Foden rescues Man City with late winner against Leeds as Haaland blanks again

Erling Haaland has finally stopped scoring. Luckily for Manchester City, Phil Foden stepped up with two goals — one very early and the other very late — to rescue a win in the Premier League on Saturday.

A wild 3-2 victory over Leeds was sealed by Foden’s curling shot from the edge of the area in the first minute of stoppage time, allowing City to jump to second place and trim the gap to Arsenal to four points.

The England playmaker earlier scored after just 59 seconds — for what briefly was the fastest goal in the league this season — before Josko Gvardiol added a second for City in the 25th.

Leeds, which is languishing in the relegation zone, replied in the second half through Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Lukas Nmecha — a striker who came through City’s academy — as City showed frailties exposed in defeats over the past week to Newcastle in the league and Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League.

Foden saved City with his late intervention, answering the call of manager Pep Guardiola for others to share the scoring burden that has fallen almost entirely on Haaland this season.

The Norway striker has failed to score in three straight games for City — having netted in 17 of his previous 18 matches for club and country in what was the hottest streak of his career — and remains on 99 goals in the Premier League.

Reaching the 100-goal milestone against Leeds, where he was born in 2000, would have been poignant but the wait goes on.

“He’ll do it next game,” said Guardiola, who had an animated discussion with Haaland on the field after the final whistle.

Leeds manager Daniel Farke accused City of gamesmanship by conducting a team talk with Guardiola while City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma was receiving attention for an injury during the visitor’s dominant period in the second half.

“If you just try to bend the rules to your advantage and you can do a fake injury in order to do an additional team talk, it is nothing I personally like,” Farke said, “but if it is within the rules, I can’t complain about it.”

Arsenal can restore its seven-point cushion over City by winning on Sunday at Chelsea, which has dropped to third.

Earliest goal

Foden was displaced as the scorer of the Premier League’s earliest goal of the season just a couple of hours later.

Newcastle defender Malick Thiaw glanced home a header at a corner after 55 seconds to set his team on its way to a 4-1 win at Everton.

The German center back scored another after the break, adding to goals from Lewis Miley and Nick Woltemade, to make it 4-0. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall scored Everton’s consolation in Newcastle’s first away win of the season.

Tottenham loses again

Tottenham lost for a third time in seven days, this time to Fulham 2-1 after conceding two goals in the opening six minutes of the match.

Fulham’s second goal — by Harry Wilson — was a beauty. After Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario came out of his goal and made a weak clearance, Wilson received the ball out on the touchline and whipped a first-time finish into an empty net before Vicario could get back to stop it.

Mohammed Kudus pulled a goal back for Spurs with a dipping shot into the top corner, but there were jeers by home fans at the final whistle at the end of a week when Tottenham was beaten by fierce rival Arsenal in the league and Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League.

Tottenham has slipped to 10th place.

Sunderland fightback

Sunderland produced an even better fightback than Leeds, also coming from two goals down and going on to beat Bournemouth 3-2 at the Stadium of Light.

Brian Brobbey completed the comeback with the winner in the 69th for Sunderland, while Bournemouth’s second goal was a shot from nearly 50 meters by U.S. midfielder Tyler Adams.

Thiago spree

While Haaland goes through a mini-drought, his nearest challenger in the Premier League scoring chart cannot stop hitting the back of the net.

Igor Thiago converted a penalty and added another goal for Brentford in a 3-1 win at home to Burnley.

The Brazilian striker moved onto nine goals for the campaign, five behind Haaland after 13 games.

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer