{"id":35147,"date":"2026-01-08T15:04:59","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T15:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=35147"},"modified":"2026-01-08T15:04:59","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T15:04:59","slug":"city-villa-falter-in-premier-league-title-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=35147","title":{"rendered":"City, Villa falter in Premier League title race"},"content":{"rendered":"
Manchester City and Aston Villa missed the chance to make significant inroads into Arsenal’s Premier League lead on Wednesday as managerless Manchester United were held at lowly Burnley.
\nElsewhere on a frantic night of action, 10-man Chelsea went down 2-1 at Fulham in front of new boss Liam Rosenior and Antoine Semenyo scored a fairytale winner for Bournemouth against Tottenham.
\nErling Haaland scored his 150th City goal from the penalty spot to put Pep Guardiola’s team ahead at the Etihad but Kaoru Mitoma made it 1-1 in the second half.
\nNorway forward Haaland has reached 150 goals in all competitions in his 173rd appearance — 28 games faster than any other Premier League player.
\nBut he and his teammates squandered a succession of chances as they drew a third game in a row.
\nCity are now on 43 points, five behind Arsenal, who can go eight clear with a home win against Liverpool on Thursday.
\nVilla are level on points with City following a costly goalless draw at Crystal Palace.
\nCity boss Guardiola bemoaned his team’s profligacy in front of goal.
\n“I love a lot the way we played, we did many good things, but we don’t score goals,” he said. “There are too many clear chances.”
\n\u00a0
\nRosenior watches Chelsea defeat
\nChelsea’s new head coach Rosenior watched his charges from the stands at Craven Cottage.
\nThe Englishman, who replaced the departed Enzo Maresca this week, will be in the dugout for the first time at second-tier Charlton in the FA Cup third round on Saturday.
\nThe former Strasbourg boss said before kick-off that the team “need to hit the ground running for the rest of the season”.
\nBut, still under the interim leadership of Calum McFarlane, they were reduced to 10 men midway through the first half when Marc Cucurella was shown a straight red card for hauling down Harry Wilson.
\nLiam Delap cancelled out Raul Jimenez’s opener but Wilson scored what proved to be the winner from the edge of the area.
\nBournemouth beat troubled Tottenham 3-2, with Semenyo scoring from outside the area deep into stoppage time on his 26th birthday.
\nThe winger, expected to join City in the next few days, was given a standing ovation when he was substituted moments before the final whistle.
\nDefeat heaps the pressure on Spurs boss Thomas Frank, who has overseen just two wins in his past 12 Premier League matches during his first season at the London club.
\n“It’s extremely painful to be on the Tottenham side after the game,” the Dane told the BBC. “We put everything into the game.”
\nManchester United travelled to relegation-threatened Burnley under the temporary leadership of former midfielder Darren Fletcher, two days after the sacking of Ruben Amorim.
\nBenjamin Sesko doubled his Premier League tally for the season, scoring twice as United came back from a goal down at Turf Moor.
\nBut Jaidon Anthony finished smartly past the diving Senne Lammens as United drew 2-2 — they have won just once in their past six games.
\n“For me the fact we have drawn is a massive disappointment,” Fletcher told the BBC. “If you look at the context of the game, the chances we created, goalline clearances, a disallowed goal, 30 shots, lots of attacking play.
\n“We created more than enough to win the game so obviously it is disappointing when you only come away with a point.”
\nHarvey Barnes scored a dramatic winner in the 102nd minute as Newcastle, who had been trailing heading into stoppage time, beat Leeds 4-3 at St James’ Park.
\nThe home fans chanted for former manager Kevin Keegan as the club posted the words “We’re all with you King Kev” on the big screen.
\nThe club earlier shared a statement from Keegan’s family announcing the ex-England boss had been diagnosed with cancer.
\nBrazilian forward Igor Thiago scored his 15th and 16th Premier League goals of the season as Brentford beat Sunderland 3-0 to climb to fifth in the table.
\nEverton, reduced to nine men late in the match, held on to draw 1-1 with bottom club Wolves.\u00a0<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Manchester City and Aston Villa missed the chance to make significant inroads into Arsenal’s Premier League lead on Wednesday as managerless Manchester United were held at lowly Burnley. Elsewhere on a frantic night of action, 10-man Chelsea went down 2-1 at Fulham in front of new boss Liam Rosenior and Antoine Semenyo scored a fairytale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}