London, Feb 26 (IANS) Gabriel Martinelli’s goal at the start of the second half gave Arsenal a 1-0 win away to Leicester City, which was probably easier than the final score suggests.
Martinelli latched onto Leandro Trossard’s through ball to beat Danny Ward, which will have been some consolation to Trossard after the midfielder had a spectacular first-half goal disallowed after a VAR review, due to a foul on the Leicester keeper, by Ben White.
Once Arsenal got ahead, they were able to control the play and held into their lead with few problems.
Manchester City remain two points behind in the second after an easy 4-1 win away to Bournemouth.
Julian Alvarez on 15 minutes, Erling Haaland on 29 minutes and Phil Foden on the stroke of halftime put Pep Guardiola’s side 3-0 up at the break, with Alvarez and Foden both answering doubts over why they haven’t started recently.
An own goal made it 4-0 early in the second half before Jefferson Lerma netted a consolation goal for Bournemouth with just seven minutes left to play.
The rest of the day’s games saw some important results in the battle to avoid relegation, with Leeds United and West Ham climbing out of the bottom three with vital home wins.
Javi Gracia’s debut at Leeds ended 1-0 to bottom-of-the-table, Southampton, thanks to Junior Firpo’s 77th-minute goal, which went under the body of Southampton keeper, Gavin Bazunu.
Danny Ings scored in the 70th and 73rd minute as four goals in 15 minutes gave West Ham a 4-0 win at home to Nottingham Forest to ease the pressure on David Moyes.
The games looked to be heading for a draw before Ings’ two goals, and it was over as a contest in the 78th minute as Declan Rice added a third, before Michail Antonio scored West Ham’s fourth with five minutes left to play.
Everton were the big loser of the day as they suffered a 2-0 defeat at home to Aston Villa. Ollie Watkins’ second-half penalty saw him score for a fifth consecutive match and Emi Buendia’s late goal ended Villa’s run of three consecutive defeats while inflicting Sean Dyche’s first home defeat as Everton coach.
The weekend got underway at Craven Cottage on Friday night with Wolverhampton holding Fulham to a 1-1 draw, thanks to Pablo Sarabia’s 23rd-minute effort, which was cancelled out by Manor Solomon’s third league goal in three games.
–IANS
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