London (AFP)
Manchester City regained the lead in the English Premier League, after losing temporarily for two hours in favor of chasing Liverpool, who beat Watford 2-0 on Saturday, so that the defending champion responded with the same result against its host Burnley in the opening of the thirty-first stage.
City raised its lead to 73 points from 30 games, keeping the point difference with Liverpool, while Chelsea’s third and European champions’ balance froze at 59 with their resounding fall against their guest Brentford 1-4.
After the difference between the two teams reached 14 points, Liverpool rose up with a series of wonderful matches, leading to its tenth victory in a row “Saturday”.
What increases the intensity and excitement of the competition between the two teams is that they will meet twice this month, the first in the league at Al-Ittihad Stadium next Sunday in a match whose outcome may be decisive to determine the destination of the title, and the second a week later at Wembley Stadium in the cup semi-finals.
In the first, City repeated its victory over Burnley after it was dropped by the same result, with goals from Portuguese Bernardo Silva and Belgian Kevin De Bruyne, achieving his tenth victory over his opponent in various competitions, during which he scored 34 goals and conceded a goal.
And the runner-up of the Champions League last season prepared in the best possible way for his European entitlement, three days later, against its guest, Atletico Madrid, in the first leg of the quarter-finals of the continental competition.
Burnley, the bottom runner-up with 21 points, suffered their fourth loss in a row in the league after Leicester City and Brentford, with the same score, 0-2, and Chelsea by four.
City decided the result in a one-way first half, during which they seized the ball, as usual, and managed to score twice at their hosts, while Burnley struggled to capitalize on the crumbs of the opportunities they obtained.
De Bruyne opened the scoring after a joint game from Spaniard Rodri to Raheem Sterling, and from him to the Belgian international inside the penalty area, with a strong right-footed shot in the opposite corner “5”, in his tenth goal in the league this season.
Sterling returned to the fore with a second decisive pass to German captain Ilkay Gundogan, who followed up with a shot on the fly that deceived goalkeeper Nick Pope (25).
The most dangerous opportunity for City appeared in the second half, with a ball from Phil Foden’s replacement, Brazilian striker Gabriel Jesus, who blocked the 80’s post.
With Senegalese striker Sadio Mane sitting on the bench after a few days of leading his country to the World Cup finals at the expense of his Egyptian colleague Mohamed Salah, who played a key role, the dreamy Liverpool prepared with a historic quartet in the best way for his trip on Tuesday to Portugal, where he faces Benfica in the first leg of the quarter-finals of the Champions League .
And in his nineteenth confrontation with “Anfield” against coaches who had previously supervised him, this time Roy Hodgson, who failed to repeat the April 2012 scenario with West Bromwich, when he became and is still the only former coach of the “reds” team to win them in their stronghold, Liverpool struggled to enter The atmosphere after returning from the window designated for international matches.
But the brilliant Portuguese Diogo Jota, who was excited about leading his country to the 2022 World Cup through the European playoff, succeeded in opening the scoring for German coach Juergen Klopp’s team from the first real opportunity, with a header after a cross from Joe Gomez, taking advantage of a wrong exit from goalkeeper Ben Foster “22”, To raise his score to 14 goals alone, in second place on the scorers list behind his colleague Salah (20).
“The Premier League is the most important competition,” Klopp said after his team’s victory. “This week will determine what May will be. The players have built strong foundations and now we have to use them.”
And he added, “I don’t think that after the international break I saw the best game of the season, and” we were very mature and in control (of the match).”
After the goal, Liverpool returned to suffering in building attacks and did not threaten their guest’s goal until the 38th minute, when Foster starred this time in blocking Jota’s shot from a narrow angle.
The result remained the same until the end of the first half, in which Watford was the best and even the most dangerous, similar to the beginning of the second half, in which Liverpool was affected by the suffering of its star Salah in particular, as the Egyptian missed his usual danger.
Klopp resorted to Mane instead of Salah in the 69th minute, hoping that the African champions would be able to secure the result for the hosts with a second goal, but he did not, in turn, provide anything to keep Jota’s goal separating the two teams until the last seconds when the Portuguese himself snatched a penalty kick from the Slovakian Juraj Kotska Anbri The Brazilian Fabinho successfully had it “89”, dealing the final blow to the guests who received the eighth defeat in a row in the stronghold of “The Reds”.
In London at Stamford Bridge, Brentford stunned his neighbor and his guest Chelsea with three goals within 10 minutes, alternating their records by German Vitaly Yanlett (50 and 60) and Danish Christian Eriksen, who returned to the stadiums after a heart attack he suffered in the European Cup last summer (54), before To add the fourth through the Congolese Yuan Wesa «87», in response to the goal of the lead from the owners of the land of German defender Antonio Rudiger «48».
Despite its first loss against Burnley since 1939, Chelsea seems to guarantee its participation in the Champions League, in which it continues this season’s campaign to defend the title, but it collides in the quarter-finals with Real Madrid, the record holder for the number of titles (13).
Despite suffering from the circumstances imposed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that affected its Russian owner Roman Abramovich, German coach Thomas Tuchel’s team was not affected by the results until its loss to Brentford, opening the door to the possibility of reducing Arsenal’s fourth, which is five points behind him, the difference between them in the event of a victory over Hosted by Crystal Palace on Monday.
Leeds United drew 1-1 with Southampton, and Brighton drew with Norwich City, while Wolverhampton beat Aston Villa 2-1.
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