Son Heung-min stars as Tottenham beat Fulham to return to Premier League summit

25.10.2023 - 10:01 breakingnews.ie

Goals from key duo Son Heung-min and James Maddison sent Tottenham back to the Premier League summit with a professional 2-0 win over Fulham.

Spurs had claimed top spot before the international break, but watched rivals Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool all leapfrog them across the weekend to raise the stakes of Monday’s London derby.

Fulham proved no match for Ange Postecoglou’s resurgent team and after Son grabbed his seventh goal of an impressive season in the 36th minute, he turned provider after half-time with an assist for partner in crime Maddison.

It was the latest example of the pair combining and a further nod to the present with Son’s once-famed partnership with Harry Kane, now of Bayern Munich, fast becoming a distant memory.

Premier League Fulham Tottenham soccer Son Heung-Min Crystal Palace as Ange Postecoglou Yves Bissouma Harry Kane James Maddison Bernd Leno Tottenham Hotspur Micky Van-De-Ven Israel

For the second week running, Maurico Pochettino's Chelsea were involved in a breathless Premier League battle.

Arsenal beat Burnley to draw level with Manchester City at top of Premier League

Oleksandr Zinchenko scored the pick of the goals as 10-man Arsenal secured a comfortable win over Burnley to move level on points with Premier League leaders Manchester City.

Palestinian soccer team prepares for World Cup qualifying games against a backdrop of war

Makram Daboub may be struggling to prepare his Palestinian team for the start of 2026 World Cup qualification but he takes some comfort, for now at least, that his players stuck in Gaza are safe. The national soccer team’s head coach wanted to include Ibrahim Abuimeir, Khaled Al-Nabris, and Ahmed Al-Kayed in a training camp in Jordan ahead of World Cup qualifying games against Lebanon next Thursday and Australia on Nov. 21. But they were unable to make it out of Gaza because of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its second month. “So far they are fine,” Daboub told The Associated Press. “Many of their relatives have died, however, as a result of the bombing.” Two players from Gaza, Egypt-based Mohamed Saleh and Mahmoud Wadi, are expected to join the Palestinian team in Jordan. Daboub, who is from Tunisia, acknowledged it will be difficult for players to focus on football while many have families in danger. “With the death and destruction in Gaza, the players are in a difficult psychological state,” Daboub said. But for Susan Shalabi, the vice president of the Palestine Football Association, there’s no question that the players and the people want the games to go ahead. “This is a people that wants to be heard and seen by the rest of the world, wants to live normally like everyone else, so people care about their national team,” Shalabi told The AP. “It represents the yearning to be recognized as a free and sovereign nation.” The Palestine Football Association became a full member of FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, in 1998 and has had some success at the regional level.