Two teams score inside 22 seconds; Arsenal up to 2nd spot with win
LONDON, Jan 31: With one team scoring after just 18 seconds and another after 21 seconds, the Premier League made an explosive return Tuesday following the competition’s short winter break.
Arsenal left it much later for its goals in a win that kept the pressure on Liverpool at the top.
Just when it looked like being another frustrating match for Arsenal’s often-profligate attack, Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka scored in the second half to help the team beat Nottingham Forest 2-1, jump into second place and trim the gap to first-place Liverpool to two points.
Unai Emery’s Aston Villa has been the big surprise this season but a 3-1 loss at home to Newcastle slowed its bid for a finish in the Champions League places, with Villa staying in fourth place.
There were five games in total and 16 goals scored, three of them coming for Luton striker Elijah Adebayo in a 4-0 thrashing of Brighton that lifted his team out of the relegation zone.
Adebayo’s first came after just 18 seconds and it was barely the quickest of the night, with Ben Brereton Diaz scoring after 21 seconds for Sheffield United in its 3-2 loss at Crystal Palace.
Fulham and Everton drew 0-0 in the other match on the opening night of the league’s midweek round.
JESUS INSPIRES ARSENAL
Gabriel Jesus has been criticized by some for not being the clinical finisher Arsenal might need to end its 20-year wait for a Premier League title.
The Brazil striker was enduring another frustrating match, heading over in the first half and smashing a shot against the post just after the restart, before being the inspiration behind the win.
In the 65th, he received a throw-in from Oleksandr Zinchenko, drove toward goal at an acute angle and sent in a shot that deflected into the net off the heel of Forest goalkeeper Matt Turner — a former Arsenal player.
Jesus then turned provider as he led a counterattack and passed the ball across to Saka, who took a touch and shot right-footed into the bottom corner from just inside the area in the 72nd.
Substitute Taiwo Awoniyi scored in the 89th for Forest.
Liverpool can restore its five-point lead by beating Chelsea at home on Wednesday.
VILLA STREAK ENDS
Villa hadn’t lost at home since February last year before getting beaten for the second time this season by Newcastle.
Two goals in four first-half minutes from Fabian Schar put Newcastle in control before Alex Moreno’s own-goal just after the break. Ollie Watkins grabbed a consolation for Villa, which will drop to fifth place if Tottenham beats Brentford on Wednesday.
Newcastle had lost six of its previous seven league games to slip away from the top four but victory lifted the team to seventh place, although still 11 points behind Villa.
Palace beat Sheffield
Michael Olise marked his return to Crystal Palace’s team by scoring the winner in a 3-2 Premier League comeback victory over Sheffield United to ease the pressure on manager Roy Hodgson.
Diaz, on loan from Villarreal, stunned the home support into silence when he netted the opener after only 21 seconds at Selhurst Park before Olise teed up Eberechi Eze for the equalizer.
James McAtee restored the Blades’ lead before Olise once again set up Eze, who leveled inside the first half-hour of a frenetic first period to complete his double.
Olise ensured his team came away with all three points by scoring in the 67th.
Anel Ahmedhodzic came close to salvaging a point for Sheffield United when he clipped the crossbar late in the second half, but the Premier League’s bottom side left with nothing and is nine points from safety.
Palace had come into the game having won just once in its last 10 league outings and Hodgson brushing aside suggestions that it was “must win”, partially pointing to the lengthy list of absentees in the first half of the campaign.
If Olise and Eze stay fit, Palace should be fine. The team is in 14th place, six points above the relegation zone.
Luton rout Brighton
Adebayo scored a hat trick — including a first goal after just 18 seconds — in a 4-0 thrashing of Brighton to climb out of the Premier League’s relegation zone on Tuesday.
The promoted team cruised to victory in front of captain Tom Lockyer, who attended the match while he recovers from suffering cardiac arrest during a Premier League match at Bournemouth in December.
In a sensational start to the game, Adebayo’s opener was followed by another goal by Chiedozie Ogbene inside three minutes at Kenilworth Road.
Only once in the Premier League’s 32-year history has a team scored two goals earlier from the start of a match, according to the competition’s statistics supplier Opta. That was Leicester in April 1998 against Derby.
Adebayo ran in behind Brighton’s wide-open defense to convert a shot for his second goal in the 42nd and he completed his hat trick in the 56nd, becoming the first Luton player to grab three goals in one top-flight game since Lars Elstrup in September 1990.
Luton jumped above Everton into fourth-to-last place and looks increasingly capable of avoiding going down in its first season back in the top division. Rob Edwards’ team has only lost one of its last eight games in all competitions. (AP)