Three talking points from the Premier League weekend

Aston Villa’s English striker #11 Ollie Watkins celebrates scoring his team’s fourth goal with teammate Aston Villa’s French midfielder #44 Boubacar Kamara (C) and Aston Villa’s Scottish midfielder #07 John McGinn during the English Premier League football match between Aston Villa and Brighton and Hove Albion at Villa Park in Birmingham, central England on September 30, 2023. (Photo by Geoff Caddick / AFP) /

Manchester City’s shock 2-1 defeat to Wolves leaves the Premier League’s top six separated by just three points.

Tottenham took full advantage of City’s first slip-up of the season to close within one point of the lead, but had luck and poor officiating on their side in a controversial 2-1 win over nine-man Liverpool.

Arsenal also closed on City ahead of their showdown next weekend by cruising to a 4-0 win at Bournemouth.

Aston Villa moved ahead of Brighton into fifth by thrashing the Seagulls 6-1.

But it was another miserable weekend for Manchester United, who slumped to a 1-0 home defeat to Crystal Palace.

AFP Sport looks at three talking points from the Premier League weekend:

VAR costs luckless Liverpool
Referees’ body PGMOL was forced into a swift apology following full-time at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after VAR failed to intervene and award a Liverpool goal in the first-half.

The Reds had already lost Curtis Jones to an early red card when Luis Diaz sped in behind and smashed low and hard into the far corner of the Spurs net.

Diaz was flagged offside on the field but replays quickly showed the Colombian had been played on by Cristian Romero.

To compound Liverpool’s anger, Spurs soon took the lead through Son Heung-min.

Jurgen Klopp’s men battled back to level with 10 men through Cody Gakpo, then survived 25 minutes