Liverpool hit the top as Arsenal lose, Man Utd humiliated by Bournemouth

LONDON :Liverpool climbed atop the Premier League after Mo Salah scored his 200th goal for the club in a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace on Saturday before Aston Villa beat Arsenal 1-0 for a 15th straight home league win to stop the Gunners retaking first place.

Storm clouds returned to Manchester United as they lost 3-0 at home to Bournemouth. Bottom club Sheffield United beat visiting Brentford 1-0 for only their second win of the season while fellow strugglers Burnley and Nottingham Forest both drew.

Liverpool were fully extended by a dogged Palace side who went ahead at Selhurst Park from the penalty spot in the 57th minute after a lengthy VAR review found that Jean-Philippe Mateta had been fouled by centre-back Jarell Quansah.

Mateta then stroked the ball home from the spot.

Liverpool had not managed an effort on target but the game swung when Palace's Jordan Ayew was sent off in the 75th minute after two innocuous yellow cards.

Just over a minute later Salah equalised to join an elite list of Liverpool players to notch a double century of goals for the Reds, the others being Ian Rush, Roger Hunt, Gordon Hodgson and Billy Liddell.

Liverpool then laid siege to the Palace goal and Harvey Elliott produced a stunning strike in the first minute of stoppage time to seal a sixth win in eight league games for Juergen Klopp's side who have 37 points from 16 games.

"I'm a very happy manager in this moment, but I know we were lucky as well," Klopp said. "If you only win your really good games you have no chance to be really successful, that's how it is, and obviously today was not a really good game from us.

"For 76 minutes it was a really bad performance."

Aston Villa's captain John McGinn scored in the seventh minute and they held on to