Hello, this is bbc news with lu kwesa burak. The headlines iran admits shooting down the ukranian passenger plane, saying they mistook it for a cruise missile. British Prime Minister borisjohnson calls the admission an important first step. In ukraine, questions over why
the plane was allowed to take off from tehran, and tonight, the canadian Prime Minister says he expects a full investigation. This is an extremely serious matter. Canada and the world still have many questions, questions that must be answered. Power sharing is restored in Northern Ireland, as key ministers are appointed at the First Assembly meeting for three years. It is time to renew and rekindle a political environment of reconciliation and respect and deliver on the promise of a new approach to politics in this decade. The shadow brexit secretary, sir keir starmer, has launched his campaign for the labour leadership, saying the party needs to put an end to factional disputes. The moral fight against injustice and poverty and homelessness isjust as big a moralfight now as it was in that general election. Now on bbc news, its time for sportsday. Hello and welcome to sportsday, with me holly hamilton and ben croucher. Our top stories this saturday 16 points clear. As everyone else continues to falter, the liverpooljuggernaut rolls on in the premier league. The tackles were flying in at selhurst park. Pierre emerick abaumayang saw red for this in arsenals draw with palace. And southampton avenge octobers 9 0 defeat to leicester by stunning them at the king power stadium. Also coming up in the programme itll be nadal against novak in australia once more. Only this time in the atp cup final. And its a massive weekend in the nfl, eight teams
still in with a chance of making it to super bowl liv, well look ahead to the play offs. Welcome to the programme. All the days european rugby on the way too but only one place to start. At the top of the premier league table. That gap is growing wider and wider at the top. Liverpool are now 16 points clear of the rest with a game in hand. That is worth mentioning as well. Theyve broken the record for the best start to a top flight campaign, not just in england but in europe after a 1 0 win over tottenham in north london. The points have been slipping through the grasp of spurs. Dry january, it was proving not a
winning side and now england captain hurricane would be abstaining, until april. Liverpool are unbeaten in the league over a year. Without harry kane, the tottenham scoring options we re kane, the tottenham scoring options were limited. Son with just one goal since november. Three liverpool players left unattended at one stage. Defending with her tottenham would spend the lions share of the first half with the inevitable result as Roberto Firmino put the leaders ahead. Jose mourinhos men have been playing his way. Sitting back, waiting to pounce on a mistake. Not capitalised on. Spurs became more aggressive and pushed back at liverpool. Substitute giovani lo celso came desperately close but it remained 1 0, liverpool 16 points ahead of the rest and they have made the best ever start to a season have made the best ever start to a season by a club in a top division in europe. In the early kick off
it was north vs south as arsenal travelled to Crystal Palace looking to continue their upturn in form under new boss mikel arteta. And it was a feisty affair at selhurst park, as Patrick Gearey reports. Nestling in south londons streets, selhurst parks a reminder of football as it was intimate or claustrophobic, depending on your view. The kind of place arsenal might find uncomfortable, but under new manager mikel arteta, there are signs of a new energy that flowed through Pierre Emerick aubameyangs early goal. After such a breathless start, arsenal slowly exhaled. Palace gradually forced them back untiljordan ayew tried his luck, an equaliser in slow motion that owed much to a deflection. Arsenal now became too keen. Initially, aubameyangs tackle was seen as a yellow card, but it proved to be a video nasty. Var was checking. Aubameyang had gone from scorer to suspect awaiting the inevitable sentence. Now a man up, palace might soon have gone a goal up too. James tomkins was denied by sokratis at the last moment. But arsenal hadnt settled on survival. Nicolas pepe saw an
opportunity to win it. Vicente guaita in the palace goal refused to be beaten. In that moment, as in the match, arsenals chance had passed. Patrick gearey, bbc news. Five other games taking place today. Joe lynskey has been across them all. Liverpool flying at the top of the league and the surprise for second place Leicester City. Leicester city are 16 points behind liverpool. Earlier in the season that would be the gap between first and fifth, but it is the gap between the top two as it stands. An interesting fixture for Leicester City today. Back in october Leicester City beat southampton 9 0. In the Leicester Club shop they sell that match in full on dvd. The saints despite that humiliation kept faith with their manager ralph hassenhutl, and today, look at the turnaround. Theyve beaten leicester 2 1. And this result is yet more good news for liverpool,
their closest title rivals beaten at home. Beaten for just the second time beaten forjust the second time this season. Leicester had taken the lead but southampton pegged them back through Stuart Armstrong and in the second half there was then var contention when leicester thought they had a penalty, but the decision was overruled because of offside. That would have possibly put them 21 that would have possibly put them 2 1 up. One of those excruciatingly close offside calls weve seen a lot this season since var was introduced. Brendan rodgers had no complaints at full time. It got even worse for leicester when danny ings scored for southampton to make it 2 1 with ten minutes to go. Fantastic scenes for the away supporters who saw so much suffering when they lost 9 0 at home. Well, the nine leicester goals from october were being played on the big screens at the king power before kick off. But this result completes the manager hassenhutls revival. Yes, i think we saw a fantastic game today, from both sides. Although we had a not so good start, with a big chance from danny ings, then he got the first goal, but you could feel and every second of this game that we believed we could win and perhaps it was the best performance in away games this season. A great afternoon for ralph hasenhuttl. Well, ole Gunnar Solskjaer called it the worst performance all season when Manchester United lost 3 1 at home to Manchester City in the cup in midweek, but absolutely no problems for his side today. 4 0 winners over norwich. Norwich city were very poor. Marcus rashford got two of the goals on his 200th game for united, Anthony Martial headed in the third, before more optimism came for united in the form of mason greenwoods fourth goalfor them, nine goals for him across Senior Competitions this season. The 18 year old showing he has bright future. United are a long way off where they want to be but they are into fifth position now. For norwich things look very grim, rooted to the bottom of the table. Very, very happy. We started on the front foot. You know when you can walk off, and i am sure that the opposition are talking about Manchester United as a very, very hard working team, with the quality of players we have got, that is what i want from my team and i am delighted. Chelsea are the side still in that Fourth Champions League spot as it stands. They still have a five point cushion on united in fifth thanks to a 3 0 win over burnley. Jorginho scored from the spot, before Tammy Abraham got pretty lucky to make it 2 0, the ball from this position somehow found its way past nick pope in the burnley goal. It was a pretty tame header. Another goalfor tammy it was a pretty tame header. Another goal for Tammy Abraham keeping it was a pretty tame header. Another goalfor Tammy Abraham keeping up it was a pretty tame header. Another goal for Tammy Abraham keeping up a hot streak he has had this season. And in the second half Callum Hudson odoi got his first goal in the premier league to make it three. The young englishman. Chelseas youngsters are still doing the business. Very convincing. The scoreline is convincing but not as much as it should have been. There was great football throughout the game, great passages with chances at the end of them which would have been really good goals to watch back. We did not quite get that but the all around performance was superb football. So the other results still to mention, newcastle lost two players to injury inside the first half at wolves, but they claimed a good point there, 1 1 at molineux, while everton continued their resurgence under carlo ancelotti. A single goal from richarlison enough to beat brighton at goodison. That all means this for the table. An enormous chasm at the top of the premier league, 16 points, Leicester City the nearest challengers. Man city the nearest challengers. Man city play aston villa tomorrow. They will hope to go into second. At the bottom, norwich city are getting cut adrift. Bournemouth and watford play each other on sunday said they could potentially leapfrog to safety, like southampton have in the last few weeks. It seems to pale in comparison when you look at the chasm at the top. Remarkable. Thank you. Saracens are still in with a fighting chance of reaching the last eight of the european champions cup, beating ospreys 22 15. They had to do it the hard way too after welsh prop rhys carre was sent off after just five minutes for a high, shoulder led tackle. With a further man in the sin bin, dan evans, the victim of that tackle, then scored a try either side of half time, as the ospreys made the most of their numerical advantage. Alex lewingtons try restored
sarries lead and 17 points and mako, moved the defending champions up to second ahead of next weekends game against pool leaders racing 92. Loads more going on in the champions cup today. Agony for exeters stuart hogg. He saw his penalty bounce back off the posts in the dying moments against his former side glasgow. That would have won it for exeter, but it finished 31 31. Gloucester are still in with a chance of reaching the last eight after a 29 6 thumping of montpellier at kingsholm. Four tries and what could be a vital bonus point, although there are injury concerns to influential fly half danny cipriani. Clermont auvergne secured their place in the quarterfinals by beating ulster at the stade marcel michelin. They won it by 29 points to 13. Ulster can still qualify if they beat bath next weekend. And toulouse earned their fifth win from five matches in pool 5, beating connacht to also qualify for the quarterfinals. The french champions ended connachts hopes of a spot in the knockouts. Itll be nadal vs djokovic in the final of the inaugeral atp cup after both spain and serbia made it through to the final. Djokovic won serbias tie against russia by beating Danil Medvedev in the singles. Nadal did the same for spain. He came from behind to beat australias alex di minaur to give spain an unassaiable lead. Remember this is a new multi nation tournament thats been brought in to kick off the mens season. So is it a welcome addition to the tennis calendar . Thats the question i put to our tennis correspondent russell fuller. Well, it has been a success. That is one thing i would say from this distance. The players are embracing it and who can blame them . They are being handsomely paid,
they are getting top quality match practice against some of the other best players in the world in the run up to the Australian Open and unlike the davis cup finals, they are getting ranking points, the currency of the atp tour. There have been a few glitches along the way, matches have finished too late at night. Whether it feels like a World Team Cup is debatable but the players have bought into the concept. The issue is, we have had two of these events in the space of six weeks, the davis cup finals with the history, staged in madrid in november and now the atp cup to start the year, similar formats, and as i have said many times before, we would love it if everybody could get their Heads Together and come up with one, preferably big event involving the women as well that was the Global World Cup of tennis. Looking ahead to the Australian Open, the us open champion will not be there with an injury. A loss to the tournament given the impact she has had in the game in a short space of time. A big loss. Clearly the right decision. It would have been foolish to try to play with an injury. She spent a lot of time away with a shoulder problem last year, the knee issue developed during the wta finals in china in october. It is a long term issue because she is unable to play at the Australian Open injanuary. She has been phenomenally successful, winning three big titles, the highlight of which was the us open last year and a massive shame we will not see her rubbing shoulders with the likes of Serena Williams in melbourne. Johanna konta has been struggling with injury, out of the Brisbane International early during the week and pulling out of the tournament next week as well . The knee problems are a concern for her. She has been managing that for the best part of a year. It did not affect in grand slams last year at all. She pulled out in adelaide for precautionary reasons. She is due to practice in melbourne from sunday so a full week
of practice in front of her. I think she will play the Australian Open but it is something that will perhaps be an issue for her going forwards. I do not think the lack of matches going to the Australian Open is a big concern. She is someone who can perform in the big events these days, irrespective of how the build up has gone, as we saw in 2019. At the sharp end of the tournament, are we going to be talking about the same players in the mens and womens side of the draw that we have been talking about for the last 15 years . In the mens game, probably. Fascinating to think that if rafa nadal wins the title he draws level with Roger Federer on 20 grand slams each. Novak djokovic still in the mix with 16. Maybe someone can spring an upset and end this run of grand slam titles by those three players. They have won the last 12 after all. In the womens game, it is hard to tell. A wider group of players could win titles. Last year we had naomi osaka
and simona halep and then winning the four grand slams. Serena williams is not the great unknown, we know everything about her but she has not won a grand slam since the Australian Open in 2017 but she has come close. Excellent practice for her reaching the final in auckland. If she wins that title on sunday it will be the first title she has won since the Australian Open in 2017 and with end a run of five consecutive grand slam final defeats. It would do her no harm at all as she chases that record grand slam number of titles in melbourne. It always catches me out every year how quickly the Australian Open comes around. There will be a lot of fundraising for the fires and help the relief efforts there. Interesting to see how it will all go out. Two seasons ago, bobby madley living out his childhood dream. Refereeing in the premier league and taking charge of some of the top matches across europe and internationally. Then, after sending a video to friend mocking a disabled person, he was sacked. And in the last 18 months hes been trying to rebuild his life in oslo. Hes been speaking to mark clemmit. Piano music. In your own words, what did you do . Someone walked past my car. I initially genuinely thought they were drunk because they were walking past the car. That is no excuse. I knew when the person walked past they had a walking disability. I took the video, 5 6 second video and i did it to mock myself. I would not mock disabled people. I lived with disability. My dad was physically disabled all my life. And i know that is an easy excuse to throw out there and that does not excuse it but i took a video, i annotated it and sent it to one person who would know the context of it and i set it as a private text message. Did not post on snapchat. Someone you trusted . Someone i trusted. I did something everyone does, i sent a darkjoke. Well, hold on, you cant be sweeping, not everyone does that. Ok, not everyone. It is easily done. Lets say that. Im sure a lot of people do jokes in the same way that i did, not to cause pain, had i posted it on social media, i dont think not to cause pain, had i posted it on social media, i dont think ive got a leg to stand on. How did your life start to unfold and unravel . Got a phone call from my bosses to Say Something has been received about you, we need to discuss it, i was going away on holiday the week after. It has to be cleared up before you go away. I walked in, the video was on a laptop, did you send this . And i could have lied. I am not in it, i did not speak in it, he could have done that. I am not in it, i did not speak in it, i could have done that. But for me, i thought honesty is going to be the best policy. Could you understand straightaway the context with which the people that run the select Group Referees had taken it . Yeah. If something arrives on anyones desk, any bosss desk it has to be investigated. I have no issue that. The one thing they cant have thrown at them is that they