League leaders AEL put behind the recent Orlando Sa saga and kept their title challenge well and truly on course yesterday with a convincing 2-0 over Anorthosis Famagusta yesterday.
Ivaylo Petev’s side, who recently lost their Portuguese striker Sa to Polish champions Legia Warsaw, remained four points ahead of APOEL, who had reduced the gap to just one point on Saturday after a 3-1 win away to Alki.
Third place Apollon Limassol got back to winning ways – after losing all of their last three games – with an easy 3-0 victory at home to Enosis Neon Paralimni while fourth place Ermis Aradippou needed a controversial penalty to oust AEK Larnaca 2-1 at the Ammochostos Stadium.
Financially-hit Anorthosis, who are in danger of missing out on European football next season altogether, were forced to play their home game against AEL at the neutral GSZ Stadium – following a tribunal ruling – and were dealt another defeat in what was coach Nicos Kostenoglou’s debut in the dugout.
His side looked an improved outfit to the one that was humiliated 4-0 by Enosis last weekend but it wasn’t enough to spare from their seventh league defeat of the season.
Andrija Kaludjerovic had given the visitors a 17th minute lead and although Anorthosis squandered several opportunities to equalise through Roberto Collauti, Dutch forward Fouad Idabdelhay made sure of the three points with a header 13 minutes from the end.
Petev expressed his delight after the final whistle and will now look to follow up that success by beating bitter rivals Apollon in the big game next weekend.
“This was an excellent game”, commented the Bulgarian boss. “The game was scrappy but the important thing was to win. The game was even balanced with both teams missing chances although the points were ours once we scored the second goal.”
Apollon made light work of relegation battlers Enosis as two goals from Argentinean striker Gaston Sangoy as well as an early strike from Fotis Papoulis gave Christakis Christoforou’s side the much needed three points ahead of their big derby game against AEL.
Apollon had previously suffered three successive defeats to Ethnikos (0-1), APOEL (1-2) and Omonia (1-2) in the first of their Cyprus Coca-Cola Cup quarterfinal.
Nicos Panagiotou’s Ermis continued their impressive run in the league title race although the game will be mostly remembered for a series of comical errors by Demetris Chrysostomou and his assistants.
Television replays had shown that Serginho Greene’s first goal for AEK shouldn’t have counted as he was offside when the ball was played to him while Ermis’ Yiannis Okkas appeared to foul an opponent before playing in Marco Tagbajumi for the hosts’ equaliser. The referee again took centre stage when he awarded Ermis a controversial penalty moments later with replays this time showing that the ball had hit the defender’s head and not his arm.
Omonia defeated AEK Kouklion with relative ease despite the narrow scoreline. Skembri and Roubinio scored for Omonia with Veslem scoring for the visitors with nine minutes to go. This win allows Omonia to stay in touch with the leading quartet.
Aris Limassol stayed perilously close to the automatic relegation zone as they went down to Vatti’s’ strike against Nea Salamina. The scorer seems to be something of a good luck charm for his team as they have won all four games this season that Vattis has scored.
Doxa Katokopias and Ethnikos Achnas shared the spoils in a one all draw in a game that Ethnikos needed to win much more than their opponents. Nevertheless Ethnikos are on a three-game unbeaten run and seem to have achieved some level of consistency since the arrival of their new coach Apostolos Makrides