Tottenham and Chelsea take hold with goals, Arsenal and United stumble

Arsenal and Manchester United lost and vital points were left in the fight for the ‘Top 4’, on Saturday for the 32nd date of the Premier League, on a day marked by Chelsea’s thrashings against Southampton (6-0) and Tottenham against Aston Villa (4-0).

The ‘Spurs’ closed the Premier League matches on Saturday, aware of what their rivals had done for the ‘Top 4’. With a hat-trick from Son Heung-min (3, 66 and 71) and another goal from Dejan Kulusevski (50), Tottenham collected three very important points to consolidate fourth position and take a three-point lead over Arsenal.

Aston Villa deserved to at least score a goal, but ran into a successful Hugo Lloris. Harry Kane, again without scoring, was nevertheless decisive in building his team’s offensive game, which with this victory takes another step towards the next Champions League.

Their neighbor in north London, Arsenal (5th), who had just conceded a painful 3-0 defeat on Monday at Crystal Palace (9th), lost again on Saturday (2-1), during the visit from Brighton (11th) to the Emirates Stadium.

The team from the south coast of England had gone 7 games without a win (6 losses and a draw) and had not scored a goal for a month (2-1 loss at Newcastle on March 5).

However, Belgian Leandro Trossard first (28) and Enock Mwepu later (67) scored two goals that silenced the ‘Gunners’ fans. The Norwegian Martin Odegaard (89) closed the gap too late to score points.

Manchester United (7th), also in the fight for European places but with less margin for error, was defeated 1-0 at Everton (17th) in low hours.

With this result, the ‘Toffees’ are still 17th but open a bit of a gap (4 points with one more game) over the first team in relegation, Burnley, who had beaten them last week (3-2). The Liverpool team tries to stay in the first category of English football, where it has remained since 1954.

Despite not having created much danger, the ‘Toffees’ showed at least more determination than their rival.

Manchester United showed their best face in the opening minutes, with two chances by Marcus Rashford disrupted by Jordan Pickford (minutes 9 and 12).

But Frank Lampard’s players won the midfield battle and took advantage of their first approach to United’s box to score the only goal of the game, Anthony Gordon’s long shot slightly deflected by Harry Maguire (27).

Chelsea, settled in a 3rd position that is not in danger, paid against Southampton (13th) for the frustration after last defeats in the championship 4-1 against Brentford (15th) and in the Champions League on Wednesday against Real Madrid (3 -one).

With goals from Marcos Alonso (8), Mason Mount (16 and 54), Timo Werner (21 and 49) and Kai Havertz (31), the ‘Blues’ showed muscle against a lesser rival, in a victory that helped them recover feelings and morale ahead of the decisive second leg of the quarterfinals in the Champions League, on Tuesday at the Santiago Bernabéu.

At the bottom of the table, Leeds (16th) beat Watford (19th) 3-0 and has now accumulated four consecutive games without losing, in which it is achieving important points to avoid relegation.

The goals of Raphinha (21), Rodrigo Moreno (73) and Jack Harrison (85) did not find any response from the ‘Hornets’, in serious trouble to achieve permanence.

— Results of the matches of the 32nd day of the English football championship, and classification table:

– Friday:

Newcastle – Wolverhampton 1 – 0

– Saturday:

Everton – Manchester United 1 – 0

Southampton – Chelsea 0 – 6

Watford – Leeds 0 – 3

Arsenal – Brighton 1 – 2

Aston Villa – Tottenham 0 – 4

– Sunday:

(13h00 GMT) Brentford – West Ham

Leicester – Crystal Palace

Norwich City – Burnley

(15h30 GMT) Manchester City – Liverpool

Classification: Pts JGEP GF GC Diff

1. Manchester City 73 30 23 4 3 70 18 52

2. Liverpool 72 30 22 6 2 77 20 57

3. Chelsea 62 30 18 8 4 64 23 41

4. Tottenham 57 31 18 3 10 56 37 19

5. Arsenal 54 30 17 3 10 45 36 9

6.West Ham 51 31 15 6 10 51 40 11

7. Manchester United 51 31 14 9 8 49 42 7

8. Wolverhampton 49 32 15 4 13 33 28 5

9. Crystal Palace 37 30 8 13 9 42 38 4

10. Leicester 37 28 10 7 11 43 47 -4

11. Brighton 37 31 8 13 10 28 37 -9

12. Aston Villa 36 31 11 3 17 42 46 -4

13. Southampton 36 31 8 12 11 37 52 -15

14. Newcastle 34 31 8 10 13 34 54 -20

15. Brentford 33 31 9 6 16 37 48 -11

16. Leeds 33 32 8 9 15 38 68 -30

17. Everton 28 30 8 4 18 33 52 -19

18. Burnley 24 29 4 12 13 25 42 -17

19. Watford 22 31 6 4 21 29 60 -31

20. Norwich City 18 30 4 6 20 18 63 -45

str / hpa / iga-dam / dr

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