the day’s large winners as the gaps left by the injured Aymeric Laporte in City’s defense were exposed on Carrow Road.
“For us and for the club, of course, it’s a special day,” Norwich boss Daniel Farke said.
“We had to be unique in our City plan because they are the best team in the globe and with our injuries we also had setbacks, but today we deserved the victory. We were outstanding. “Kenny McLean showed up the struggles of the champions to protect the set-pieces with a towering header to open the scoring and Teemu Pukki squared for Todd Cantwell in 28 minutes.
City recovered its composure and gained a foothold in the match before half-time as Sergio Aguero pushed the point of Bernardo Silva home.
With Laporte out at least with a severe knee injury until January, however, Pep Guardiola has issues to fix at the core of his defense as John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi gifted Norwich a third at the beginning of the second half.
At the bottom of his own box, Emiliano Buendia stolen Otamendi and set up Pukki to prod home. City rallied late, but it was too little, too late for Rodri’s first objective for the club two minutes from time.
“I understand what we are as a team, what we did, what we will do again, and I enjoy my players. Being with them is a joy and honor, “insisted Guardiola. “This is the high-level task. People can’t expect to win all the time. “Liverpool also dropped to Newcastle early on as Jetro Willems saw the Reds trailing for the first time since March at Anfield.
Sadio Mane fired into the top corner to begin the revival, but it was Roberto Firmino’s introduction off the bench to the injured Divock Origi that really turned the tide in favor of Liverpool. Martin Dubravka poured the Brazilian’s through ball to allow Mane a easy job for his second just before half-time, and another wonderful Firmino flick was teasing Salah to seal the points 18 minutes later.
“After 25 minutes, I began thinking about when we eventually got into the match,” said Jurgen Klopp, manager of Liverpool. “We scored only one objective in the second half, but we played really nice football and I liked it a lot.” Frank Lampard suffered a hard beginning as a manager on his return to Stamford Bridge, but he enjoyed his best day so far in charge of Chelsea with his youth faith again fully reinforced in a 5-2
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