Daily Times

MANCHESTER: Manchester City brushed aside Burnley 5-0 to pull clear at the top of the Premier League on Saturday after Chelsea snatched a point in a dramatic late finish against Manchester United. City’s win gives them a two-point cushion over Chelsea and Tottenham – 1-0 winners at West Ham.

Pep Guardiola’s side, who missed a late penalty to beat Liverpool at Anfield earlier this month, made it seven wins from nine league games as Burnley goalkeeper Joe Hart endured a miserable return to his former club at the Etihad. Sergio Aguero opened the scoring in the 17th minute before second-half goals rained in from Bernardo Silva, Fernandinho, Riyad Mahrez and Leroy Sane.

With the defending champions slipping ominously into gear, midfielder Kevin De Bruyne came on for just his second appearance of the season following a knee injury he suffered in August. Earlier, Ross Barkley scored in the sixth minute of injury time at Stamford Bridge to level the match at 2-2 after Anthony Martial had scored twice in the second half to cancel out Antonio Rudiger’s opener. It was a bitter blow for the under-pressure Mourinho, returning to his former club after a poor start to the season and he lost his cool in emotional scenes in the final seconds.

Mourinho took exception to the celebrations of one of Chelsea’s backroom staff, Marco Ianni, who ran in front of the Portuguese on the touchline, as he seemed set for a desperately needed win. But after the final whistle the United boss played down the incident, saying Ianni had apologised to him. “(It was) not celebrations, but bad education.

But I also made mistakes in football matches and I will make more so after the game when he came to offer his apologies, I accept,” added Mourinho. The United boss, who has a tough run of fixtures coming up, including games against Juventus and Manchester City, described the 2-2 draw as an “awful” result for his team, who roared back from 2-0 to beat Newcastle United in their last match.

Sarri said his side lost out to United in the physical battle as the game wore on. “I am happy with the performance of the team for 60 minutes because for 60 minutes we played our football,” said the Italian. “Then after the goal of 1-1 we haven’t played our football. We only played the long ball and we are not organised to go on the second ball.” Erik Lamela scored the only goal of the game as Spurs beat West Ham at the London Stadium to maintain their impressive start to the season. Liverpool travel to Huddersfield looking to end a four-game winless run in all competitions following an electric start to the season. Elsewhere, Cardiff beat Fulham 4-2 while there were also wins for Brighton and Watford. Bournemouth drew 0-0 with Southampton.

Published in Daily Times, October 21^st 2018.