Manchester City and Aston Villa kept the pressure on Premier League leader Arsenal with wins on Sunday.
Nottingham Forest pulled further away from the relegation zone with a 3-0 victory against Tottenham and Sunderland beat Newcastle 1-0 in the Tyne-Wear derby after an own-goal from Nick Woltemade.
Arsenal had extended its lead at the top of the standings to five points with a 2-1 win against Wolves on Saturday. But a day later its closest rivals both responded with victories – second-place City winning 3-0 at Crystal Palace and Villa, in third, twice coming back to beat West Ham 3-2 at the London Stadium.
City is two points behind Arsenal and Villa is a point further back.
Beaten by Palace in the FA Cup final last season, City exacted some revenge to take all three points at Selhurst Park.
“They are so strong. Every time we play against them it’s so difficult,” City manager Pep Guardiola said. “Still, we are not top, but we are learning and after what happened we will be closer in the future.”
Erling Haaland scored his 101st Premier League goal to put City in front late in the first half and he got his second of the match with an 89th-minute penalty. The Norwegian has 36 goals in 27 appearances for club and country in another remarkable scoring season. He is the league’s leading scorer with 17 goals.
Phil Foden got City’s other goal in between Haaland’s double.
Morgan Rogers scored twice in the second half to extend Aston Villa’s winning run to nine-straight games in all competitions and keep Unai Emery’s team on the heels of Arsenal and City.
Villa has lost just one of its last 13 games in the league and won 10 of its last 11, but twice had to come from behind at relegation fighting West Ham.
“We feel unstoppable, but we are making it difficult for ourselves,” Rogers said. “The battle and resilience we have means we know we can get back into it against a good team.
“We want to keep this going, it’s about being confident and I’m feeling good.”
Mateus Fernandes scored the fastest goal in England’s top flight this season when putting the home team 1-0 up after just 29 seconds. But Konstantinos Mavropanos’ own-goal leveled the game eight minutes later.
Jarrod Bowen then gave West Ham the lead at halftime with his second goal in as many games in the 24th.
Rogers leveled the game again five minutes after the break and struck the winner in the 79th.
The pressure is mounting on Tottenham coach Thomas Frank, who was left infuriated after a latest loss.
Spurs have won just one of their last seven games in the league and face defending champion Liverpool at home next week. (JapanToday)
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