Away wins see City, Liverpool continue EPL battle

It’s still advantage Manchester City in the English Premier League title race after the league leaders and Liverpool won tricky away matches yesterday.

First up were Liverpool, who won at Newcastle 1-0 despite resting several players, and were briefly atop the table.

Then City won at Leeds 4-0 a few hours later to move back above Liverpool by one point and also move to within one of Liverpool’s goal difference, which is the first tiebreaker in England.

There are four rounds left in their compelling title fight.

‘‘We stuck together and we reduced the goal difference. I don’t know if it is important – but it is in our hands,’’ City coach Pep Guardiola said.

‘‘Newcastle, Wolves, West Ham and Aston Villa. We know exactly what we have to do and we have the same opinion. We win, we will be champions. We draw, they [Liverpool] will be champions.’’

Both sides also have the second legs of their Champions League semifinals this week: Liverpool travel to Villarreal with a 2-0 lead, and City play at Real Madrid having also won the first leg 4-3.

With that in mind, Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp rested Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Thiago Alcantara and Mohamed Salah from the starting lineup.

They should nevertheless have won more comfortably as they dominated. In the end, Naby Keita’s first-half goal did the job.

Relegation-threatened Leeds also came in with impressive form from being unbeaten in the previous five matches.

But Rodri headed City into a halftime lead, and further goals from Nathan Ake, Gabriel Jesus and Fernandinho sealed the result, which was not as comfortable as the scoreline suggests.

Leeds remained one place and five points above third-frombottom Everton, who have two games in hand.

Norwich were relegated after Dean Smith’s return to Aston Villa ended in a 2-0 defeat.

Goals from Ollie Watkins and Danny Ings inflicted a 10th loss in 12 on Norwich and left them 13 points from safety with four matches remaining.

Watford are also on the brink of going straight back down to the Championship after losing 2-1 to Burnley 2 to become the first team in top-flight history to lose 11 straight home games.

Two late goals consigned Watford to defeat and left them 12 points behind Leeds. Burnley moved five points clear of the drop.

Southampton were 11 points clear – although they have played a match more than all of the teams around them – after losing 2-1 at home to Crystal Palace. In the other match, Brighton won at Wolverhampton 3-0.