LONDON: The Premier League focus was on the race for the ‘other’ European spots and the lower half of the table as Brighton beat Wolves 6-0, Brentford fought back to win 2-1 at home to Nottingham Forest and West Ham dropped the lead to lose 4-3 at Crystal Palace.
Brighton ended a difficult week on a major high by emphatically reigniting their European push with a history-making 6-0 demolition of Wolves at the Amex Stadium.
Doubles from Deniz Undav, Pascal Gross and Danny Welbeck helped the rampant Seagulls rip apart Wanderers en route to registering their biggest Premier League success.
Roberto De Zerbi’s side came into the game having suffered an agonising FA Cup semi-final loss to Manchester United last Sunday before a meek midweek defeat at lowly Nottingham Forest.
But the eighth-placed Seagulls stylishly set aside those setbacks to move on to a club-record 53 Premier League points – two below Tottenham in fifth – with a fine performance in the Sussex sunshine.
The emphatic triumph was Albion’s greatest since returning to the top flight in 2017, bettering last season’s 4-0 thrashing of Manchester United.
Late strikes from Ivan Toney and Josh Dasilva saw Brentford come from behind to condemn Nottingham Forest to another Premier League defeat on the road.
Forest had led through birthday boy Danilo, who celebrated turning 22 with a goal in first-half stoppage-time.
But Toney equalised with a free-kick eight minutes from time, taking his Premier League tally for the season to 20.
With Forest down to 10 men after Danilo went off injured, substitute Dasilva secured a 2-1 win to send relegation-threatened Forest spinning to a seventh straight away defeat.
Crystal Palace came from behind to spoil West Ham’s hopes of moving further clear of the relegation zone with a 4-3 victory at Selhurst Park.
Jordan Ayew cancelled out Tomas Soucek’s early opener for the visitors before Wilfried Zaha marked his return with his seventh of the season and Jeffrey Schlupp added another.
Antonio got his name on the scoresheet for the Hammers before the break and Eberechi Eze restored Palace’s advantage with a second-half spot kick.
Aguerd clawed one back to keep his side in it, but the hosts held on to make it 40 points for the season – and likely secure their own top-flight safety.
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