The Weekly Round Up

WORDS BY ZAC ASSOUNI

This week saw potential season shaping wins and losses as well as some shocking results. Here’s what happened in football this week.

Perhaps most shocking of all was Manchester City’s 3-0 win over reigning Premier League Champions Liverpool. Things started off hot at the Etihad with as Giorgi Mamardashvilli brought down Jeremy Doku inside the box before Mamardashvilli would go on to save the Erling Haaland penalty only for the Norwegian to then score once again after Mattheus Nunez’s inch perfect cross was met perfectly by Haaland. Virgil Van Dijk thought he’d equalized for the visitors after heading in Mohammed Salah’s corner only for VAR to find that Andy Roberston was obstructing City keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. Only five minutes after this City would score their second after Nico Gonzalez found shooting space at the edge of the box to make it 2-0 before Doku went on to score City’s third midway through the second half. This now begs the question of how many losses is too many for Liverpool’s title defence as they now fall to 8^th in the table. For City, can this relatively new squad continue to get behind Haaland up top as they now move to clear second only four points behind leaders Arsenal.

Speaking of the gunners, it was newly promoted Sunderland who would hold Mikel Arteta’s men to a 2-2 draw at the Stadium of Light thanks to a 94^th minute acrobatic equaliser from Brian Brobbey. The result sees Arsenal remain on top with 26 points before the international break as Sunderland climb up to a very impressive 4^th position as they continue to impress under manager Regis Le Bris.

Elsewhere, a slow starting affair between Tottenham and Manchester United turned into quite the dramatic ending at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. After Bryan Mbuemo headed home to give the red devils a 1-0 going into the half time break, it was substitute Mathys Tel who equalised in the 84^th minute after his effort was deflected past Senne Lammens. Richarlison then thought he secured all three points for Spurs in the 91^st minute before a 96^th minute winner from a corner was headed home by Matthijs De Ligt in what was the final action of the 2-2 draw.

Two shock draws in the Champions League with Barcelona drawing to Club Brugge 3-3 and Chelsea drawing to Qarabag 2-2 as Bayern Munich, Arsenal and Inter make it four wins out of 4 leaving them all on a perfect twelve points.

To A-League action where the New Zealand derby and Melbourne derby were both played on the same day. Auckland FC found themselves leading 2-1 after half time with Sam Cosgrove scoring in the 1^st and 34^th minute before not one but two red cards were shown taking them to nine men for the final ten minutes although, Wellington simply could not find a way through. For Melbourne City it was another dominant display as they ran out 2-0 winners over Melbourne Victory at AAMI Park with Max Caputo scoring in the 2^nd minute taking him to joint top goal scorer through four games.

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