Manchester City two points away from title after Arsenal’s loss to Brighton

Manchester City and Pep Guardiola are just two points away from clinching their fifth Premier League title in the last six seasons after beating Everton 3-0 at Goodison Park.

Ilkay Gundogan scored a brace, a goal in each half, sandwiching Erling Haaland’s 39th-minute strike in the first half. The win helped City go five points at the top of the table and a morale booster ahead of the second leg of their UEFA Champions League semifinal against Real Madrid at Etihad Stadium.

The five points lead was a temporary gap until Arsenal played Brighton later in the evening, while the result for Everton puts them at risk of dropping into the relegation zone depending on Leicester City’s game on Monday against Liverpool.

Manchester City has three games left in the Premier League season, while Arsenal has just two games left, and unless Arsenal wins the last two games and City losses the remaining three fixtures, the title is all Manchester City’s.

Arsenal’s second-half collapse at home to Brighton totally collapsed their title challenges leaving Manchester City within a win of the Premier League title. The loss also meant Brighton, who have two games in hand, could still make the UEFA Champions League place.

After a halftime draw without goals, Arsenal conceded to a Julio Enciso goal after six minutes into the second half. Late goals from Deniz Undav and Pervis Estupinan sent the seagulls to sixth on the table with 58 points from 34 games.

Brighton manager Roberto de Zerbi was happy with the result bouncing back from the damaging loss to Everton last Monday.

“We spent four or five days feeling terrible [after the Everton defeat]. Now I’m very happy because we showed the quality of play, the character, and the patience. We are working on our mentality to adapt to play a lot of games in a few days. I think we deserved to win because we played with the courage to win the game, not just to spend a day in London. Arsenal are still a big, big team, but I think we deserved to win because we played better.” De Zerbi said.

Daniel Ademiju Idowu