Manchester City moved a step closer to retaining the Premier League title with a 5-0 demolition of Newcastle on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola\u2019s side took control before half-time at the Etihad Stadium thanks to goals from Raheem Sterling and Aymeric Laporte.<\/span><\/p>\n Rodri got City\u2019s third after the break before Phil Foden and Sterling struck in stoppage time as they stormed back to the top of the table.<\/span><\/p>\n Liverpool had knocked the champions out of pole position with their 1-1 draw against Tottenham on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n But City are now three points clear of Liverpool, with three games left for both teams. Guardiola\u2019s men hold a goal difference four better than the Reds.<\/span><\/p>\n Quadruple chasing Liverpool are next in action at Aston Villa on Tuesday, while City head to Wolves 24 hours later.<\/span><\/p>\n City\u2019s stroll against Newcastle was the ideal way to recover from their painful Champions League semi-final exit against Real Madrid on Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n Real had scored twice in the final seconds of normal time before winning in extra-time, leaving Guardiola to lament there were \u201cno words to help\u201d his players get over the loss.<\/span><\/p>\n But City can exorcise those demons by winning a fourth English title in five seasons and this was a step in the right direction.<\/span><\/p>\n In the 19th minute, Joao Cancelo nodded an Ilkay Gundogan cross towards Sterling and he dived to head in from close-range.<\/span><\/p>\n City doubled their lead after 38 minutes when Newcastle keeper Martin Dubravka was unable to hold onto Gundogan\u2019s volley and Laporte scrambled home.<\/span><\/p>\n Rodri scored with a 61st minute header from Kevin De Bruyne\u2019s corner, then Foden diverted Oleksandr Zinchenko\u2019s shot into the net in the 90th minute.<\/span><\/p>\n Sterling rounded off the rout in stoppage-time with a cool finish from Jack Grealish\u2019s pass.<\/span><\/p>\n Eddie Nketiah netted twice in the first 10 minutes at the Emirates Stadium as Mikel Arteta\u2019s side earned their fourth successive win.<\/span><\/p>\n Leeds had skipper Luke Ayling sent off and, although Diego Llorente got one back in the 66th minute, it was too little, too late for Jesse Marsch\u2019s strugglers.<\/span><\/p>\n Fourth placed Arsenal are four points clear of fifth placed Tottenham, with three games left for both teams in the race to qualify for next season\u2019s Champions League via a top four finish.<\/span><\/p>\n AFP<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Manchester City moved a step closer to retaining the Premier League title with a 5-0 demolition of Newcastle on Sunday. Pep Guardiola\u2019s side took control before half-time at the Etihad Stadium thanks to goals from Raheem Sterling and Aymeric Laporte. Rodri got City\u2019s third after the break before Phil Foden and Sterling struck in stoppage […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1592,4721,4636],"class_list":["post-7887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-man-city","tag-newcastle","tag-premier-league-title"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7889,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7887\/revisions\/7889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}