MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Unai Emery returned to torment Arsenal on Saturday after his Aston Villa routed another Premier League title contender.
With the 1-0 victory at Villa Park, the Birmingham club established its own record with 15 consecutive home victories in the English league and moved two points behind Liverpool, first in the standings.
The Spanish coach took revenge on the team that fired him in 2019. He had already rebuilt his reputation before taking the reins at Villa, which was in danger of relegation the previous season. But this may be the best work of his career even though he has two Europa League titles.
Villa is third and looks like a serious contender for the title after a run that includes wins against Manchester City and Tottenham.
“We are getting better mentally and believing we can be stronger,” Emery said. “We want to be among the best eight teams, but many teams want to be there. At the beginning there were seven leading teams, but we fought to be there.”
John McGinn scored the only goal after seven minutes and Villa held on to prevent Arsenal from equalising.
Arsenal started the day as leaders but fell to second place behind Liverpool
Jürgen Klopp was relieved after “lucky” Liverpool came from behind to beat Crystal Palace 2-1.
Klopp admitted it was a “dreadful” performance from his team against Palace, who took a 1-0 lead at Selhurst Park following a penalty taken by Philippe Mateta in the 57th minute.
The match took a turn when Palace’s Jordan Ayew was sent off in the 75th and, a minute later, Mohamed Salah deflected the ball into the goal to equalize. Harvey Elliott fired a shot from distance to seal the victory in overtime.
“I am a very happy manager at the moment, but I also know that we were lucky,” Klopp admitted. “If you only win when you play very well you won’t have a chance to be successful, that’s right, obviously today wasn’t a very good game for us.”
Salah achieved another scoring record to revive Liverpool.
The Egyptian international reached 200 goals for Liverpool – his fifth to do so – as well as 150 in the Premier League to move into the Top 10, tied with Michael Owen.
“The most important thing is that we won the game,” said Salah. “It’s a great feeling, I’m happy for the record and that we won.”
For his part, Erik ten Hag seemed to be breathing easily but his Manchester United team once again took a step back against Bournemouth by succumbing 3-0 at Old Trafford.
Goals from Dominic Solanke, Philip Billing and Argentina’s Marcos Senesi provoked boos from the home fans. It was United’s 11th defeat in all competitions this campaign.
A victory would have placed the team on equal points with Manchester City, fourth in the table.
Instead, Ten Hag had one of the most humiliating days, and the fans began to boo when Bournemouth scored the third goal.
“Of course I’m upset, disappointed, definitely, I expected something different,” admitted the coach.
Chris Wilder received a response from his team after returning in charge of Sheffield United this week and they beat Brentford 1-0 after losing in midweek to Liverpool.
Nottingham Forest let a possible victory go and drew 1-1 with Wolverhampton. Brighton and Burnley tied by the same score.
