Premier League match reports:
After a dull start, that turned into an entertaining afternoon: four games, 13 goals and one twist that not even Jed Mercurio saw coming. Sunderland’s win at Hull means Swansea will jump out of the bottom three if they beat Everton in the evening match. You can join Scott Murray for that. Thanks for your company; night!
Full time: Bournemouth 2-2 Stoke City
An entertaining match ends 2-2 and confirms that both teams will play each other in the Premier League next season.
Full times: Hull 0-2 Sunderland; Burnley 2-2 West Brom
A surprise win for Sunderland leaves Hull in big trouble, while Burnley have reached the magical 40-point mark. They are not mathematically safe but it would take some series of results for them to go down.
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Full time: Leicester 3-0 Watford
Leicester move up to ninth in the table after a thumping win over a Watford side who put the pathetic in apathetic.
GOAL! Leicester 3-0 Watford (Albrighton 90)
Marc Albrighton completes an easy win for the champions.
GOAL! Hull 0-2 Sunderland (Defoe 90)
It’s over. Jermain Defoe has scored to give Sunderland a two-goal lead, even though he was clearly in an offside position, and Marco Silva’s unbeaten run is over.
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Hull 0-1 Sunderland Hull don’t look like scoring. This is a monumental bonus for Swansea, who play Everton this evening.
Hull 0-1 Sunderland One minute plus added time remaining at Hull.
GOAL! Burnley 2-2 West Brom (Vokes 86)
Sam Vokes gets his second, heading past the stranded Ben Foster, and Burnley are level.
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GOAL! Bournemouth 2-2 Stoke (Shawcross own goal 81)
A controversial equaliser for Bournemouth. Stoke thought King was offside when he deflected the ball onto Shawcross and into the net; the assistant referee disagreed.
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Ten minutes to go and Sunderland still lead at Hull. It would be the most shocking coupon-buster since a fat Cockney spilled Begbie’s pint.
GOAL! Burnley 1-2 West Brom (Dawson 78)
It’s dribbling goals in the Premier League! Craig Dawson heads in from a Chris Brunt corner to give West Brom the lead, and ensure Burnley aren’t safe just yet.
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Hull 0-1 Sunderland Jordan Pickford makes another magnificent save, this time to deny Hernandez from close range. He is so good.
GOAL! Celtic 4-1 St Johnstone (McGregor 71)
Brendan Rodgers will make a great England manager one day.
GOAL! Bournemouth 1-2 Stoke (Diouf 73)
Mame Biram Diouf scores from close range after some sloppy Bournemouth defending. That’s his first goal in 27 games. Stoke deserve to be ahead.
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It is happening again Sunderland were the team who ended Jose Mourinho’s long unbeaten home record as well.
“How can you miss the Raith Rovers v Ayr United game in the Scottish Championship?” sniffs Stewart Rennie. “A 10-man Rovers squad is clinging to a 1-0 lead and the hopes of avoiding the relegation playoffs if Hibs can put another past the surging Buddies (currently 1-1). Come on the Rovers (from Texas)!”
I was all over it until my moody feed went down.
GOAL! Hull 0-1 Sunderland (Jones 69)
Oh my word. Sunderland lead at the KCOM Stadium through a diving header from Billy Jones. Hull are suddenly in all sorts of trouble, and Marco Silva may be facing his first home defeat in a league match since March 2014!
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GOAL! Burnley 1-1 West Brom (Rondon 66)
Salomon Rondon scores his first goal since the days of Betamax video and Kajagoogoo haircuts, rattling in an equaliser at Turf Moor. That’s West Brom’s first goal since they beat Arsenal in March.
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GOAL! Celtic 3-1 St Johnstone (Roberts 62)
Patrick Roberts’ second goal should secure another win for Celtic.
GOAL! Bournemouth 1-1 Stoke (Stanislas 62)
Bournemouth have been below par but they are level through Junior Stanislas.
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As things stand there are only four points between West Brom in eighth and Watford in 15th. There are a few ways to interpret that statistic.
Hull 0-0 Sunderland Hull are getting closer. A cross deflects to Hernandez, who is denied by a brilliant tackle from elegant octogenarian John O’Shea.
As things stand, Leicester are ninth in the table. Funny how things work out. (It’s effing hilarious.)
GOAL! Leicester 2-0 Watford (Mahrez 58)
Riyad Mahrez (remember him?) doubles Leicester’s lead with a smart finish from a tight angle. Meanwhile, at Hull, Jordan Pickford has made another tremendous save.
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GOAL! Burnley 1-0 West Brom (Vokes 56)
That’s a big goal for Burnley, who are surely safe now. Ashley Barnes ignores a challenge from Jake Livermore, springs to his feet and crosses for Sam Vokes to score from close range.
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GOAL! Celtic 2-1 St Johnstone (Boyata 52)
Celtic are back in front. Yep.
Brexit means Brexit I forgot to update you on the action in Europe, but nothing of note is happening: Bayern and Dortmund are winning, while Atletico are drawing 0-0 with Eibar.
GOAL! Celtic 1-1 St Johnstone (MacLean 49)
St Johnstone equalise almost immediately at Celtic Park!
Hull 0-0 Sunderland Another great chance, this time for Hull. Pickford palms the ball to N’Diaye, who shoots wide from close-range.
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GOAL! Celtic 1-0 St Johnstone (Roberts 47)
Celtic move closer to 100 points, and an unbeaten season in the league.
Hull 0-0 Sunderland Jermain Defoe has missed a fantastic chance to give Sunderland the lead, shooting too close to the keeper Jakupovic. What looked a home banker for Hull is turning into a bit of a nightmare.
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Burnley 0-0 West Brom A great chance for the home side at the start of the second half, with James Tarkowski heading over the bar from close range.
“For anyone who’s wondering, Buckie Thistle just pulled one back against East Kilbride, who are now 2-1 up at home, the first leg having finished 2-2,” says Mike Cormack. “C’mon the Jags!”
If Hull draw against Sunderland they will be three points ahead of Swansea, but with two tricky games - Palace away, Spurs at home - remaining. Swansea have Everton (H), Sunderland (A) and West Brom (H) to play. Not even Jed Mercurio knows which team will be relegated.
“Hey Rob,” says JR in Illinois. “Who would you say has wasted the most time in the history of the Premier League? I think the answer is a no-doubter. It’s got to be Ben Foster. He is currently displaying his wares at Burnley (yes, he is time-wasting against Burnley) where he has just taken 31 seconds to take a goal kick. Other than Foster the Burnley-West Brom game is exactly as exciting as expected.”
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The half-time scores, aka Living Down to Expectations
Bournemouth 0-1 Stoke (Mousset own goal)
Burnley 0-0 West Brom
Hull 0-0 Sunderland
Leicester 1-0 Watford (Ndidi)
“My brother in law is a Cowdenbeath fan and tells a great story about the time Eddie the Eagle visited Central Park as part of a radio series on ‘Great Sporting Losers’,” says Simon McMahon. “At the time Cowdenbeath had gone about 18 months without a home win, after securing a promotion but then having gone the entire season without winning a home match, followed inevitably by relegation, after which it took them until about February to register their first home win. On the very day Eddie the Eagle turned up, of course.”
“Love that phrase, ‘a robust challenge’ (as used by the AFC Bournemouth Twitter feed),” says Kevin Ryan. “ It usually means ‘he booted him up in the air and then trampled on him’. It’s a bit like the Chief Executive address to the aggrieved shareholders at the Company’s AGM after a particularly awful year. ‘It has been a challenging year.....’ (that is we closed three factories, made several hundred workers redundant, found a bleeding great hole in the pension fund and are now virtually bust...)”
Bournemouth 0-1 Stoke Josh King misses a decent volleyed chance for Bournemouth.
Hull 0-0 Sunderland After a slow start, Hull are starting to threaten against Sunderland. They really need to win this game. Some might even go so far as to say they MUST win it.
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GOAL! Leicester 1-0 Watford (Ndidi 38)
Wilfred Ndidi has an enormous sweet spot on his right foot, and he has used it to blast Leicester ahead after Watford failed to clear a corner.
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Thanks for sending in links to the Harry Arter tackle. Oof. That’s a red card in 1982, never mind 2017.
“Regarding your discussion with Naylor, doesn’t the successful Trundle+10 XI at Llanelli absolutely prove this?” says Elliot Carr-Barnsley. “I’d say a maverick is worth even more of he’s come out of retirement, apart from that time Gazza did it.”
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Leicester 0-0 Watford: Kasper Schmeichel has made a good save from Tom Cleverley to keep the score at 0-0.
GOAL! Bournemouth 0-1 Stoke (Mousset own goal 33)
Stoke have scored their first away goal since January, an own goal from the Lys Mousset. He challenged Geoff Cameron for a corner and unwittingly headed past Artur Boruc. That’s pretty cruel luck for Mousset, who is making his full debut.
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“Watching the Hull/Sunderland game (via completely legal means), I’m once again struck by just how good Harry Maguire is,” says Oli Atkinson. “He looks like an old-fashioned English clogger of a centre-back but actually has remarkably good technique. Best English defender in the league? Discuss.”
He’s been terrific in the games I’ve seen. I can’t remember an English centre-back who was as eye-catching in possession. Not seen enough to know how good a defender he is, but he can’t be far from the England squad.
This is where Twitter really comes into its own.
26: Arter picks up the first booking of the day for a robust challenge on Allen in our half.#BOUSTK
— AFC Bournemouth 🍒 (@afcbournemouth) May 6, 2017
“Afternoon Rob,” says Matt Emerson. “Sad to see the decline of Cowdenbeath. My football club put on a penalty shoot out as half-time ‘entertainment’ for the few hundred faithful about twenty years ago. We paid fifty quid if I recall and we got pies laid on. Always had a soft spot for them ever since...”
Football will never recapture the magic of the Ginsters years.
Bournemouth 0-0 Stoke: Harry Arter is extremely lucky to receive only a yellow card for a shocking tackle on Joe Allen. I haven’t seen it but Paul Merson has, and his reaction was somewhere between appalled and horrified.
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“What do you think of the eight teams playing just now Rob?” says Gary Naylor. “Save the obvious exception of Sunderland, they’re organised, athletic and committed - in a word, competent. But they’re not all that good at football - not by the historic standards on top-flight English football anyway. This “competent, but not much more” is a problem that stretches all the way up to Everton and, when going up a level, into PL sides in the Champions League and national teams too. Not that I know a solution - except, maybe, less PASSION!!!!!! and more coaching from top to bottom.”
Yes, that’s a very good point, though isn’t a problem in all football, from England to Brazil? The Premier League should introduce a quota system whereby every starting XI has to include at least one fat maverick.
Watford’s Adrian Mariappa is denied by the woodwork at the King Power Stadium, although he’s probably quite happy about that: it was the woodwork of his own team’s goal.
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A good chance for Hull, with Sam Clucas denied by Sunderland’s Jordan Pickford. He is a tremendous young goalkeeper, isn’t he.
“Afternoon Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “The battle for play-off positions dominates the Scottish card today. Dundee United can finish second in the Scottish Championship with a win at Morton, but only if Falkirk don’t beat Dumbarton. But I’m bored of that already (there’s no way United are coming up, even if we make the play-off final, which we won’t), it’s really all about Cowdenbeath who, after being in the second tier only two seasons ago, have suffered consecutive relegations and now need a dramatic last-day escape to guarantee their league status. They must win at Elgin, and hope that Clyde or Berwick get beat. The team that finishes bottom will then face a play off against either East Kilbride or Buckie Thistle. It’s what clockwatch is all about, right? Come on the Blue Brazil.”
Fifteen minutes gone, no goals in the four Premier League games. Even Celtic haven’t scored. Our old friend ‘Saturday 3pm’ hasn’t had a good couple of weeks.
Stoke might have taken the lead at Bournemouth, had Marko Arnautovic not just shot tamely at Artur Boruc.
No goals so far, but Sunderland have started extremely well away to Hull. Leicester’s early dominance of Watford is less surprising.
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10 - Stoke City have now gone 10 hours without an away league goal, since Peter Crouch scored at Sunderland in January. Malfunction. pic.twitter.com/09osHGSwyV
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) May 6, 2017
Sunderland have missed a great chance to take the lead at Hull, with George Honeyman heading wide from close range.
Funny old game department If you compiled a Premier League form table for 2017, Crystal Palace, Hull and Swansea - the teams battling to avoid the last relegation spot - would all be between ninth and 11th. One of those teams will feel pretty aggrieved come the final day of the season.
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It’s spandex-tight in the lower-middle of the Premier League, with the chance for some smaller and/or newly promoted teams to finish in the top half. Burnley, for example, are in 15th place but could be ninth by 5pm.
An email! “Goochwatch: USA’s Lynden Gooch only gets a place on the subs bench for Sunderland, despite, by his account, pulling off a rather tasty rabona in his back garden yesterday,” says Woolie Madden. “One feels Mr Gooch now stands at a crossroads of his career as a Yank abroad: he could slip down the path of obscurity and wasted talent, like Freddy Adu; or, with hard work and a bit of luck, he could become the next, uh, Geoff Cameron.”
Some pre-match reading
Just in case you missed Rob Smyth's piece from Wednesday's @guardian: https://t.co/KG2qUAWhlF #Kaiser #CarlosKaiser #171
— Carlos Kaiser (@kaiserfilm) April 28, 2017
Crystal Palace have been plugged 5-0 at the Etihad, which will leave them in a bit of trouble should Swansea and Hull win today. City will surely finish in the top four now. Here’s the current Premier League table.
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Bournemouth v Stoke team news
Bournemouth (4-2-3-1) Boruc; Smith, Francis, Cook, Daniels; Cook, Arter; Stanislas, Mousset, Pugh; King.
Stoke (4-2-3-1) Butland; Johnson, Shawcross, Martins Indi, Muniesa; Cameron, Whelan; Shaqiri, Allen, Arnautovic; Diouf.
Burnley v West Brom team news
Burnley (4-4-2) Heaton; Lowton, Long, Tarkowski, Ward; Boyd, Westwood, Hendrick, Arfield; Vokes, Barnes.
West Brom (4-3-3) Foster; Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Wilson; Field, Fletcher, Livermore; McClean, Rondon, Brunt.
Leicester v Watford team news
Leicester (4-4-2) Schmeichel; Simpson, Benalouane, Huth, Fuchs; Mahrez, Ndidi, Drinkwater, Albrighton; Okazaki, Vardy.
Watford (3-5-2) Gomes; Prodl, Mariappa, Kabasele; Amrabat, Cleverley, Doucoure, Capoue, Janmaat; Okaka, Niang.
Hull v Sunderland team news
Hull (4-4-2) Jakupovic; Elmohamady, Ranocchia, Maguire, Robertson; Markovic, N’Diaye, Clucas, Grosicki; Hernandez, Niasse.
Sunderland (4-3-3) Pickford; Jones, Kone, O’Shea, Manquillo; Ndong, Denayer, Honeyman; Borini, Defoe, Anichebe.
Today’s 3pm Premier League fixtures
- AFC Bournemouth v Stoke
- Burnley v West Brom
- Hull v Sunderland
- Leicester v Watford
Preamble
Hello one and all. On 30 March 2014, Rio Ave won 1-0 away to Estoril in Portugal’s Primera Liga. The goal was scored by the Egyptian striker Ahmed Hassan Mahgoub, also known as Kouka, or Koka, though his mother probably calls him Ahmed. It was a tremendous goal, belted low into the corner from 20 yards after a smooth passing move. You might wonder what’s the point of all this, and we’ll get to that as soon as we’ve dragged this paragraph out long enough to cause you mild irritation and make you question whether you are really living life to the max right now.
Where were we? Oh yeah, 30 March 2014. That was the last time Marco Silva lost a home league game as manager – a run that encompasses 41 matches and four different clubs. Since he moved to Hull they have been almost invincible at the KCOM Stadium, with six wins and a draw from seven games. If they win today at home to Sunderland - and they bloody well should - they will put all kinds of pressure on Swansea before their 5.30 kick-off at home to Everton. As it stands Hull are two points ahead of Swansea with three games to play.
Poor old Sunderland. Even relegation can’t save them from a relegation battle. Their next two games are against Hull and Swansea, the teams most likely to finish third from bottom, so Sunderland may unwittingly decide which of those clubs they play in the Championship next season.
Hull v Sunderland is the biggest of four Premier League fixtures that kick off at 3pm, though Bournemouth, Stoke, Burnley, Leicester and Watford all have the opportunity to mathematically ensure survival. Those clubs look safe even now, but then so did Crystal Palace in the first Premier League season. It ain’t over till the horizontally gifted lady sings.
The team most at risk of a Crystal Palace-style shock relegation are, erm, Crystal Palace. They are four points clear of Hull and six of Swansea, but their run-in is fraught with peril (they play Hull at home next week) and, as I type, they are losing away to Manchester City. You can follow that match with the creator and master of liveblogging, Scott Murray.
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