The Premier League is off to a feisty start as half of the games on the opening weekend have now taken place. Newcastle United defeated Southampton 1-0 despite being reduced to 10 men, Brighton registered a 3-0 win over Everton and a late goal by Bournemouth saw them draw 1-1 against Nottingham Forest.
Newcastle were reduced to ten men in the opening half-hour at St. James Park after Fabian Schar’s straight red card, following an altercation with Saints forward Ben Brereton Díaz.
In the 45th minute, Newcastle took the lead through Joelinton’s strike. After Alexander Isak pounced upon Alex McCarthy’s weak pass inside the box, the Swedish striker picked out Joelinton before the Brazilian midfielder slotted a low effort into the left-hand corner.
After playing with over ten men for over an hour, though, the Magpies held firm to record an impressive clean sheet along with maximum points.
New manager Fabian Hurzeler enjoyed a fabulous start to life as Brighton & Hove Albion’s head coach as the seagulls cruised past Everton at Goodison Park. Albion grew into the game and Kaoru Mitoma finished off a counter-attack to open the scoring midway through the first half.
Danny Welbeck and substitute Simon Adingra produced superb finishes in the second half and Everton finished with ten men after Ashley Young was shown a straight red for bringing down the mercurial Mitoma, making him the oldest player in league history to get a red card.
Albion doubled their lead on the 56th-minute mark when Mats Wieffer, who had an impressive debut, won the ball again in midfield and released Welbeck. He had options left and right but broke forward unchallenged before placing his shot into the bottom left-hand corner from the edge of the area. Adingra then curled a great left-foot shot past Pickford from inside the box with four minutes to go to seal the victory.
Antoine Semenyo’s late equaliser earned AFC Bournemouth an opening day point in a 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest. Chris. Wood opened the scoring for the hosts when he tucked home a rebound from close range after Ryan Yates’s initial shot was parried by Neto.
With just four minutes to go, a ball in from the left-hand side wasn’t cleared, when Harry Toffolo’s clearance hit Murillo before falling kindly to Semenyo from close range. He showed composure to rifle the ball into the net under pressure to steal a point for the Cherries.