FIRST-HALF GOALS from Bernardo Silva and Sergio Aguero earned Man City a 2-0 win over Fulham that moved Pep Guardiola’s men back to the top of the table ahead of Liverpool’s clash with Tottenham tomorrow.
Cottagers caretaker boss Scott Parker saw his side make early mistakes that were punished by City’s clinical forwards, who all but condemned the West Londoners to an eighth consecutive Premier League defeat within the opening half hour.
Bernardo Silva never let Fulham rest and he followed up his crisply struck goal on five minutes with an assist for Aguero, who scored his fourth goal in five top flight starts against Fulham after 27 minutes.
Parker sent out a more resilient Fulham side after the interval but City, with Kevin De Bruyne restored to their midfield after he recovered from a hamstring injury, remained dominant to move a point ahead of Liverpool at the summit.
City had Fulham pinned in their own penalty area from the off and pounced on the hosts’ first error, De Bruyne intercepting Timothy Fosu-Mensah’s sloppy pass before Aguero teed up Bernardo Silva for a raking drive into the far corner of Sergio Rico’s net.
The next error came from Joe Bryan, who gifted possession to Bernardo Silva and the ball was quickly fed to Aguero, who darted between two defenders before glancing a side-footed finish across Rico and into the top corner.
Aguero was replaced by Gabriel Jesus after 56 minutes as City pressed for a third, with Raheem Sterling having a shot clawed away by Rico before Bernardo Silva narrowly missed out on the rebound.
Kyle Walker almost made the scoreline a fairer reflection of the play when Sterling teed him up for a rasping shot onto the outside of the post with 11 minutes left, but City did not need a third goal on an afternoon when they were by far the better side.
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Not a bad weekend for Irish sport!
Not a bad w/e !! Been a fantastic Ireland 6 Nations champions, Liverpool beating Man U. And then cricketers winning whoooooHoooo
Liverpool and Man Utd are Irish?
And Dublin lost and Meath won in the football.
Ireland never lost a game on St.Patrick day.. What a win !!
Zimbabwe were still the seeded team in the group so it’s a great start to the tournament. Should put Holland and UAE away now to get through to the next stage!
Should never have come down to tje final ball but what a great start. Thrilling cricket
We love winning Cricket matches on Patrick’s Day. Always drama vs Zimbabwe. Remember last ball game in 2007 for a tie.
Ger , I backed them in Cheltenham that year.Corals said I was the only one to have a bet on them so they gave me the 6/4 for the tie
Those previous performances were in the 50-over version of the game. It’s quite different from T20, which is just all-out attack.
And then the article changes and my comment made no sense…
I won snakes and ladders this morning
I won a game of tidlywinks
…and we’re proud of both of you too.
Matt, that means so much to me!
Cricket … Rugby …… We have finally become the Europeans we were meant to be!!!!!!!
Not so much of a “surprise”. After all, Ireland are ranked ahead of Zimbabwe in T20 cricket.
It was a surprise to the 4 million of us who didn’t know until now!
This is certainly Ireland’s Sporting Weekend…well done…
The bandwagon will be departing shortly from platform 5. Could anyone with minimal knowledge of cricket, a large leprechaun hat, and a confused sense of patriotism please make their way immediately to platform 5. Thank you.
Did u enjoy the rugby?
Last bus to Bah-humbug leaves BusAras at 3pm – be on it.
Jesus,I hope I’m not sitting beside you. Anyone want to swap seats?
Silent,did Ireland score many touchdowns in the cricket today versus the African Tigers?
Does the journal have access to a murray kinsella of the cricket world who can do some explainer pieces on the different formats of cricket and what everything means? Would love to get excited about what the lads are doing but the vasy majority of the article went completely over my head! !!
Hi Barry,
An explainer of sorts went up on the site this morning. Here’s a link to it: http://jrnl.ie/1366631
Well done, Ireland. Great way to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day!
There was a few minutes there where I thought we were once again going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, hope we learn from this and make it more difficult to lose wickets.
Great result can push on and take the UAE and the Dutch. The dutch would usually quite strong. But I wonder how the controversy is effecting their squad. If we get to the super 10s I think we are in the tougher group, Aussies, Indies, India, Pakistan. I think we will struggle to get a win there, but the indies are there for the taking with a bit of luck.
If we can get the two more wins and top the group we will go through to the Super 10′s in Group 1 with the following teams and the following fixtures
Group 1
March 24th v Sri Lanka – Chittagong 1.30pm Irish Time
March 27th v South Africa – Chittagong 9.30am Irish Time
March 29th v New Zealand – Chittagong 9.30am Irish Time
March 31st v England – Chittagong 9.30am Irish Time
http://www.cricketireland.ie/news/article/icc-world-twenty20-preview-by-ger-siggins
#COYBIG