Limassol clubs AEL and Apollon kept up the pace in the title race yesterday with victories over Doxa Katokopia and Nea Salamina respectively.
Ivaylo Petev’s AEL were far from convincing in their 1-0 success at home to refugee club Doxa but did enough for the three points that keeps them one above second place APOEL – who were easy 2-0 victors over Ethnikos Achnas on Saturday. Christakis Christoforou’s Apollon continued to gain momentum as they push for a first league title since 2006 with a blistering second half display as they defeated in-form Nea Salamina 3-0 at the Ammochostos Stadium in Larnaca.
In other games on the weekend, Ermis Aradippou continued to defy the odds this season as they held Omonia to a 1-1 draw to stay three points above their fourth place rivals. Omonia’s second half header from Andre Schembri was quickly cancelled out by substitute Manu while Anorthosis Famagusta’s disastrous run of form continued as they went down 2-0 to relegation battlers Aris Limassol.
At Tsirio Stadium in Limassol, AEL got off to the perfect start when Serbian forward Andrija Kaludjerovic stroked the ball home after Doxa keeper Michalis Morfis wasn’t able to deal with Monteiro’s cross.
A complacent AEL failed to create much after the opening goal and could have been punished had Portuguese striker Diogo Ramos done better when he was put clean through by Dani Tortolero.
Edu Oriol and Monteiro later went close at the other end with their efforts smothered by Morfis each time while Edwin Ouon almost gifted a goal for Doxa but Carlitos couldn’t make it count.
“I think we deserved the win as we controlled the play,”said Bulgarian boss Petev after the game. “The only thing I am not happy about was the complacency in front of goal after we took the lead.”
Third place Apollon, meanwhile, looked like they would drop two points away to Salamina but turned up the heat in the final 20 minutes to overwhelm their hosts and take the three points.
Hugo Lopez opened the scoring on 70 minutes before Roberto added a second on 86 minutes to finish off the contest. Greek defender Christos Karipidis added a third two minutes later to leave Apollon in the mix heading into the end-of-season playoffs.

Cyprus Weekly