Leeds, United Kingdom (AFP) – Manchester City maintained their lead in the Premier League title race after the leaders and Liverpool won tough matches away from home on Saturday.
First it was Liverpool who beat Newcastle 1-0 despite the rest of many players. With the result he remained at the top of the table for a while.
City beat Leeds 4-0 a few hours later and regained the position with one point above Liverpool.
Four days left in their urgent title fight.
The two teams play the second leg of the Champions League semi-final next week: Liverpool travel to Villarreal with a 2-0 lead and will face Real Madrid after also winning the first leg 4-3.
With that in mind, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has rested Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Thiago Alcantara and Mohamed Salah in the starting line-up.
But they should have won more comfortably because they controlled the match. In the end, Naby Keita’s goal prevailed in the first half.
Jordan Henderson and Diogo Jota combined to help Keita, who advanced into the six-yard area before firing past unarmed Martin Dubravka.
Newcastle are seeking their fifth win in a row, but struggled to escape the pressure of Liverpool.
Leeds, who are at risk of relegation, have also arrived impressively after being unbeaten in their last five matches.
But Rodri scored with a header before the end of the first half for City and goals from Nathan Ake, Gabriel Jesus and Fernandinho sealed the result, which was not as comfortable as the result indicated.
Leeds are five points behind Everton, who are 18th, but with two matches postponed.
Norwich was relegated to the second tier after losing 2-0 in the return of Norwich coach Dean Smith to Aston Villa.
Goals by Oli Watkins and Danny Ings resulted in Norwich’s 10th loss in 12 games and led by 13 points with four games remaining.
This is the fourth consecutive season that Norwich has landed or ascended.
Watford also came close to being relegated to the tournament after losing 2-1 to Burnley and became the first team in the First Division to score 11 consecutive defeats at home.
Watford was 12 points behind Leeds.
Burnley is five units from the landing area.
Southampton lead by 11 points – despite having played one game more than the rest of the teams at the bottom of the table – after losing 2-1 to Crystal Palace at home.
Brighton also beat Wolverhampton 3-0.
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission.
“Lifelong travel trailblazer. Food nerd. Award-winning music enthusiast. Twitter guru.”