Marouane Fellaini headed in a corner from former United midfielder Darron Gibson in the 57th minute to secure the victory over last season’s runners up.
Tom Cleverley came closest to levelling, but his shot was cleared off the line by Everton defender Phil Jagielka.
Even the introduction of Robin van Persie, signed from Arsenal last week, failed to produce an equalizer against a lively Everton side.
The hosts were only prevented from going in front before Fellaini’s goal by a string of fine saves by United goalkeeper David de Gea.
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English Premier League: Arsenal, Liverpool stumble out of the gate on opening day
Goals weren’t a problem for Fulham and Swansea, with both teams enjoying 5-0 routs, while former Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas made a miserable return to English football as Tottenham lost 2-1 at Newcastle.
But there were happier returns to the Premier League for West Ham and Reading, with both teams avoiding defeat in their first matches since gaining promotion.
The focus Saturday was off last season’s top two, with Manchester City beginning its title defence on Sunday and Manchester United, which was denied the trophy in the final seconds of the last season, playing on Monday.
That put the spotlight on Liverpool as the fallen giants experienced their heaviest opening-day defeat since 1937 in another reminder of just how far it has slipped behind the title challengers.
Replacing Kenny Dalglish with the youthful Brendan Rodgers from Swansea after last season’s eighth-place finish hasn’t provided the immediate uplift in fortunes so desired by Liverpool’s American owners.
Compounding Liverpool’s misery was the fact West Brom’s victory was masterminded by Steve Clarke, who was Dalglish’s assistant at Anfield.
Zoltan Gera put West Brom in front before the break, and Liverpool was reduced to 10 men early in the second half when Daniel Agger conceded a penalty that was missed by Shane Long.
Peter Odemwingie was more accurate from the penalty spot in the 64th after Martin Skrtel had fouled Long, and Romelu Lukaku rounded off the win with a 77th-minute header.
“I thought the score line was harsh,” Rodgers said. “Congratulations to West Brom and Steve Clarke getting his first win as a manager. I’ve no complaints about the first goal, a fantastic strike from Gera, showing wonderful technique.
“But in the second half, although I’m not going to go on about the referee, I thought the two penalty decisions were very harsh ... with 10 men and then chasing the game, it becomes difficult.”
At the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal overwhelmed Sunderland but lacked a cutting edge from new strikers Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud, one day after Robin van Persie defected to Manchester United.
“The few chances we had we couldn’t convert them ... they defended the whole game very well,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. “We lacked something I would call sharpness and quality, and more accuracy in the final pass.
“The formation didn’t work with three strikers up front. We were not balanced and we did not create enough.”
That wasn’t a problem in west London.
At Craven Cottage, Fulham didn’t miss rebellious striker Clint Dempsey — last season’s top scorer for the west London club — as Norwich was crushed 5-0.
After Damien Duff’s 26th-minute opener, Mladen Petric scored twice, Alex Kacaniklic netted the fourth, and Steve Sidwell completed the rout from the penalty spot late on.
At Loftus Road, though, host Queens Park Rangers was on the end of a 5-0 thumping by Swansea in a clash of sides both playing a second straight season in the Premier League.
New signing Michu and Nathan Dyer each scored twice before Scott Sinclair hit the fifth.
“Winning the first game in my debut, and also the team’s first in their second season in the Premier League, away and 5-0,” said Michael Laudrup, who replaced Rodgers as Swansea manager. “I don’t think anyone could’ve dreamed about that.
“Last season I think it took until January to win the first away game, and it is very important that you know you can win an away game as it gives you a lot of confidence for the rest of the season.”
Life after Harry Redknapp didn’t begin well for Tottenham after last season’s fourth-place finish.
Hatem Ben Arfa clinched Newcastle’s victory from the penalty spot in the 80th after being tripped by Rafael van der Vaart, four minutes after Jermain Defoe appeared to have salvaged a point for Tottenham by cancelling out through Demba Ba’s opener.
Just before Tottenham’s leveler, Newcastle manager Pardew was sent to the stands by referee Martin Atkinson for pushing a match official.
“It was ridiculous,” Pardew said. “I apologize publicly.”
In east London, West Ham made a winning return to the topflight as Kevin Nolan’s goal clinched a 1-0 victory over Aston Villa.
Promoted Reading avoided defeat when Adam Le Fondre scored a late penalty to secure a 1-1 draw against Stoke, cancelling out Michael Kightly’s opener.
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Under-20 World Cup: Canada opens with win over Argentina on Adriana Leon’s three goals
SAITAMA, JAPAN—Adriana Leon of Mississauga, Ont., scored three goals to lift Canada to a 6-0 win over Argentina in its opening match of the under-20 Women’s World Cup on Monday.
Shelina Zadorsky of London, Ont., Jaclyn Sawicki of Coquitlam, B.C., and Catherine Charron-Delage of Longueuil, Que., also scored for Canada.
Goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo of Welland, Ont., got the shutout for Canada, which is aiming to build on the success of the bronze medal performance by its senior team at the London Olympics.
Argentina was reduced to 10 players for most of the game after Agustina Barroso was sent off in the sixth minute.
North Korea edged Norway 4-2 in the other Group C match Monday.
Canada’s next match is Thursday against Norway.
In Group D play Monday, the U.S. beat Ghana 4-0 while Germany shut out China 4-0.
The top two teams from Group D will face the top two teams from Group C in the quarter-finals Aug. 31.
Running pro sports team can be messy
Shelina Zadorsky of London, Ont., Jaclyn Sawicki of Coquitlam, B.C., and Catherine Charron-Delage of Longueuil, Que., also scored for Canada.
Goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo of Welland, Ont., got the shutout for Canada, which is aiming to build on the success of the bronze medal performance by its senior team at the London Olympics.
Argentina was reduced to 10 players for most of the game after Agustina Barroso was sent off in the sixth minute.
North Korea edged Norway 4-2 in the other Group C match Monday.
Canada’s next match is Thursday against Norway.
In Group D play Monday, the U.S. beat Ghana 4-0 while Germany shut out China 4-0.
The top two teams from Group D will face the top two teams from Group C in the quarter-finals Aug. 31.
Running pro sports team can be messy
We work under the reasonable assumption that people who make a lot more money than us doing jobs we’d like to have do so because they have an expertise that we lack.
Once we let go of that idea — “Hey, why don’t I pull my own teeth?” — capitalism becomes a two-legged stool. And a lot of us die from abscesses.
The bedrock assumption is half correct. We’re right to think that there are some things we can’t intuit.
There are however areas of expertise that require no training, little technical art and a bare minimum of common sense. The worst offenders include finance (demonstrably), columnizing (obviously) and sports (depressingly).
Most especially sports.
Every once in a while, a wind catches the curtain and it parts slightly on that world. And when you see the sausage being made back there in the boardroom, you realize that William Goldman’s maxim about the movie business is applicable to any field of human endeavour — “Nobody knows anything.”
The latest example — a certain mistaken bid for the best footballer in the world.
According to a new biography by former Manchester City CEO Garry Cook, that team tried to buy Lionel Messi four years ago, not because it was a good idea (which it was), but because someone wasn’t paying close enough attention on a phone call.
“(An executive) made a comment like, ‘It’s all getting messy.’ Via the telephones and other communications lines, this somehow translated into, ‘Get Messi,’” Cook explains. “An offer was made for Lionel Messi of about ($47 million). Needless to say, it was rejected.”
Let’s break this down a little. Someone said something that someone else misheard. This someone didn’t think it was worth asking, “Say what now?” That misunderstanding filtered through one or two or 10 other someones.
An eventual someone went to a fax machine and wrote the cost of a fighter jet down on a piece of paper. And then, without telling the guy who runs the team, sent that number off into the ether.
What was he going to do if the offer was accepted?
“Yeah, you know that Messi thing I didn’t discuss with you? It’s sorted. I just need accounting to send up a box of gold bricks.”
It’s possible the bid was sent in the knowledge that it would be rebuffed. And that’s worse. It means that money is so abstract to these people, that trifling with the GDP of a small island state is something you can explain away in a progress report.
Sure, mistakes happen. But you make mistakes as well as the mope who got a “y” and an “i” mixed up in Cook’s tale. And yet there you are, punching a time clock instead of taking the company jet to Malaga to scout some 11-year-old prodigy.
That’s the canard Cook is giving us a small, exaggerated glimpse of.
Never believe that the people who run sports teams are smarter than you. They aren’t. What they are is a little luckier, a lot more driven and exponentially better attuned to the frequencies of power.
This is what sports management comes down to — talking a good game and then taking an educated guess that is defensible in hindsight (that is to say, after the guess has gone totally sideways).
Could the average sports fan run a major franchise? If the whole job was saying, “Buy him,” “Sign him,” “Trade that loser” — then yes, he or she could. It’s a lot more than that — mainly negotiating the snake pit of conflicting interests that exists in any billion-dollar business
You need sharp elbows to manage a Kinko’s. Imagine what it’s like at MLSE.
That part is hard. The part we obsess over — the sports decisions — is cake. Anybody with the inclination can do it. Perhaps not well.
But there are many gentleman — several of whom have been lionized within these city limits — who have not done it well either, and yet thrived.
There are in every sport a few savants who demonstrably know more than everyone else. The other 20-odd guys managing and/or coaching teams in this or that league belong to the “everyone else.”
If they lack smarts, what they have got working for them is pedigree, patter and politics.
Those are the same three assets that will carry you to the top in most fields (and yet we continue to foolishly obsess about this or that diploma. You want to succeed professionally? Shower regularly and be fun to drink with.)
That there is something else going on, that these people know things we can’t know, is the lie we all tell ourselves so that we can keep watching.
Considering that, it would be better if the Garry Cooks of the world didn’t tell us these sorts of funny stories. They chip away at an illusion that keeps things in balance.
Instead, let us agree to re-enter the old bargain — we pretend to believe that you’re smarter than us; and then you try your best to act that way.
Once we let go of that idea — “Hey, why don’t I pull my own teeth?” — capitalism becomes a two-legged stool. And a lot of us die from abscesses.
The bedrock assumption is half correct. We’re right to think that there are some things we can’t intuit.
There are however areas of expertise that require no training, little technical art and a bare minimum of common sense. The worst offenders include finance (demonstrably), columnizing (obviously) and sports (depressingly).
Most especially sports.
Every once in a while, a wind catches the curtain and it parts slightly on that world. And when you see the sausage being made back there in the boardroom, you realize that William Goldman’s maxim about the movie business is applicable to any field of human endeavour — “Nobody knows anything.”
The latest example — a certain mistaken bid for the best footballer in the world.
According to a new biography by former Manchester City CEO Garry Cook, that team tried to buy Lionel Messi four years ago, not because it was a good idea (which it was), but because someone wasn’t paying close enough attention on a phone call.
“(An executive) made a comment like, ‘It’s all getting messy.’ Via the telephones and other communications lines, this somehow translated into, ‘Get Messi,’” Cook explains. “An offer was made for Lionel Messi of about ($47 million). Needless to say, it was rejected.”
Let’s break this down a little. Someone said something that someone else misheard. This someone didn’t think it was worth asking, “Say what now?” That misunderstanding filtered through one or two or 10 other someones.
An eventual someone went to a fax machine and wrote the cost of a fighter jet down on a piece of paper. And then, without telling the guy who runs the team, sent that number off into the ether.
What was he going to do if the offer was accepted?
“Yeah, you know that Messi thing I didn’t discuss with you? It’s sorted. I just need accounting to send up a box of gold bricks.”
It’s possible the bid was sent in the knowledge that it would be rebuffed. And that’s worse. It means that money is so abstract to these people, that trifling with the GDP of a small island state is something you can explain away in a progress report.
Sure, mistakes happen. But you make mistakes as well as the mope who got a “y” and an “i” mixed up in Cook’s tale. And yet there you are, punching a time clock instead of taking the company jet to Malaga to scout some 11-year-old prodigy.
That’s the canard Cook is giving us a small, exaggerated glimpse of.
Never believe that the people who run sports teams are smarter than you. They aren’t. What they are is a little luckier, a lot more driven and exponentially better attuned to the frequencies of power.
This is what sports management comes down to — talking a good game and then taking an educated guess that is defensible in hindsight (that is to say, after the guess has gone totally sideways).
Could the average sports fan run a major franchise? If the whole job was saying, “Buy him,” “Sign him,” “Trade that loser” — then yes, he or she could. It’s a lot more than that — mainly negotiating the snake pit of conflicting interests that exists in any billion-dollar business
You need sharp elbows to manage a Kinko’s. Imagine what it’s like at MLSE.
That part is hard. The part we obsess over — the sports decisions — is cake. Anybody with the inclination can do it. Perhaps not well.
But there are many gentleman — several of whom have been lionized within these city limits — who have not done it well either, and yet thrived.
There are in every sport a few savants who demonstrably know more than everyone else. The other 20-odd guys managing and/or coaching teams in this or that league belong to the “everyone else.”
If they lack smarts, what they have got working for them is pedigree, patter and politics.
Those are the same three assets that will carry you to the top in most fields (and yet we continue to foolishly obsess about this or that diploma. You want to succeed professionally? Shower regularly and be fun to drink with.)
That there is something else going on, that these people know things we can’t know, is the lie we all tell ourselves so that we can keep watching.
Considering that, it would be better if the Garry Cooks of the world didn’t tell us these sorts of funny stories. They chip away at an illusion that keeps things in balance.
Instead, let us agree to re-enter the old bargain — we pretend to believe that you’re smarter than us; and then you try your best to act that way.
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