London: Manchester City set a new top-flight record of 15 consecutive wins as their seemingly unstoppable march towards the Premier League title continued with a 4-0 romp at bottom club Swansea City Wednesday.
David Silva struck twice for Pep Guardiola’s side as they went past Arsenal’s 14-match winning sequence, although unlike the London club‘s, City’s streak has been in a single season.
Manchester United kept up a distant pursuit as they toiled to a 1-0 defeat of Bournemouth at Old Trafford to remain 11 points adrift in second place, Romelu Lukaku’s ninth league goal of the season proving just enough.
Liverpool and Arsenal could only draw 0-0 with struggling West Bromwich Albion and West Ham United respectively, allowing Tottenham Hotspur to move into fourth spot behind Chelsea thanks to a 2-0 win over Brighton and Hove Albion.
City have 49 points to United’s 38 with champions Chelsea on 35. Tottenham have 31, ahead of Liverpool on goal difference while Arsenal dropped to seventh with 30 points.
It was an enjoyable night for managers returning to former clubs as Sam Allardyce watched his Everton side win 1-0 at Newcastle United and Claude Puel’s fast-improving Leicester City triumphed 4-1 at Southampton, the club who sacked him at the end of last season despite taking them to the League Cup final.
City hardly broke sweat as they turned their trip to south Wales into a training session despite making four changes to the side that won 2-1 at Manchester United Sunday.
Silva opened the scoring from Bernardo Silva’s cross and Kevin De Bruyne made it 2-0 with a free kick. It was all over when the silky Silva played a one-two with Raheem Sterling to make it 3-0 early in the second half with his fourth goal in his last three games. Sergio Aguero fired past Lukasz Fabianski to complete the rout.
United looked flat after their chastening defeat against City and were indebted to Lukaku’s powerful header and several good saves by David de Gea against a plucky Bournemouth.
Liverpool were left to rue a late disallowed goal for Dominic Solanke as they could find no way past West Brom, their second home draw in four days.
Shinji Okazaki scored twice for Leicester as they racked up a fourth consecutive win, while Wayne Rooney earned Everton a 1-0 win at Newcastle United whose night ended in depressing fashion with a red card for Jonjo Shelvey.
reuters
