Fueled by a sparkling attacking display, Manchester City’s players powered to the top of the Premier League for the first time this season — and even the opposition are stopping to admire their work.
In a comical exhibit for the ever-lengthening highlights reel featuring the video assistant referee (VAR), West Bromwich Albion’s defenders virtually stopped in their tracks and looked on as Joao Cancelo curled a shot into the top corner for the second of City’s goals in a 5-0 rout on Tuesday.
After all, the assistant referee had raised the flag for offside moments earlier, but City, unlike West Brom, played on as Bernardo Silva collected the ball and fed Cancelo, who — unchallenged — picked his spot from the edge of the area.
Photo AFP
A video review showed that Silva was actually onside and the goal was allowed to stand.
City were on course to match their biggest league win of the season and, on the evidence of this game and the past couple of months, Pep Guardiola’s team are going to be hard to stop.
“Now, with VAR in these situations, we have to follow the actions until the end because you never know what is going to happen,” Guardiola said. “Is the goal allowed or disallowed? Nobody knows. So you have to continue until the end of the action.”
Photo: AP
West Ham United midfielder Tomas Soucek netted twice in their 3-2 win against Crystal Palace, which lifted the team to fourth place.
The Czech Republic international is proving a solid source of goals for West Ham, having scored seven times in his past 13 league matches.
He dedicated his double to his wife in a post on Twitter.
“The most beautiful feeling in football is when you realize you have helped your team, but this time I want to dedicate the win and my two goals to my wife,” Soucek wrote. “It’s really tough time for her as she can’t see anyone from the family. Thank you for taking care of me and our daughter!”
Arsenal avenged a defeat to Southampton in the FA Cup at the weekend by beating the Saints 3-1 in the league, while Newcastle United’s winless run extended to 11 games in all competitions with a 2-1 home defeat against Leeds United.
FA CUP
Reuters
AFC Bournemouth on Tuesday ended Crawley Town’s run in the FA Cup with a 2-1 victory in the fourth round, with Jack Wilshere opening his account in his second spell at the Championship club.
Crawley, who play in the fourth tier, were the lowest-ranked side left in the competition and five of their players tested positive for COVID-19 over the weekend and were ruled out of the game.
Coppa Italia
AP, MILAN, Italy
The best and worst of Zlatan Ibrahimovic was on show on Tuesday as he scored and later was sent off in AC Milan’s 2-1 loss against Inter in the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia.
Ibrahimovic clashed with former teammate Romelu Lukaku at the end of the first half, and he was ejected for a second booking in the 58th minute.
“It [the confrontation] certainly influenced the match, the first booking caused the sending off,” Milan manager Stefano Pioli said after the game.
“They’re big enough and ugly enough, I don’t know what they said to each other, it can happen, we need to move past it and think of the next match,” he said.
Lukaku converted a penalty for the equalizer and Christian Eriksen scored the winner from a free-kick just outside the penalty area deep in stoppage-time.
COPA DEL REY
AFP, MADRID
Borja Iglesias on Tuesday scored twice in extra-time to send Real Betis Balompie through to the last eight of the Copa del Rey following a 3-1 win over Real Sociedad, joining Villarreal and Levante UD in the quarter-finals.
Villarreal edged past second-tier Girona 1-0 to book their place in the quarters, while Levante won 4-2 against Real Valladolid earlier on Tuesday.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier