Premier League Saturday Round Up: Chelsea Back, Leicester Beat Everton As United Suffers Another Loss

Chelsea are back on fire after Jose's Sack, Leicester downs Everton at Goodson park as the leaders are fast becoming favourites. United were shocked by Norwich as Van Gaal's exit could be near.

Chelsea blew away the cobwebs of the last five months of Jose Mourinho’s reign with a convincing 3-1 demolition of Sunderland.

Branislav Ivanovic, who received a less than favourable reception from the crowd for his performances under Mourinho, took only five minutes to rediscover his form from last season as he headed in powerfully from a corner.


Pedro stroked home to double the lead after 12 minutes following Ivanovic’s low cross, as the Blues looked unrecognisable from the team that has inhabited the Stamford Bridge turf this season.

It was more of the same two minutes after the break when Willian was brought down in the penalty area before Oscar coolly stroked home the resulting penalty.

Fabio Borini did manage to expose some poor Chelsea set-piece defending when he netted against his old club, following in Younes Kaboul’s header to pull one back but that was the only sign of weakness the Blues showed all day.

The pressure mounted on Louis van Gaal as Norwich grabbed all three points with a 2-1 victory at Old Trafford.

Wayne Rooney saw his early goal correctly ruled out for offside after Marouane Fellaini strayed too far forward.

Despite averaging only 30 per cent possession, Cameron Jerome opened the scoring with a great breakaway goal.

Alex Tetty doubled the lead after the break with another goal against the run of play as he took advantage of more slack United defending to wrong-foot David De Gea with an 18-yard toe-poke.

Anthony Martial pulled one back with a scrappy close-range effort but it was not good enough from a very poor Manchester United side who have now lost three on the bounce and not won in six games.

Riyad Mahrez scored a brace of penalties as Leicester beat Everton 3-2 to be top of the tree at Christmas.

Mahrez opened the scoring from the spot just before the hour mark after Ramiro Funes Mori clumsily bundled over Shinji Okazaki to concede the penalty.

However, the lead barely lasted three minutes as Romelu Lukaku scored from close range after Ross Barkley’s initial efforts were blocked, meaning the Belgian has now scored in seven consecutive games.

Mahrez restored the lead for the league leaders with another penalty after Jamie Vardy was brought down by Tim Howard, before the Englishman laid on for Okazaki for the third to keep the Foxes top at Christmas.

Kevin Mirallas pulled one back for the hosts late on, but it was not enough for the Toffees.

Tottenham beat Southampton 2-0 on the south coast to move into the Champions League places.

Harry Kane rediscovered his goalscoring touch with a fine solo goal as he took the ball past three players before slotting it past Paulo Gazzaniga in a match that the hosts were previously dominating.

And two minutes later Spurs had doubled their lead when Dele Alli tapped in from Kyle Walker’s cross, despite protestations that Kane was in an offside position.

Chung-Yong Lee scored late on to give Crystal Palace the win as they beat Stoke 2-1 at the Britannia.

Crystal Palace broke the deadlock on the stroke of half time when Connor Wickham scored from the penalty spot after Wilfried Zaha was brought down by Glenn Whelan.

Stoke pushed for an equaliser in the second half and were rewarded with a penalty of their own with 13 minutes remaining as Bojan scored after Damian Delaney’s handball.

Lee retook the lead for Alan Pardew’s side with a stunning right-footed strike for the edge of the box to give the visitors an early Christmas present of three points.

Bournemouth continued their march away from the bottom of the relegation zone with a 2-1 win away to nine-man West Brom.

James McClean had a moment of complete madness when he was shown a straight red card for connecting with a wild swing at Adam Smith, leaving the referee with no option.

Smith went from victim to goalscorer in the second half when he cut inside and sent a left-footed strike into the bottom corner.

West Brom equalised late on through Gareth McAuley but Charlie Daniels scored a penalty four minutes from time to give Bournemouth their third successive win.

Salomon Rondon was sent off in added time for leaning into Smith with his head to complete a miserable afternoon for the Baggies.

Full Premier League results:

Chelsea 3-1 Sunderland

Everton 2-3 Leicester

Manchester United 1-2 Norwich

Southampton 0-2 Tottenham

Stoke 1-2 Crystal Palace

West Brom 1-2 Bournemouth