{"id":42233,"date":"2026-03-01T12:04:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T12:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42233"},"modified":"2026-03-01T12:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T12:04:32","slug":"man-city-win-to-close-on-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=42233","title":{"rendered":"Man City win to close on Arsenal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Manchester City shrugged off the absence of Erling Haaland to close to within two points of Premier League leaders Arsenal with a 1-0 win at Leeds on Saturday, while Liverpool beat West Ham 5-2 to climb into fifth.<\/p>\n<p>Haaland was absent for the trip to the city of his birth due to a minor injury that Pep Guardiola described as &#8220;not a big problem&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Without the Norwegian, City were far from their best but ground out a vital three points against a Leeds side that had lost just twice in their previous 16 games.<\/p>\n<p>Leeds were left to rue not making the most of their early dominance as Dominic Calvert-Lewin skewed wide a glorious chance just three minutes in.<\/p>\n<p>Antoine Semenyo instead proved to be the match-winner with his sixth goal in 11 games since joining City last month.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a huge victory to still be there (in the race),&#8221; said Guardiola, whose side and Arsenal are still involved in four competitions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One game at a time. Recover now and start the real season when there are many, many games and everyone&#8217;s tired.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tempers flared at full-time as Leeds boss Daniel Farke was shown a red card for confronting referee Peter Bankes, while Guardiola was also furious at the officials.<\/p>\n<p>The pressure is now on Arsenal to respond when they host Chelsea in the pick of Sunday&#8217;s action.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool&#8217;s set-piece turnaround<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool&#8217;s new-found strength from set-pieces masked another unconvincing performance against struggling West Ham.<\/p>\n<p>All three first-half goals from Hugo Ekitike, Virgil van Dijk and Alexis Mac Allister came from corners, putting Arne Slot&#8217;s men in a commanding position.<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool have gone from the worst Premier League performers in terms of set-pieces at the end of 2025 to the best since January 1.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In my opinion we have played better when we lost,&#8221; said Slot. &#8220;We start scoring from set-pieces and things start looking brighter and better than when you don&#8217;t.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cody Gakpo added another goal after the break before an Axel Disasi own goal capped off the win for Liverpool.<\/p>\n<p>Defeat deals another blow to the Hammers&#8217; hopes of survival as they remain two points adrift of safety.<\/p>\n<p>But they hit back twice in the second half through Tomas Soucek and Valentin Castellanos and could have scored more at Anfield.<\/p>\n<p>A place in the top five is almost certain to secure Champions League football next season thanks to the strong results of English sides in European competition this season.<\/p>\n<p>Liverpool move three points clear of sixth-placed Chelsea.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Brentford edge Burnley in thriller<\/p>\n<p>Burnley&#8217;s slim chances of survival took another body blow in an agonising 4-3 defeat at home to Brentford.<\/p>\n<p>The Bees were cruising to victory and within two points of Chelsea when goals from Mikkel Damsgaard, Igor Thiago and Kevin Schade put them 3-0 up inside 34 minutes at Turf Moor.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Kayode&#8217;s own goal gave the Clarets hope before half-time and they levelled through Jaidon Anthony and Zian Flemming.<\/p>\n<p>Flemming thought he had completed a remarkable comeback only for a VAR review to rule the goal out for offside.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it was Brentford who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat when Damsgaard netted his second goal in stoppage time.<\/p>\n<p>There was still time for another VAR review to deny Burnley a point when Ashley Barnes was adjudged to have handled before scoring a 98th-minute equaliser.<\/p>\n<p>Everton notched another excellent away win to maintain their hope of European football next season with a 3-2 victory at Newcastle.<\/p>\n<p>Three times the Toffees led at St James&#8217; Park through Jarrad Branthwaite, Beto and Thierno Barry.<\/p>\n<p>Everton have struggled to adapt to their new home at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, but only Arsenal have won more points on the road, with David Moyes&#8217; men climbing into eighth.<\/p>\n<p>Bournemouth stretched their unbeaten league run to eight games after coming from behind to rescue a 1-1 draw at home to Sunderland in the lunchtime kick-off.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Manchester City shrugged off the absence of Erling Haaland to close to within two points of Premier League leaders Arsenal with a 1-0 win at Leeds on Saturday, while Liverpool beat West Ham 5-2 to climb into fifth. Haaland was absent for the trip to the city of his birth due to a minor injury [&hellip;]<\/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-42233","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\/42233","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=42233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}