Erling Haaland, a substitute, scored a stoppage-time penalty (90+5 minutes) to give 10-man Manchester City a thrilling 2-1 victory over Fulham on Saturday. The victory returned the Premier League champion to the top.
After missing the previous two City games due to injury, leading scorer Haaland was only deemed fit enough to sit on the bench, but Argentine forward Julian Alvarez gave the home team the lead in the 17th minute.
The champion believed John Stones had swiftly doubled its lead, but Rodri was offside in the buildup, and Fulham took advantage of the respite by moving right down the other end and scoring a penalty in the 26th minute.
When Fulham’s Andreas Pereira converted from the penalty spot after City defender Joao Cancelo had sent former Manchester United player Harry Wilson to the ground, the score remained equal going into halftime.
Despite having a numerical disadvantage, City maintained its dominance. After coming in, Haaland quickly thought he had given his team the lead back after glancing a header into the net, but VAR intervened to declare the Norwegian to be offside.
When Kevin De Bruyne was fouled and Haaland converted the penalty in the 95th minute, it appeared that City had exhausted all of their options. The champion then moved one point ahead of Arsenal in the standings. Fulham remained in eighth.
Other results
Gross wins at Wolves to move Brighton into the top six.
In a wild Premier League match on Saturday, Pascal Gross’ late goal gave Brighton & Hove Albion a thrilling 3-2 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers with 10 men.
Goncalo Guedes and Ruben Neves gave Wolves the lead after they had fallen behind to an early goal from Adam Lallana, but before halftime Kaoru Mitoma had leveled the score and Nelson Semedo had been sent off.
After the break, Brighton made a strong effort to score the winning goal, but struggling Wolves were putting up a valiant fight until Gross shot high into the top of the net in the 83rd minute.
Wolves found it difficult because they had just appointed Julen Lopetegui, a Spaniard, as their new manager. Brighton, though, rightfully followed up last week’s victory over Chelsea to move into sixth position.
Wolves are in nineteenth place with 10 points, while Brighton is in first with 21 points from 13 games played.
Leeds defeats Bournemouth 4-3 thanks to a remarkable second-half comeback.
On Saturday in the Premier League, Leeds United overcame a two-goal deficit to defeat Bournemouth 4-3 in an exciting, end-to-end game at Elland Road.
Jesse Marsch’s Leeds mounted an incredible comeback with the raucous home crowd behind them to win all three points and move up to 12th in the standings despite falling behind 3-1 early in the second half.
