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| Newcastle United manager Rafael Benitez shakes hands with Manchester City’s Aymeric Laporte after the match |
Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette struck second-half goals to earn a 2-1 win over relegation-threatened Cardiff City in the Premier League at an emotional Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night.
Aubameyang slotted a 66th-minute penalty past Neil Etheridge after Bruno Manga had fouled Sead Kolasinac.
Unai Emery’s side then made their overwhelming territorial superiority count as Lacazette scored a beauty in the 83rd minute, dribbling past Cardiff skipper Sol Bamba before drilling a shot into the corner.
Nathaniel Mendez-Laing scored a late consolation for Cardiff.
The match began in sombre fashion with tributes being made to Cardiff City’s Argentine striker Emiliano Sala who has been missing since a plane carrying him to Britain from Nantes last Monday disappeared over the English Channel.
It was Cardiff’s first game since Argentine striker Sala, who had not played for the club since joining from Nantes, went missing. Bamba and Arsenal skipper Mesut Ozil both placed bunches of daffodils on the pitch.
Fifth-placed Arsenal’s sixth successive home league win lifted them level on 47 points with Chelsea, who play on Wednesday.
Cardiff, who scored for the first time in four league games, remain third from bottom.
At Old Trafford, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s winning start may have come to an end but Manchester United’s storming two-goal comeback at the death against Burnley meant all was not lost.
Most onlookers expected the Norwegian to comfortably seal a ninth straight win in all competitions – and a record-breaking seventh at the start of a Premier League reign – but Sean Dyche’s men had other ideas.
Solskjaer’s United had not so much as gone behind before Ashley Barnes and Chris Wood scored for Burnley, who were dreaming of a first win at Old Trafford since 1962 until Paul Pogba and Victor Lindelof sealed a dramatic 2-2 draw.
An Andreas Pereira mistake allowed Barnes to smash the visitors ahead in the 51st minute and, after dealing with a deluge of attacks, Wood appeared to put the game out of reach.
But that 81st-minute goal was far from the last act.
Pogba fired home a spot-kick with three minutes remaining and Lindelof struck in stoppage time in a comeback the watching Sir Alex Ferguson would have been proud of.
In Newcastle Matt Ritchie fired his team to a first Premier League victory over Manchester City in 23 attempts as the champions’ hopes of retaining their title suffered a major blow.
Ritchie’s 80th-minute penalty completed a remarkable turn-around as the Magpies, who had fallen behind to Sergio Aguero’s strike just 25 seconds into the game, produced the most unlikely of fightbacks.
The 2-1 defeat wrecked City boss Guardiola’s hopes of marking his 100th Premier League game with a record 74th victory and left Liverpool four points clear at the top of the table ahead of Wednesday night’s home clash with Leicester.
Elsewhere Fulham produced a remarkable second-half fightback, coming from two goals down to earn a 4-2 win at home to Brighton & Hove Albion and three crucial points in their battle for Premier League survival.
Fulham’s hero was their Serbian striker Aleksandar Mitrovic, who rediscovered his scoring touch with a couple of second-half headers that thrilled the long-suffering Craven Cottage faithful as their side rallied from a 2-0 deficit at halftime.
Glenn Murray, like Mitrovic, also came out of a scoring drought for Brighton, scoring twice in the first 17 minutes, as Claudio Ranieri’s side stared at the prospect of finding themselves seven points from safety in the relegation zone.
Yet a superb 47th minute strike from defender Calum Chambers, two typical headers from top scorer Mitrovic and a headed clincher from substitute Luciano Vietto earned the win that puts Fulham, still 19th of the league’s 20 teams, on to 17 points from 24 games. Brighton remain 13th on 26 points.
Just after the quarter-hour, Pascal Gross launched an overhead kick that bounced kindly for the evergreen 35-year-old striker, who poked home his second — his 10th league goal of the season.
Meanwhile, an early goal by Brazilian forward Richarlison gave 10-man Everton a 1-0 win at bottom team Huddersfield Town after the visitors had substitute Lucas Digne sent off in a dour Premier League clash.
