Haaland leads City to victory over Fulham

Manchester City's Norwegian top scorer, Arling Halland, returned after missing his team's last two matches, scoring a 2-1 victory for his team in the last gasp against Fulham to give him three valuable points in his struggle with Arsenal for the title in the fifteenth stage of the English Football Championship today.

City temporarily rose to the top with 32 points, one point ahead of Arsenal, who are facing a difficult test on Sunday against their neighbor Chelsea.

Halland started the match on the bench of the reserve players, replacing him with the brilliant Argentine Julian Alvarez in the last match for City, by scoring a goal and passing two crucial balls in the 3-1 victory over Seville in the last sixth round of the Champions League.

After two unsuccessful attempts by Portuguese Bernardo Silva (3) and Belgian playmaker Kevin De Bruyne (9), Alvares opened the scoring after a forehand ball from German Ilkay Gundogan hit it from a narrow angle at the top of the net (17).

Then the referee canceled a goal for defender John Stones for offside.

But things got complicated for City after the expulsion of his Portuguese international back Joao Cancelo after a joint ball with Fulham striker Harris Wilson alone in the goal, so that the referee awarded a penalty kick for the guests, which was awarded to the Brazilian Andreas Pereira successfully against his compatriot Ederson (26).

City completed the match with ten players and found it difficult to penetrate the defenses of Fulham, who returned this season to the ranks of the elite clubs, who missed this match, the Serbian top scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic, who scored 9 goals due to injury.

Halland entered in the 64th minute instead of Alvares and managed to score a header after a perfect pass from De Bruyne, one of the match's stars, but the referee did not count it for offside (74).

In added time, De Bruyne penetrated the area, where he was obstructed by one of the Fulham defenders. The referee did not hesitate to award a penalty kick for Haaland to the right of the goalkeeper (90 + 5) to give his team a difficult and expensive victory.

Haaland raised his score to the top scorer to 18 goals this season.

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