LONDON: Champions Manchester City lost more ground on Premier League leaders Liverpool as they suffered a shock 2-0 defeat at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday.

Adama Traore struck both goals late in the match to leave City still second, but eight points behind Liverpool going into the international break.

Arsenal are a point behind City in third after a 1-0 win over Bournemouth while Chelsea won 4-1 at Southampton to move up to fifth, a further point back.

“We were not at our best and when you concede a fast counter-attack, we had chances to score but it was a bad day and lost the game,” City manager Pep Guardiola said.

David Silva hit the woodwork but City, who were without Kevin De Bruyne, were second best for much of the game and Traore made them pay with two superb finishes to lift Wolves to 11th.

The first came in the 80th minute and the second followed in the fourth minute of injury time to inflict only a fourth league defeat at home under Guardiola.

“We did not make good process, we had problems in that sense,” Guardiola said. “We are a team that plays a specific way but it is a bad day, that happens sometimes.

“When you win games, you think about the other one. Now we have the international break, then can come back and go to the other games.”

Wolves captain Conor Coady described it as “an outstanding day, an amazing week”.

“We came here with belief after Thursday [winning in the Europa League] but this tops the lot with how good Manchester City are, we deserved the win,” he said. “Defensively we were compact and organised and today we were fantastic.”

David Luiz scored the only goal after nine minutes as Arsenal moved up to third thanks to hard-fought win over Bournemouth.

Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe said his side were too passive in the first half but were unlucky not to pinch a draw.

“We dominated possession [in the second half] and deserved a point, we did well enough and had good enough chances,” he said. “It didn’t quite happen but I’m pleased with the reaction to the first half.”

Chelsea are on their heels in fifth after a win at Southampton, with Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount, N’Golo Kante and Michy Batshuayi scoring.

Abraham kicked things off with the opener on 17 minutes and seven minutes later, Mount doubled their lead.

Danny Ings pulled one back for Southampton after half an hour but Kante restored the two-goal lead five minutes before the break.

Batshuayi replaced Abraham in the 84th minute and scored his side’s fourth five minutes later to complete a confident win.

“I didn’t think we started that well, even though doing so had been something we’d talked about before,” Chelsea manager Frank Lampard said.

“The goal came at the right time and after that I felt pretty comfortable. Getting four away from home - we’re scoring - so it’s a nice afternoon.”

Chelsea are level on 14 points with fourth-placed Leicester City and sixth-placed Crystal Palace, who won 2-1 at West Ham United in the late game on Saturday.

West Ham had taken the lead on 54 minutes through Sebastien Haller but Patrick van Aanholt’s cool penalty brought the visitors level before Ayew’s late winner before Jordan Ayew’s close-range winner in the 87th minute survived a lengthy VAR review for offside.

Published in Dawn, October 7th, 2019