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Thursday 15 December 2016

MIDWEEK SPORTS ROUNDUP: December 15


Football

Chelsea beat bottom placed club Sunderland 1-0 to record their tenth straight Premier League victory. The Stamford Bridge club are now sitting pretty, six points clear of both Arsenal and Liverpool.

Liverpool beat Middlesbrough 3-0 in the midweek league programme, with two goals from Adam Lallana, but Arsenal suffered their first league defeat since the opening day of the season when they lost 2-1 to Everton.

Manchester City stay fourth, seven points off the pace, after seeing off Watford 2-0.

Fifth placed Tottenham beat struggling Hull 3-0 - Christian Eriksen netting twice - and a late winner from Zlatan Ibrahimovic gave sixth placed Manchester United a 2-1 win over Crystal Palace.

Seventh placed West Brom continued their good recent run with a 3-1 win over Swansea. Salomon Rondon scored a second half hat-trick in the space of 13 minutes.

Leicester and Burnley both failed to halt their appalling run in away matches. The two sides lost 1-0 to Bournemouth and West Ham respectively. Their result lifts West Ham to 15th place.

The bottom five clubs are now Crystal Palace (16th), Middlesbrough (17th), Swansea (18th), Hull (19th) and Sunderland (20th). All five teams tasted defeat in the latest round of matches.

Stoke and Southampton fought out a goalless draw.

Good news for Manchester City and Chelsea is that they will not face a points deduction after the mass brawl near the end of their recent Premier League clash. The two clubs have only been fined.

Brazilian midfielder Oscar has opted to leave Chelsea, and will complete a £60 million move to Chinese side Shanghai in the January transfer window.

City will be without Ilkay Gundogan for several months after he suffered a serious knee injury.

Newcastle won 2-0 at Wigan to stay top of the Championship. Brighton remain one point behind after beating Blackburn 3-2, but third placed Reading are now a further eight points off the pace, having lost 2-0 to Leeds this week.

Gianfranco Zola is back in English football. The Italian has been appointed as manager of Championship side Birmingham City, who sacked Gary Rowett this week. Birmingham are currently eighth in the table.

Stourbridge, from the seventh tier of English football, booked their place in the third round of the FA Cup with a 1-0 win over League One high flyers Northampton in a delayed second round match. The Midlands club will play Wycombe in the third round.




Rugby Union

England captain Dylan Hartley has been banned for six weeks after his red card for striking an opponent during Northampton’s European clash with Leinster. This means he will be available for the full Six Nations campaign.


Cricket

Stuart Broad is hopeful of being fit for the fifth Test between England and India, which starts in Chennai on Friday. However, fellow pace bowler James Anderson has been ruled out, apparently because of more issues with his shoulder injury that kept him out of the early part of the series. India have already won the series, after winning the fourth Test to take an unassailable 3-0 lead.





Tipster Street.


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