Champions Manchester City provisionally climbed to the top of the Premier League table after thrashing lowly Luton Town 5-1 on Saturday, with Daiki Hashioka scoring an own goal off his face and Erling Haaland netting his 20th league goal of the season.
With Arsenal and Liverpool both playing on Sunday, City
marched above them with a rampant display to move to 73 points from 32 games.
Arsenal (71) host fourth-placed Aston Villa while Liverpool (71) welcome
Crystal Palace.
It was a statement win by City in their chase for an
unprecedented fourth successive English title and more evidence that any team
finishing above them will have to be near-perfect between now and the end of
the season.
Tottenham Hotspur's hopes of finishing fourth and ensuring a
Champions League berth were dealt a blow as they were hammered 4-0 at Newcastle
United who moved into sixth place to boost their own European hopes.
At the bottom Brentford eased away from trouble with a 2-0
home win against Sheffield United for whom time is running out.
Nottingham Forest missed the chance to do the same as they
were held to a 2-2 draw at home by Wolverhampton Wanderers. Forest are in 17th
place, one point above third-from bottom Luton Town and six ahead of
19th-placed Burnley who drew 1-1 at home to Brighton and Hove Albion.
Manchester United are away at Bournemouth later on Saturday,
trying to reclaim sixth place from Newcastle.
City needed only 65 seconds to go ahead against Luton with
Erling Haaland's wayward volley smashing into the face of Luton's Daiki
Hashioka and into the net.
Luton hung in grimly but Mateo Kovacic's strike made it 2-0
in the 64th minute before Haaland made it 3-0 from the penalty spot for his
20th league goal of the season.
Jeremy Doku and Josko Gvardiol were also on target for City,
with Ross Barkley grabbing a consolation for Luton.
Kicking off early, Tottenham had the chance to move three
points above Villa in the scrap for fourth place but were blown away by a
clinical Newcastle side.
Newcastle struck twice in the space of two minutes in the
first half with Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon punishing some poor defending
by the visitors.
Isak made it 3-0 when he latched on to a long clearance
early in the second half to take his league tally for the season to 17 and
Fabian Schar added a fourth late on.
Tottenham dropped down to fifth below Villa on goal
difference and with a tough run-in to come will have to dust themselves down
quickly.
"Newcastle were good, credit to them, I thought they
were really good today. We just didn't really get a grip of the game at
all," Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou said.
Brentford moved up to 14th in the table as Thomas Frank's
side ended a winless run of nine Premier League games.
An own goal by Oliver Arblaster gave Brentford the lead in
the 63rd minute and Frank Onyeka wrapped it up in stoppage time with his first
goal for the club.
Matheus Cunha scored twice for Wolverhampton Wanderers in
his first start for two months to deny Forest a vital three points in their bid
to stay up.
Cunha gave Wolves a first-half lead with a superb solo goal,
before the excellent Morgan Gibbs-White equalised on the stroke of halftime and
Danilo put Forest in front before the hour-mark.
But a mistake by goalkeeper Matz Sels allowed Cunha to score
his second and earn his side a point.
Burnley will also rue a missed opportunity as they were held
by Brighton -- an embarrassing own-goal by goalkeeper Arijanet Muric costing
them the three points.
Substitute Josh Brownhill put the home side ahead in the
74th minute but Burnley's joy was short-lived as Muric allowed a Sander Berge
back pass to roll under his foot.
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