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Just a couple of games this Sunday in the English Premier League, not much was expected with all the traditional big guns having played out their matches yesterday owing to the upcoming Champions League matches mid-week. But what a treat it was with the match at Goodison Park producing 8 goals as Everton ran out 6-2 winners over Sunderland. The 10 men of Southampton also came out 2-0 winners over Bournemouth at the St. Marys, though the Saints scored both their goals before Victor Wanyama was sent off.
Everton 6-2 Sunderland
The game was an end to end battle that saw both sides mount full frontal attacks on the other side, the home team slightly more organised than their visitors. Everton drew first blood through Gerard Deulofeu in the 19th minute. The Spaniard would be overshadowed by the person who played the pass for his first and the scorer of his side’s second goal – Arouna Kone.
The Ivorian doubled Everton’s lead only for the 2 goal cushion to be wiped out by Jermain Defoe on the stroke of half time. The English striker has now scored 5 in his last 8 Premier League visits to Goodison Park.
Sunderland looked on the up coming back in the second half too, and only 5 minutes after the restart, Steven Fletcher restored parity for Sam Allardyce’s side. They were only level for 5 minutes more after that as a Coates own goal put the initiative back with Everton.
Romelu Lukaku then found the back of the net another 5 minutes later to double their lead again. Then began the Kone show, as he scored the next 2 goals for the men in blue to seal their win and Kone to become the 5th Ivorian to record a hattrick in the Premier League. This was also the game that triggered the automatic clause in his contract to extend his stay at Merseyside by another year.
Southampton 2-0 Bournemouth
A game of 2 halves this one as the Saints did all the good work in the first half, scoring 2 goals in the space of 6 minutes and going into the break with a 2-0 lead. The second half, though, entirely belonged to Bournemouth. The newly promoted side turned on their attacking flair but were not able to penetrate Southampton’s defence.
Koeman’s men were a determined bunch and created a number of chances early on, the best one falling to Sadio Mane but he wasn’t able to apply the finishing touch. It was up to Steven Davis to give his side the lead in the 31st minute after Ryan Bertrand ran onto Pelle’s pass and found Davis in the box.
Not too long after the first one, the Italian striker himself would get on the scoresheet after scoring from a Dusan Tadic cross. His celebration was an interesting ‘Haka’ with a New Zealand coaching staff member on the Southampton bench.
The second half, though, was another story for the home side, they were utterly dominated by Eddie Howe’s side. But some resolute stuff from their defence kept out the visitors. Wanyama was sent off shortly after the 70 minute mark for accumulating 2 yellow cards. With a little less than 20 minutes to go in the game, the Saints did well to hold their lead and keep the clean sheet.
