Arsenal drubs Tottenham, Man City push on for title

LONDON — Arsenal chipped away at Tottenham’s recent north London supremacy with a derby victory.

Catching the Manchester City juggernaut, though, is looking harder by the week in the English Premier League.

Manchester United is trying, coming from behind against Newcastle on Saturday to produce a 4-1 victory featuring Paul Pogba scoring on his return after two months on the sidelines.

The last unbeaten team, City remains eight points clear of United after swatting aside Leicester 2-0 with goals from Gabriel Jesus and Kevin De Bruyne.

Tottenham slipped 11 points behind the leaders in fourth after a six-match unbeaten run against Arsenal ended with a 2-0 loss. Arsenal is now only a point behind Tottenham, but is also behind Liverpool on goal difference after Mohamed Salah netted twice in a 3-0 win over Southampton.

Eden Hazard was also at the double for Chelsea in a 4-0 victory at West Bromwich Albion that kept the champions a point behind United. The result could further imperil the job security of West Brom manager Tony Pulis.

Paul Clement’s future at Swansea also looks less certain after a 2-0 loss at Burnley left the south Wales club three points off the bottom. Everton, which is still trying to hire a successor for Ronald Koeman, came back twice to draw at bottom-place Crystal Palace 2-2.

Callum Wilson became the first English hat-trick scorer this season as Bournemouth beat Huddersfield 4-0, and coped with 10 men for half the game after Simon Francis saw red.

CITY BLOW

It’s not all going Pep Guardiola’s way. The Manchester City manager expects to be without John Stones for four to six weeks after the defender pulled up with a hamstring injury around 30 minutes into the game Leicester.

“We don’t have a lot of central defenders so we are going to suffer,” Guardiola said, “but we will find a solution.”

LUKAKU DROUGHT OVER

United has scored four times in seven of its 12 league matches.

Dwight Gayle’s opener for Newcastle was swiftly overturned by headers from Anthony Martial and Chris Smalling. In the second half, Paul Pogba tapped in a third and Romelu Lukaku ended a seven-match goal drought.

United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic went on in the second half to make an earlier-than-expected comeback after seven months out with knee ligament damage.

PULIS PRESSURE

West Brom is 11 games without a win after being crushed by Chelsea 4-0, and Chinese owner Guochuan Lai will have to decide whether to retain Pulis or search for a new manager.

“I’ve been in the game long enough to know if you get bad runs then that’s what happens,” Pulis said. “[The ownership] have to make a decision. ”

The crowd chanted “Pulis out” at the end of a game that was beyond West Brom after collapsing in the first half when Alvaro Morata, Hazard and Marcos Alonso all scored inside minutes. Hazard netted again in the second half.