Man City regain winning form with victory at Luton

Luton — Bernardo Silva and Jack Grealish scored three minutes apart as Manchester City came from behind to beat Premier League newcomers Luton Town 2-1 on Sunday and breathe a collective sigh of relief with their first victory in five league games.

The win kept the champions — who were missing striker Erling Haaland through injury — in fourth place on 33 points, four shy of leaders Liverpool in a crowded title fight. Luton remain in the drop zone on nine points, four adrift of 17th place.

The home fans were celebrating at halftime at a raucous Kenilworth Road after Elijah Adebayo rose to meet a cross from Andros Townsend and headed in the opener seconds before the break.

But after numerous City near-misses, Silva scored in the 62nd minute when he curled a low left-footed strike into the far corner past goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski.

Grealish netted his 50th career goal three minutes later when Julian Alvarez sent a cross across the face of the goal that the 28-year-old stretched to slot in.

“We knew we had to keep calm today and [were] buzzing to get back to winning ways,” Grealish told Sky Sports.

“A lot of people like to talk about City and go on like it’s a big crisis; in reality, we’ve played very good teams — Spurs who’ve been unbelievable, Liverpool who are top, Chelsea and Villa away, who’ve got one of the best records in Europe.”

Purple patch

A spirited Fulham side registered their second consecutive 5-0 victory in the Premier League when they beat West Ham United at home in a one-sided London derby, with five players getting their names on the scoresheet.

Fulham, who also beat Nottingham Forest 5-0 on Wednesday, have hit a purple patch in front of goal in recent weeks. Sunday’s win marked the fourth consecutive game in which they had scored at least three goals.

Marco Silva’s side were 3-0 up by the break with goals from Raul Jimenez, Willian and Tosin Adarabioyo, with two of those goals coming from set pieces.

Harry Wilson then put the cherry on the top when he curled in a stunning effort from outside the box in the second half.

He then beat the offside trap to set up Carlos Vinicius for a tap-in to consign West Ham to their first defeat in five league games.

Fulham moved up to 10th in the standings on 21 points, three behind ninth-placed West Ham.

Abdoulaye Doucoure scored in his 100th Premier League appearance for Everton and substitute Lewis Dobbin netted a late second goal to earn a 2-0 win over Chelsea that inflicted a third consecutive away defeat on the mid-table London club.

Dwight McNeil surged forward with the ball on 54 minutes and slipped a pass to Dominic Calvert-Lewin. Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez saved the one-on-one chance, but Doucoure drilled the rebound into the far corner of the net.

Academy product Dobbin scored his first goal in an Everton shirt when he thrashed home a loose ball from a corner in injury time to seal the three points.

Chelsea slipped to 12th on the table with 19 points from 16 games, while Everton have 13 points from 16 games.

Without their 10-point deduction for financial breaches, against which they have appealed, Everton would be in 10th, four points ahead of Chelsea.

The visitors dominated possession and spent much of the game in the Everton half but lacked a clinical touch in the home side’s box, while there was some excellent scrambling defence from the Merseysiders, who have now won three consecutive Premier League games for the first time since March 2021. 

Reuters