Haaland doubles again as City extend winning streak

Another double for Erling Haaland, who is motoring along at better than a goal a game. Another three points for Manchester City, whose winning streak is up to five matches. That’s still not enough to stop Arsenal being top of the Premier League on Christmas Day. A 1-0 victory at Everton, secured by Viktor Gyokeres’ first-half penalty, means Arsenal — seeking a first English top-flight title since 2004 — will spend Dec. 25 in first place for the fifth time since the Premier League was formed in 1992.

On none of the four occasions so far did Arsenal go on to win the title. History isn’t the only thing the Gunners are fighting. City is the closest challenger, just two points behind in second, and continued its strong recent form by sweeping aside West Ham 3-0. Haaland scored in each half to move to 19 goals in 17 matches in this campaign — in doing so passing Cristiano Ronaldo on the Premier League’s all-time scoring list — and also set up Tijjani Reijnders for the other goal.

City manager Pep Guardiola is still not completely satisfied and revealed his locker-room message to the team. “I said to the players, Merry Christmas everyone but it will not be enough if we don’t improve,’” Guardiola said. Liverpool won at nine-man Tottenham 2-1 but lost record signing Alexander Isak to a left ankle injury sustained when scoring the first goal. Chelsea came from two goals down to draw at Newcastle 2-2. Haaland has 38 goals in a combined 28 games for City and Norway in what is shaping up to be the most prolific season of his career.

Injury permitting, the season will end in him going to his first World Cup. Haaland scored at the second attempt from Phil Foden’s cross to give City a fifth-minute lead and took advantage of a defensive mix-up by West Ham to make it 3-0 in the 69th. In between, Haaland slipped a short pass to Reijnders, who took a touch and rifled a shot into the roof of the net in the 38th. His two goals gave Haaland 104 in the Premier League, one more than Ronaldo — who had two spells at Manchester United — having played 122 games fewer.

The Sweden striker has struggled in his first few months as British soccer’s record signing, having joined Liverpool after training mostly alone in the offseason. He then recently had time out with a groin injury. On as a sub against Tottenham, Isak scored within 11 minutes but in the act of converting his finish his left ankle was hurt by a challenge from Tottenham’s Micky van de Ven and he was helped off the field.

Tottenham was already down to 10 men at that point after Xavi Simons’ red card for a studs-up foul on Virgil van Dijk, and Hugo Ekitike doubled Liverpool’s lead with a header. Richarlison reduced the deficit for Spurs in the 83rd and there was time for Cristian Romero to become the second home player to be sent off after kicking out at Ibrahima Konate. Liverpool climbed to fifth place. What a difference a week made for Nick Woltemade.

Last weekend, he scored an own-goal to consign Newcastle to a derby loss at fierce rival Sunderland. Six days later, he netted twice in the opening 20 minutes to give his team a fast start against Chelsea. Chelsea recovered, though, to draw 2-2 with Joao Pedro’s equalizer coming off an assist from goalkeeper Robert Sanchez. Reece James launched Chelsea’s fightback by curling a free kick in off the post after halftime.

Chelsea stayed in fourth place and has won only one of its last five games in the league. Newcastle, one of England’s representatives in the Champions League this season, is languishing in midtable after one win in its last four games — and that was against next-to-last Burnley. Still winless Last-placed Wolverhampton remained without a win and on just two points after losing at home to Brentford 2-0.

The latest defeat meant Wolves tied Sheffield United’s 2020-21 record of 17 games without a win from the start of a Premier League season and has lost a club record-extending 10 league matches in a row. Keane Lewis-Potter scored Brentford’s goals. Semenyo’s worth Bournemouth winger Antoine Semenyo is reportedly a target of some of the Premier League’s biggest teams, including Man City and Manchester United.

He underlined his worth by curling home his team’s goal in a 1-1 draw with Burnley, which ended its seven-match losing run on its tough return to the top flight. Armando Broja grabbed Burnley’s equalizer in the 90th. Sunderland and Leeds are doing much better since promotion. A 0-0 draw at Brighton left Sunderland in sixth place, while Leeds beat Crystal Palace 4-1 to move six points clear of the relegation zone.