LONDON: Liverpool opened a five-point lead at the top of the Premier League with a 2-0 home defeat of Aston Villa after Manchester City slumped to a fourth successive defeat as Brighton & Hove Albion hit back to beat champions 2-1 at home on Saturday.
Arne Slot’s side made it nine wins from their opening 11 league games with a Darwin Nunez and Mohamed Salah scoring the goals in a deadly demonstration of counter-attacking.
City took the lead with Erling Haaland scoring his 12th league goal of the campaign but late goals by Joao Pedro and Matt O’Riley stunned Pep Guardiola’s side who enter the international break with much to ponder.
Liverpool head into the international break with 28 points from 11 games with City on 23 while Brighton and Hove Albion are in fourth place on 19 points. Third-placed Nottingham Forest could move to 22 points if they beat Newcastle United on Sunday.
Dutchman Slot has enjoyed a remarkable start at Liverpool with 15 wins from his first 17 in charge since replacing the seemingly irreplaceable Juergen Klopp.
His style is more pragmatic than Klopp’s but no less spectacular at times, as they showed on Saturday.
Nunez opened the scoring after 20 minutes when Liverpool broke at lightning pace following an Aston Villa corner and after Mohamed Salah was bundled over by Leon Bailey, Nunez took matters into his own hands to round Emiliano Martinez and blast home a shot from a narrow angle.
Villa, whose season has hit a rough patch, were denied an equaliser by some excellent saves by Caoimhin Kelleher but were floored late on when after another counter-attack from deep in Liverpool’s half, Salah burst clear to finish in style.
“In general we had control over the game and scored from two counter-attacks which is maybe not what we would expect,” Slot said. “Margins are small, we have a margin but it is small.
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“There are many challenges to come for us.”
Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva said after the 4-1 thrashing away to Sporting in the Champions League in midweek that the team were in a dark place.
And despite Haaland’s early goal at Brighton, the gloom deepened as they lost their grip on the game with Joao Pedro and O’Riley capping memorable night for the Seagulls.
“I will reflect in these ten days. Clear our heads, players come back fit, this is the target,” Guardiola, whose only similar run in all competitions was at Bayern Munich in 2015 when he suffered three back-to-back defeats and a penalty shoot-out loss in the German Cup, told reporters.
“We try to analyse how we perform - four in a row. Okay. The question is how we are playing. The level we’re playing is really good in certain moments but we are not able to continue.”
It is also the first time City have lost four successive games in all competitions in 18 years.
Fulham climbed to seventh after a 2-0 win away at London rivals Crystal Palace with goals by Emile Smith Rowe and Harry Wilson. The hosts were reduced to 10 men after Daichi Kamada was shown a red card for a dangerous tackle.
Brentford twice came from behind to beat Bournemouth 3-2 thanks to a brace from Yoane Wissa.
Wolverhampton Wanderers finally tasted victory after a wretched start to the season as they beat fellow strugglers Southampton 2-0 to climb off the foot of the table.
Pablo Sarabia scored after two minutes – Wolves’ fastest goal in a Premier League match – and Matheus Cunha wrapped up the points to the relief of manager Gary O’Neil.
Wolves moved up to 18th place with six points with Southampton now bottom on four.
Ipswich Town, now the only team in the Premier League without a win, have five points ahead of their visit to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
West Ham United and Everton played out a dull 0-0 draw at the London Stadium.
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