English Premier League 2011, Week 10: Important Wins For Liverpool, Manchester City
Manchester City earned a 3-1 win to keep themselves at the top of the Premier League, overcoming a late hurdle that saw Vincent Kompany shown a straight red card and Stephen Hunt net a penalty. The hosts weren't particularly impressive in a first half that ended up 0-0, but Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov struck after halftime before that brief Wolves resurgence. Adam Johnson's brilliant injury-time strike wrapped things up, and City remain five points clear.
Norwich looked poised to hand Blackburn Rovers a rare away win at Carrow Road. The visitors went ahead 1-0 at the stroke of halftime through Junior Hoillet, who unleashed a lovely shot past John Ruddy in first half injury time to put Blackburn on the front foot. Steve Morrison briefly drew the hosts level but quick goals by Yakubu Aiyegbeni and Christopher Samba put them in a 3-1 hole. Norwich looked lost even after Bradley Johnson snatched one back, but Steven Nzoni's last minute handball allowed substitute Grant Holt a crack at goal from 12 yards. With no time left, he took it to earn Norwich a 3-3 draw.
A last-minute header by Stephane Sessegnon earned Sunderland a 2-2 draw and a point at the Stadium of Light, cancelling out a late Richard Dunne header that looked set to be the winner. Earlier, Stiliyan Petrov had opened the scoring with an absolute rocket from long range, but a lovely piece of combination play by Sessegnon and Connor Wickham saw the latter level the scores in the first half. Villa probably didn't deserve the win that Dunne looked set to give them, and it was probably justice that the impressive Sessegnon got his head onto the end of Sebastian Larsson's free kick with a minute to go.
Bolton had had a rough start to the season, but that was mostly excused thanks to their ridiculously difficult schedule. They have no excuses now - they've just been absolutely spanked by a newly promoted team, losing 3-1 to Swansea at the Liberty Stadium. At no point did Bolton look like a match for the Swans, but things got really bad after halftime, when Ricardo Gardner was shown his second yellow card in five minutes to give the hosts a man advantage and - four goals later, including a rare own goal-actual goal brace by Danny Graham, the game.
Wigan Athletic Vs. Fulham
Stop me if you've heard this before - Wigan Athletic played better football but completely failed to take advantage of their many chances to win the game at the DW Stadium before their visitors scored twice with their two chances. Yep, it's every Wigan match ever. Clint Dempsey and Moussa Dembele were the goalscorers, and Fulham won 2-0.
Roy Hodgson may have gotten his revenge over Kenny Dalglish when Liverpool met West Bromwich Albion last season, but Dalglish got his today with an easy 2-0 win against West Brom at the Hawthorns (will the cycle of revenge never cease?!). Anyway, an early penalty was converted by Charlie Adam and Andy Carroll added a second with a neat finish just before halftime. And that was that.
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