LONDON — Manchester City powered to the top of the English Premier League as Jack Grealish scored for the first time this season in a 3-0 win over Wolves, while Son Heung-min ended his goal drought with a 13-minute hat-trick in Tottenham Hotspur 6-2 rout of Leicester.
Son was rotated – or was he dropped – for the game after a run of poor performances and entered in the 59th minute with the score at 3-2.
The South Korea forward curled two shots into the top corner and completed his 13-minute hat trick in the 86th with a strike under Leicester goalkeeper Danny Ward.
The goal needed to be confirmed by video review before he was sure of being the seventh Premier League player to score a hat trick as a substitute.
“My finishing has been poor this season,” Son said according to AP. “I´ve also been a little bit unlucky with an own-goal, two offside goals and hitting the crossbar.
“I knew goals were coming and I wasn´t worried. I´ve always had great supporters, teammates and coaches behind me.”
Harry Kane and Eric Dier scored following corners as Tottenham responded to conceding in the sixth minute to Youri Tielemans’ penalty, which needed to be retaken because Hugo Lloris was off the line when he saved the first kick.
James Maddison hooked in an equalizer before halftime only for Leicester to fall behind again when Wilfred Ndidi was dispossessed by Rodrigo Bentancur, who drove forward to curl home.
It was a second consecutive heavy loss for Rodgers – after a 5-2 at Brighton two weeks ago – to ensure Leicester remained bottom of the league, winless and on just one point. The Foxes have conceded 22 goals in seven games.
“For 73 minutes, it was a good game and we were arguably the better side with the chances we created,” Rodgers said. “We got punished for mistakes.”
Rodgers accepted his job was under pressure heading into a two-week international break, which gives Leicester time to bed in a new manager.
Elsewhere, Erling Haaland added a strike from outside the area to his repertoire of goals since joining City in a 3-0 win at 10-man Wolverhampton.
City had already taken the lead through Jack Grealish after 55 seconds at Molineux when Haaland picked up the ball 40 meters out, drove toward the penalty box and shot right-footed into the bottom corner from the edge of the area in the 16th minute.
It was Haaland´s 11th goal in seven league games since his offseason arrival from Borussia Dortmund – with the majority coming from right in front of goal.
“I didn´t know he could score from outside the box,” Grealish said jokingly, while calling Haaland “the best striker in the world playing up front.”
Wolverhampton´s already-slim chances virtually ended when center back Nathan Collins was shown a straight red card for a chest-high lunge on Grealish in the 33rd.
City has scored 23 goals in the first seven games of its title defense – comfortably more than any other team – and Haaland has almost half of them.
On the other hand, Grealish has just the one – and he knows he needs to score more to justify being the most expensive Premier League player ever after joining from Aston Villa for 100 million pounds (then $139 million) in the offseason of 2021.
“Rightly so people have been asking questions – I should be scoring more and getting more assists,” the England international said.
“I am always going to have people talking about me with the money that was spent on me, but all my career I haven´t scored enough goals. I do want to add that to my game.”
City manager Pep Guardiola was particularly happy after the lunchtime kickoff considering the quick turnaround for his team from a Wednesday night game against Dortmund in the Champions League – when Haaland scored, naturally, with a flying volley.
