Crystal Palace of England fast-rising star, Eberechi Eze marked his rent best player award with another sterling performance for The Eagles, and his efforts helped his side dump Semi Ajayi’s West Bormwich Albion 5-1 on Sunday, megasportsaena.com reports.
Both players were prominent in the headlines, with Eze getting a foot in one of Palace’s goals while Ajayi put up some spirited moves and upfront sorties in his efforts to lift his side back into the game, but it was not good enough to save The Baggies.
Eze was always to be found in the background, as Wilfried Zaha and Christian Benteke marked their respective returns to the starting line-up with double strikes in their side’s hammering of Ajayi’s team, who controversially had Matheus Pereira sent off.
Zaha had been self-isolating after a positive Covid-19 test while an often out-of-favour Benteke was handed his first Premier League start of the season as Roy Hodgson hunted for goals, and Eze turned out to be The Eagles’ s catalyst making waves behind the scene.
A report about the game stated in part: “There was VAR controversy soon after as Pereira was sent off for violent conduct. The officials deemed he had kicked out at Patrick van Aanholt after being sent over by the defender, with Paul Tierney brandishing a red card after consulting the pitchside monitor.
“Furlong was involved again as West Brom nabbed their equaliser on the stroke of the half-hour mark. It began with a superb pass from Semi Ajayi down the right for the wing-back, cutting out Van Aanholt.
“Although Zaha scored the fourth Crystal Palace goal, it should be Eberechi Eze who takes the credit for some superb work in the build-up. He strode towards the area before playing a neat one-two with Benteke.
“Eze then drove through the middle of the two centre-backs, with his cross for Zaha pinging off the foot of Bartley on the way through. It landed kindly for the winger, who side-footed the ball home for his second of the afternoon.”
In Spain, Nigerian-born Holland youth international, Bobby Adekanye, who made his LaLiga debut off the bench against Elche the previous weekend, helped Cadiz pull off a shock 2-1 win against Barcelona at Estadio Ramón de Carranza on Saturday.
After Alvaro Giménez gave the home team an early lead in the eighth minute, setting a difficult precedent for the rest of the match, Barcelona equalised twelve minutes into the second half when Cadiz defender Pedro Alcala put the ball into his own net and the team coached by Ronald Koeman thought they had more than half an hour to find a winner.
Alvaro Negredo profited from a defensive error by goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen to score what eventually proved to be winning goal in the 63rd minute, a minute after he came off the bench, while 21-year-old Adekanye was one of three substitutions made by Cadiz manager in the 80th minute and the La Masia product was lively after coming on.
Adekanye, who had been at Barcelona for three years, from 2011 to 2014, before transferring to PSV, followed by spells at Liverpool of England and SS Lazio of Italy, had a chance to kill the game in the 87th minute, when he was through on goal but his shot narrowly missed target.
In Germany, Chelsea academy product, Jamal Musiala had another sterling outing as a substitute for Bayern Munich, with which the attacking midfielder twinkled in a draw with RB Leipzig, as both sides battled out a six-goal thriller at Allianz Arena on Saturday.
Musiala, who made his first start in the UEFA Champions League in a 1-1 draw with Atlético Madrid of Spain, entered in the 25th minute as a replacement for injured Javi Martinez and the 17-year-old England under-21 international made it 1-1 five minutes after coming off the bench, as he smashed the ball home from outside the box after he was teed up by Kingsley Coman.
Musiala’s strike on the half-hour mark today took his tally to three league goals after less than 150 minutes of action as a substitute and he is only the fourth 17-year-old to reach at least three Bundesliga goals, after Christian Pulisic, Timo Werner and Kai Havertz, who are, incidentally, now all with Chelsea after starring in the German top-flight.
