City keep up title charge, Arsenal blank Tottenham

LONDON (AP): RSENAL CHIPPED away at Tottenham’s recent north London supremacy with a derby victory, but catching the Manchester City juggernaut, though, is looking harder by the week in the English Premier League.

Manchester United are trying, coming from behind against Newcastle yesterday 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 are now only a point behind Tottenham, 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

Apoints off the bottom. Everton, who are still trying to hire a successor for Ronald Koeman, came back twice to draw at bottomplace 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 at Leicester.

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

ARSENAL CONTRACTS

Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil showed their value to Arsenal in the derby win. Ozil’s free kick set up Shkodran Mustafi’s header for the opener, and Sanchez netted at the near post just before halftime.

Whether Ozil and Sanchez are still at the club to face Tottenham next season is far from certain as the attacking duo has yet to commit to new deals.

“I believe that they love the club, they want to stay,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said, “but there are other top clubs out there who offer good contracts as well.”

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, 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 earlierthan-expected comeback after seven months out with knee ligament damage. Belgium’s David Goffin celebrates winning match point against Roger Federer of Switzerland during their ATP World Tour Finals semi-final tennis match yesterday.