Manchester United was beaten 3-0 at home by Bournemouth for the second straight season in the Premier League to continue Ruben Amorim’s turbulent start at Old Trafford, while title-chasing Chelsea was held to a 0-0 draw at Everton on Sunday.
The optimism that might have been generated by a last-gasp 2-1 derby win at Manchester City last weekend has disappeared for United, which lost 4-3 at Tottenham in the English League Cup quarterfinals on Thursday before being handed a defeat to Bournemouth by the same score as 12 months ago.
Dean Huijsen, Justin Kluivert and Antoine Semenyo scored for the visitors from the south coast as they climbed to fifth place in the standings, dropping Man City — the beleaguered defending champion — to seventh place after 16 games.
Since drawing Amorim’s first match in charge — at Ipswich on Nov. 24 — United has won four and lost four in all competitions under the Portuguese coach, who left out Marcus Rashford for the third straight match. United sits in 13th place and will be in the bottom half of standings at Christmas for the first time since the 1989-90 season.
Chelsea could have climbed above Liverpool into first place — for a couple of hours at least — with a win at Everton.
However, a 0-0 draw ended the team’s eight-match winning run in all competitions and meant Liverpool could push four points clear by beating Tottenham later Sunday.
Nicolas Jackson headed against the post for Chelsea in the first half.
Everton also held Arsenal 0-0 last weekend and faces Man City next.
Vitor Pereira got off to a great start as Wolverhampton manager, with his new team beating Leicester 3-0 in his first match in charge.
Pereira took charge on Thursday as the replacement for Gary O’Neil and immediately ended Wolves’ four-game losing run as Gonçalo Guedes, Rodrigo Gomes and Matheus Cunha scored first-half goals at King Power Stadium.
It handed Leicester manager Ruud van Nistelrooy a second straight big loss early in his reign, after a 4-0 defeat at Newcastle last weekend.
Another recently hired Premier League manager, Ivan Juric , began life at Southampton with a 0-0 draw at Fulham.
Juric wasn’t in charge of the team because he doesn’t have a work permit. He was sitting in the stands for the match instead.
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