MANCHESTER: Manchester City continued their remarkable start to the season with a 3-1 victory over previously unbeaten Newcastle United on Saturday while Arsenal rallied back with two goals from Robi Van Persie to beat Norwich City on Saturday.
The victory at Eastlandsgave Roberto Mancini’s side their 11th win from their opening 12 games. With City only dropping points in a draw at Fulham, Mancini’s men have now made the best start to a campaign in Premier League history.
First half goals from Mario Balotelli and Micah Richards, both the result of errors by defender Ryan Taylor, and a second half penalty from Sergio Aguero also took City’s goals tally to an impressive 42 from their dozen league matches, before a consolation for substitute Dan Gosling.
City were required to survive a couple of first half scares from an able Newcastle side but they had the points secured before the interval with two goals in four minutes.
Only five minutes of the half remained when Balotelli’s goalbound shot struck the arm of Taylor and referee Chris Foy correctly pointed to the spot.
Balotelli himself strode up and nonchalantly rolled the penalty into the bottom right hand corner of the Newcastle net for his sixth league goal of the campaign.
That may have been harsh on the visitors, who had impressed to that point, but Newcastle only had themselves to blame when City doubled the lead.
Samir Nasri and Yaya Toure exchanged passes in midfield before the former slipped a pass towards Richards.
Taylor was again to blame as failed to make the clearance and only succeeded in bouncing the ball against the City full-back, who showed great poise to fire an unstoppable left-foot finish past Tim Krul.
City had taken their time to hit their stride against a Newcastle defence which came into the game with the best record in the Premier League.
Meanwhile, Robin van Persie scored both goals as Arsenal came from behind to win 2-1 at Norwich City in the Premier League’s early kick-off game on Saturday.
The double strike saw the Netherlands international become only the fifth forward to have scored 30 Premier League goals in a calendar year.
He has now scored 31 in 29 games and is closing in on Thierry Henry’s Arsenal best of 34 and Alan Shearer’s overall record of 36.
No wonder that many regard the Arsenal captain as the best front-man in the world, although he was controversially omitted from a shortlist of 23 players for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award.
Arsenal dominated the early exchanges and created plenty of chances to take the lead.
Blackburn Rovers held by Wigan
Ayegbeni Yakubu converted an injury-time penalty won by his own goalkeeper as Blackburn snatched a dramatic 3-3 draw at Wigan to keep its northwest rival at the bottom of the English Premier League on Saturday.
Blackburn keeper Paul Robinson ran upfield in the ninth minute of second-half stoppage time and was fouled by David Jones as they competed for a corner.
Yakubu, who had earlier opened the scoring after just 68 seconds, scored the penalty to leave second-to-last Blackburn a point above Wigan.
Wigan rallied to take a 2-1 halftime lead through goals by Jordi Gomez and Gary Caldwell but Canadian forward Junior Hoilett leveled for the visitors in the 60th.
Albert Crusat then thought he had won it for Wigan before Yakubu’s last-ditch equalizer. (Agencies)