Newcastle maintain top-four push, Lampard return falls flat

LONDON : Newcastle United edged closer to a return to the Champions League and Manchester United maintained their top-four pursuit with Premier League wins on Saturday while at the bottom there were vital victories for Bournemouth and West Ham United.

Frank Lampard's comeback as Chelsea's caretaker manager fell flat, however, as the Londoners went down 1-0 at Wolverhampton Wanderers whose survival hopes also got a huge boost.

Leicester City's plight worsened as the 2015-16 Premier League champions suffered a seventh defeat in eight league games as they lost 1-0 at home to Bournemouth to stay 19th.

Newcastle suffered a big scare in south west London as they were off the pace at Brentford, who were given a thoroughly-deserved halftime lead by Ivan Toney's penalty after he had missed one earlier in the game.

But Eddie Howe's side hit back after the interval with Joelinton's attempted cross going in off goalkeeper David Raya's foot before Swedish striker Alexander Isak, who had conceded the penalty which Tony converted, finished emphatically.

Newcastle's fifth consecutive win moved them up to 56 points from 29 games - the same as Manchester United who beat Everton 2-0 in Saturday's early kickoff.

"We suffered in the first half. But second half, what a response from a group of players that have played three games in six days. They were asked to dig really deep for the result but responded really well," Howe, who is closer to taking Newcastle into the Champions League for the first time in 20 years, said.

Manchester United had gone third after goals by Scott McTominay and Anthony Martial secured the points against Everton earlier in the day.

McTominay struck in the 36th minute from Jadon Sancho's pass and Marcus Rashford, on his 350th