Brighton suffered only their third Premier League defeat of the season as two goals from Alex Iwobi, along with an own goal from the unfortunate Matt O’Riley, helped Fulham to victory at a wet and windy Craven Cottage.
The game was played in horrendous conditions of heavy rain and strong winds, but there were no excuses for Bart Verbruggen’s early mistake to gift the hosts the lead.
After only three minutes, Brighton’s Dutch keeper, looking to play a short pass to team-mate Carlos Baleba inside the penalty area, saw Alex Iwobi intercept and slide the ball into an unguarded net for his fourth league goal of the season.
Fulham had a chance to quickly double their lead when Iwobi looked to be through on goal, only for Igor Julio to come across and cover well.
Brighton grabbed a deserved equaliser 11 minutes into the second half.
Jan Paul van Hecke played a lofted pass and Joao Pedro, nominated for November’s Premier League Player of the Month award, produced a clever touch to set up Baleba to fire low past Bernd Leno from 20 yards out.
It was a lovely goal, followed by a special celebration as Baleba showed his gymnastics skills with an acrobatic somersault, although this was not the springboard for Brighton to get what would have been their seventh win of the season.
Fulham retook the lead in fortunate circumstances as Andreas Pereira’s 79th-minute corner from the left struck O’Riley and bounced into his own net.
Iwobi then sealed victory with a powerful 87th-minute strike for his second goal of the match to ensure Fulham claimed the three points and moved up to sixth spot – a point behind their fifth-placed visitors.
Chelsea staged a remarkable comeback to beat Tottenham Hotspur 4-3 and move four points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool but Arsenal dropped points in the title race on Sunday.
Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea side were 2-0 down after 11 minutes at their London rivals but hit back in thrilling style with the instrumental Cole Palmer scoring twice from the penalty spot.
Chelsea’s fourth successive Premier League win lifted them to second place with 31 points from 15 games.
Liverpool, whose derby at Everton on Saturday was postponed because of high winds, have 35 points from 14 games.
Arsenal have 29 points from 15 games as they were left frustrated by a late Bukayo Saka goal being disallowed in their 1-1 draw earlier in the day at Fulham.
Bournemouth staged a 2-1 comeback win to deny Ipswich Town their first home victory and Leicester City also came from two goals down to draw 2-2 with Brighton & Hove Albion.
Maresca has talked down Chelsea’s title chances but his free-scoring side are now part of the conversation having banged in a league-leading 35 goals so far this season.
“2-0 down, it was the worst picture for us. We conceded two goals from (Marc) Cucurella and a couple more chances from the wrong build-up,” Maresca said. “Second half, we deserve to win.”
Spaniard Cucurella made an almost comical start to the derby, losing his footing twice under no real pressure and twice being punished with Dominic Solanke and Dejan Kulusevski both scoring to give the hosts a dream start.
But once Jadon Sancho rifled in a shot after 17 minutes to reduce the deficit a wide-open game began to swing Chelsea’s way. Palmer equalised from the spot on the hour and was heavily involved again as Enzo Fernandez volleyed Chelsea in front after 73 minutes from the edge of the area.
Palmer put the icing on the cake with a cheeky ‘Panenka’ penalty after he had been brought down in the area. Son Heung-min’s stoppage-time goal was only a consolation for Tottenham who are down in 11th place in the table.
“It is a sore one, a painful one,” Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou said. “We had moments to get our third and at halftime we were in a decent position. The second half is a ding dong, especially at the start.”
With Liverpool falling foul of the elements and fourth-placed Manchester City only drawing on Saturday, Arsenal had the opportunity to make up ground but were stunned when Raul Jimenez gave Fulham an 11th-minute lead at Craven Cottage.
William Saliba equalised from close range shortly after the interval and Arsenal thought they had won it in the 88th minute when Saka headed in, but the goal was ruled out by VAR.
“We dominated most of the game… It’s frustrating not to win,” Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard told Sky Sports. “We have to focus on ourselves. We don’t care about the other teams (in the title race). It’s a very long way to go. We’ve said hundreds of times we have to keep going game by game.”
Fulham, who also thwarted the Gunners both home and away last season, have lost just one of their last seven league games and are in 10th place.
Bournemouth climbed to eighth in the table after goals from substitutes Enes Unal and Dango Ouattara propelled them to victory over Ipswich, who are four points adrift of the safety zone in 18th place.
Ipswich took the lead in the 21st minute when Conor Chaplin side-footed home and seemed set for three morale-boosting points until Unal headed home in the 87th minute. Ouattara then grabbed the winner in the fifth minute of stoppage time.
“You start to think it’s not your day but luckily we took them in the end,” Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola told the BBC. “The subs gave us the end product that we were missing. We were arriving in the right places but just not finishing.”
Late goals by captain Jamie Vardy and Bobby De Cordova-Reid salvaged Leicester City’s draw with Brighton at the King Power Stadium. Tariq Lamptey gave the visitors the lead in the 37th minute with a spectacular left-footed strike before Yankuba Minteh doubled Brighton’s advantage in the 79th.
Vardy pulled one back seven minutes later before De Cordova-Reid levelled in added time.
Brighton are seventh in the table and promoted Leicester are five points above the drop zone in 16th.
Manchester City’s Rico Lewis bagged a second-half goal and then was shown a red card in the dying minutes as his team salvaged a point in a 2-2 Premier League draw with Crystal Palace at a wet and windy Selhurst Park on Saturday.
Erling Haaland also scored for Pep Guardiola’s City, who remained fourth in the league table on 27 points after 15 games, while Palace are 16th.
Daniel Munoz got Palace on the scoresheet in the fourth minute when he latched onto a pass from Will Hughes and slotted it into the far corner past Stefan Ortega. City equalised in the 30th when Haaland leapt to head home Matheus Nunes’s long cross.
Maxence Lacroix put Palace ahead against the run of play in the 56th minute when he leapt, completely unmarked, to head in
Hughes’ corner in the 56th minute. But City drew even again in the 68th when Bernardo Silva threaded a beautiful through ball to Lewis, who emphatically fired home.
City were reduced to 10 men in the 84th minute after Lewis picked up his second yellow for a tackle on Trevoh Chalobah.
Brentford continued their unbeaten run at home in the Premier League with a 4-2 win against Newcastle United that had the visitors twice come back from a goal down before defender Nathan Collins scored to help his side claim all three points.
The home side twice took the lead in the first half through Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa, but both times they were pegged back within four minutes by Newcastle, with Alexander Isak getting the first equaliser and Harvey Barnes the second.
n a thrilling end-to-end encounter played in windy and wet conditions, Brentford took the lead for the third time in the 56th minute when Collins latched on to a long free kick and slotted the ball past Nick Pope for their third lead of the game.
Newcastle continued to throw bodies forward in attack but instead it was Brentford substitute Kevin Schade who scored to make it 4-2 and cement a win that moves his side up to sixth in the standings on 23 points, three ahead of the Magpies in 12th.
first-half strike by Colombian forward Jhon Duran was enough to give Aston Villa all the three points as they beat Southampton 1-0 in the Premier League at home on Saturday.
Duran opened the scoring in the 24th minute, chasing down a long ball, capitalising on some sloppy defending by Southampton defenders Nathan Wood and Taylor Harwood-Bellis, before charging into the box and powering a finish past goalkeeper Joe Lumley.
While the visitors dominated possession, they failed to register a single shot on target in the match, and Villa looked comfortable for the most part as they secured back-to-back victories.
Villa moved to fifth place in the standings with 25 points from 15 matches, while Southampton remain bottom with five points.
West Ham edged to a narrow Premier League victory over struggling Wolves to ease the pressure on under-fire head coach Julen Lopetegui.
However, the result is only likely to increase the scrutiny over Gary O’Neil’s position as Wolves manager, with his side remaining 19th in the table after three consecutive defeats.
Tomas Soucek’s second-half header from Jarrod Bowen’s corner had set the hosts on their way.
Matt Doherty had superbly levelled from Rayan Ait-Nouri’s cross for the visitors, before Bowen scored West Ham’s decisive second goal with a placed effort during a frenetic spell in the second-half.
In between, Hammers winger Mohammed Kudus correctly had a goal ruled out for offside following a video assistant referee (VAR) review, while Wolves appeared to have genuine complaints when Emerson’s shove on Goncalo Guedes did not result in a penalty in their favour after a similar review.
O’Neil’s side were further enraged by the manner of Bowen’s winning goal with home defender Konstantinos Mavropanos seemingly fouling Wolves’ Uruguayan centre-back Santiago Bueno in the build-up.
The result leaves West Ham 14th in the table, nine points clear of the bottom three.