A stoppage-time penalty from substitute Erling Haaland earned 10-man Manchester City a dramatic 2-1 win over Fulham on Saturday, a victory that sent the champions back to the top of the Premier League.
With leading goalscorer Haaland deemed fit enough only for the bench after missing the previous two City games through injury, Argentinean forward Julian Alvarez fired the home side into a 17th-minute lead.
The champions thought they had quickly doubled their lead through John Stones but Rodri was offside in the build-up, and Fulham capitalised on that reprieve, going straight down the other end and winning a 26th-minute penalty.
City defender Joao Cancelo was given a straight red card for bundling Harry Wilson to the floor, with former Manchester United midfielder Andreas Pereira making no mistake from the spot as Fulham went into the interval level.
City continued to dominate even with a numerical disadvantage. Haaland was brought on and quickly thought he had restored his side’s lead after glancing a header home, but VAR stepped in to rule the Norwegian to be offside.
It seemed City had done all they could until Kevin De Bruyne was brought down and Haaland converted the penalty to send the Etihad Stadium into delirium in the 95th minute, as the champions moved one point clear of Arsenal at the top of the standings. Fulham stayed eighth.
Leeds edge Bournemouth 4-3 with stunning second-half comeback
Leeds United bounced back from two goals down to edge Bournemouth 4-3 in an exhilarating, end-to-end encounter at Elland Road in the Premier League on Saturday.
Despite finding themselves 3-1 down early in the second half, Jesse Marsch’s Leeds mounted an epic comeback with the vociferous home support behind them to take all three points and move up to 12th in the standings.
Leeds started the game on the attack and were awarded a penalty in the third minute when Crysencio Summerville was fouled in the box and a composed Rodrigo stepped up to send goalkeeper Mark Travers the wrong way and open the scoring.
As Elland Road celebrated the early goal to create an intimidating atmosphere, Bournemouth remained unperturbed and equalised through Marcus Tavernier before Philip Billing directed a first-time strike into the roof of the net to put them ahead.
Bournemouth scored their third goal two minutes into the second half when Tavernier turned provider again on a counter-attack that began from a Leeds corner and was finished in style by Dominic Solanke.
Leeds refused to give in and struck twice in eight minutes to level the score, with 20-year-old Sam Greenwood first curling an effort past the keeper from outside the box before his delivery from a corner was headed home by Liam Cooper.
In the 84th minute, Leeds stormed forward on yet another counter-attack where Summerville burst into the box and latched on to a through ball from Wilfried Gnonto to make it 4-3.
Gross sends Brighton into top six with winner at Wolves
Pascal Gross’s late goal sealed a thrilling 3-2 victory for Brighton and Hove Albion at 10-man Wolverhampton Wanderers in a rip-roaring Premier League clash on Saturday.
Wolves trailed to an early Adam Lallana goal, then led with goals by Goncalo Guedes and Ruben Neves only for Kaoru Mitoma to level and Nelson Semedo to be red-carded, all before halftime.
Brighton pressed hard for a winner after the break but struggling Wolves were resisting admirably until Gross fired high into the roof of the net in the 83rd minute.
It was tough on Wolves, who had earlier named Spaniard Julen Lopetegui as their new manager, but Brighton deservedly backed-up last week’s victory over Chelsea to move into sixth place.
Brighton have 21 points from 13 games played while Wolves are in 19th place with 10 points.