Chelsea staged a last-gasp comeback to defeat Manchester United 4-3 with Cole Palmer bagging a hat-trick to turn a madcap Premier League match on its head.
This was after the Reds seemed to have staged their own unlikely turnaround in a thriller on Thursday.
Chelsea’s top scorer, Palmer, struck twice deep into added time at Stamford Bridge to save the Blues who were on the verge of a 3-2 home defeat.
United remain in sixth spot and still 11 points behind fourth-placed Villa, with a game in hand.
Timed at 100 minutes and 39 seconds, Palmer’s clincher was the latest winning goal on record in a Premier League game.
Chelsea had raced into a 2-0 lead inside 20 minutes with a strike by captain Conor Gallagher and a Palmer penalty.
Goals by Alejandro Garnacho – after a Moises Caicedo error – and Bruno Fernandes before halftime and another in the 67th minutes by Garnacho turned the tide towards United, who are chasing qualification for next season’s Champions League.
But with the Blues looking beaten, Diogo Dalot brought down Noni Madueke in the box and after a nail-biting VAR check, Palmer stroked home from the spot for the second time on the night to level the match at 3-3 in the 10th minute of added time.
A minute later, he blasted a shot that deflected off United’s midfielder, Scott McTominay, into the net to claim his 16th league goal of the season and send the home fans into raptures.
The victory took Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea up to 10th, five points behind United with a game in hand and still hoping to snatch a Europa League spot despite their stop-start season.
