Fine victories for Sampdoria and Fiorentina

30
Arsenal hit two
goals past City
WORLD SPORT
Gulf Daily News Monday, 19th January 2015
LONDON: Arsenal
ended their away
hoodoo against Premier League title
challengers with a 2-0 victory at Manchester City yesterday that left Chelsea five
points clear at the top.
Santi Cazorla gave Arsenal the
lead from the penalty spot in the
24th minute, after returning City
skipper Vincent Kompany felled
Nacho Monreal, and Olivier Giroud doubled the lead in the 67th
minute with a deft header.
City included Sergio Aguero in the starting lineup, after
a month-long injury absence,
but the Argentine was largely
anonymous against a vastly improved Arsenal defence.
The result lifted Arsenal to
fifth on 39 points and one behind
Manchester United in fourth.
The end of second-placed
City’s 12-match unbeaten run
left them on 47 points to Chelsea’s 52 with their next league
outing a daunting trip to Stamford Bridge on Jan. 31.
European hopefuls West
Ham United earlier revived
their push for a top four finish
with a 3-0 victory over relegation-threatened Hull City at
Upton Park.
The result sent the Hammers
up to seventh with 36 points
from 22 games, just four behind Manchester United. Struggling Hull are 18th, level with
Queens Park Rangers and just
two points above bottom-ofthe-table Leicester City.
After the visitors had battled
manfully in the opening period,
in-form Andy Carroll opened
the scoring for West Ham with
n Arsenal’s Cazorla, second from
left, celebrates with teammates
after scoring against City
a simple finish in the 49th minute.
Substitute Morgan Amalfitano and the impressive Stuart
Downing then applied neat
finishes within three minutes
of each other as West Ham reignited their top-four challenge
with a first league victory since
Dec. 20.
West Ham have more points
at this stage of a Premier
ENGLISH LEAGUE
3
Lazio
Hull
(Carroll 49, Amalfitano 69, Downing 72)
Manchester City
0
Arsenal
(Cazorla 24pen, Giroud 67 )
Chelsea
Manchester City
Southampton
Man United
Arsenal
Tottenham
West Ham
Liverpool
Swansea
Stoke
Newcastle
Crystal Palace
Everton
Aston Villa
West Brom
Sunderland
Burnley
Hull
QPR
Leicester
P
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
22
21
22
21
22
22
22
22
22
W
16
14
13
11
11
11
10
10
8
8
7
5
5
5
5
3
4
4
5
4
D
4
5
3
7
6
4
6
5
6
5
6
8
7
7
6
11
8
7
4
5
L
2
3
6
4
5
7
6
7
8
9
9
9
9
10
10
8
10
11
13
13
F
51
45
37
36
39
32
35
31
26
23
26
25
30
11
20
19
21
20
23
20
Playing today:
Everton v West Brom
(Starting at 11pm, Bahrain time)
League campaign than ever before while Hull are 18th, level
with Queens Park Rangers and
just two points above bottomof-the-table Leicester City.
“Today we deserved it,” Carroll said. “Obviously the first
half wasn’t a great performance
from us but we came out in the
second half and got the early goal and created a lot more
chances.”
After four Premier League
games without a win for West
Ham, the visit of goal-shy Hull
provided an ideal opportunity
to reignite their season.
It was the visitors, however,
who made the better start.
With several first-choice forwards injured, diminutive Nigeria international Sone Aluko was
tasked with leading Hull’s attack
and his pace and skill should
ITALIAN LEAGUE
Premiership
West Ham
Email: [email protected]
0
2
A Pts
19 52
22 47
16 42
21 40
25 39
30 37
25 36
27 35
30 30
27 29
35 27
33 23
34 22
25 22
29 21
33 20
36 20
30 19
39 19
34 17
0
Cesena
Napoli
(Higuain 18)
2
Torino
1
3
1
Fiorentina
(Pellissier 72) (Rodriguez 35, Babacar 90+4)
Genoa
2
3
Sassuolo
3
0
Atalanta
1
0
Sampdoria
2
2
Cagliari
2
(Iago 25, Fetfatzidis 53, 90+2-pen) (Berardi 19-pen, 69,
Missiroli 50)
AC Milan
Parma
Udinese
(Denis 33)
(Bergessio 54, Soriano 70)
(Allan 55, Thereau 56) (Pedro 39, Avelar 90+1-pen)
P W D
L
F
A Pts
Juventus
18 13 4
1 38
9
43
Roma
19 12 5
2 32 14
41
Napoli
19
9 6
4 34 24
33
Sampdoria
19
8 9
2 25 17
33
Lazio
19
9 4
6 33 22
31
Fiorentina
19
5 27 18
30
8 6
Genoa
19
7 7
5 27 23
28
AC Milan
19
6 8
5 27 22
26
Inter Milan
19
6 8
5 29 25
26
Palermo
19
6 8
5 31 31
26
Sassuolo
19
5 10
4 23 26
25
Udinese
19
6 6
7 23 26
24
Torino
19
5 7
7 16 21
22
Verona
18
5 6
7 21 28
21
Atalanta
19
4 8
7 15 24
20
Empoli
19
3 10
6 17 23
19
Chievo
19
4 6
9 14 22
18
Cagliari
19
3 7
9 25 37
16
Cesena
19
1 6 12 17 39
9
Parma
19
3 1 15 18 41
9
Note: Parma deducted one point for failing to pay
player salaries.
Getafe
0
Real Madrid
(Ronaldo 63, 79 Bale 67)
3
Atletico Madrid
2
Granada
0
Deportivo
0
Barcelona
4
(Mandzukic 34-pen, Raul Garcia 87)
(Messi 10, 33, 62, Sidnei 83og )
Real Madrid
Barcelona
Atletico Madrid
Valencia
Sevilla
Villarreal
Malaga
Eibar
Espanyol
Rayo Vallecano
Celta Vigo
Real Sociedad
Athletic Bilbao
Cordoba
Getafe
Deportivo
Almeria
Levante
Granada
Elche
P
18
19
19
19
17
19
18
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
19
18
19
18
W
15
14
13
11
11
10
9
7
6
7
5
4
5
3
4
4
4
3
2
3
D
0
2
2
5
3
5
4
6
5
2
6
7
4
9
5
5
4
7
8
5
L
3
3
4
3
3
4
5
6
8
10
8
8
10
7
10
10
11
8
9
10
MILAN:
Sampdoria
and Fiorentina scored
precious away wins to
maintain their hopes of
European football next season
as AC Milan saw their hopes
of Champions League football
dented by a shock 1-0 home
loss to Atalanta.
Gonzalo Bergessio and Roberto Soriano pounced on poor
Parma defending to score one
apiece in the second half to
hand Sinisia Mihajlovic’s visitors a second consecutive win
for the first time since October.
Samp’s eighth win of the
campaign sent them up to
fourth in Serie A but the Genoa-based high-flyers trail Napoli, who moved up to third after
a 1-0 win away to Lazio earlier,
only on goals difference.
Having lost only twice this
season and with strikers Luis
Muriel and Samuel Eto’o reportedly on the verge of signing, coach Mihajlovic was
buoyant.
“We’re having a great campaign, and that makes me very
happy,” he said. “On paper,
there are teams with much better squads than ours but we’re
right behind them.
“No other Samp side has
amassed so many points at this
stage of the season. We’ve lost
only twice in 19 games so I’m
very happy.”
Fiorentina had failed to string
two wins together since November and Vincenzo Montella’s men
looked to be heading for another
draw away to struggling Chievo
after Sergio Pellissier struck for
the hosts in the 74th minute to
level Gonzalo Rodriguez’s 35th
minute opener.
However Chievo suffered a
costly lapse of concentration
in added-on time, when Senegalese centre-forward Khouma
Babacar sent a looping header
over ‘keeper Benjamin Bizzarri.
La Viola’s eighth win of the
campaign moved them up to
sixth, 13 points adrift of leaders and champions Juventus
and only three behind Napoli
in the third and last Champions
League qualifying place.
WORLD RESULTS
SPANISH LEAGUE
(Brienza 43-pen, 85-pen) (Benassi 20, Quagliarella 22,
Lopez 87)
Chievo
have yielded an early goal. He
ghosted through the West Ham
defence twice in the opening five
minutes before a clever cut-back
was scuffed wide by Ahmed Elmohamady in the sixth.
West Ham slowly grew
into the game and went close
through Aaron Cresswell and
Enner Valencia before James
Tomkins headed over from
close range.
Fine victories
for Sampdoria
and Fiorentina
F
62
48
37
35
28
32
22
24
22
20
18
19
15
15
14
14
17
13
11
16
A Pts
15 45
9
44
18 41
17 38
17 36
17 35
18 31
25 27
29 23
33 23
21 21
24 19
25 19
28 18
27 17
31 17
30 16
33 16
31 14
36 14
BASKETBALL
NBA games on Saturday (home team in CAPS):
CHARLOTTE
80 Indiana
71
(Overtime)
DETROIT
107 Philadelphia
89
Atlanta
107 CHICAGO
99
Golden State
131 HOUSTON
106
MEMPHIS
102 Portland
98
Washington
99
BROOKLYN
90
Minnesota
113 DENVER
105
LA Clippers
117 SACRAMENTO 108
ICE HOCKEY
National Hockey League matches on Saturday:
Minnesota
3 Arizona
1
Los Angeles
2 Anaheim
3
(Shootout)
San Jose
3
Calgary
4
(Overtime)
Dallas
5 Washington
4
Boston
1 Columbus
3
Buffalo
3 Philadelphia
4
Montréal
6 NY Islanders
4
Ottawa
2 Carolina
3
Detroit
5 Nashville
2
Tampa Bay
3 Colorado
2
(Shootout)
Florida
2 Edmonton
3
(Shootout)
St Louis
3 Toronto
0
SOCCER
French league:
Paris Saint-Germain
Rennes
4
0
Evian
Saint-Etienne
29 37 42 46 47 49
2
0
4