MANCHESTER City comfortably beat Crystal Palace to move back to within two points of Premier League leaders Arsenal and ensure a tense title tussle continues into the final week of the season.
Pep Guardiola’s side knew failure to win on Wednesday would have handed the Gunners an opportunity to clinch the title by beating Burnley on Monday, but this fascinating fight for the trophy looks like it’s going to the wire.
With Saturday’s FA Cup final against Chelsea in mind, manager Guardiola gambled with his City team selection by making six changes and leaving out the attacking trio of Erling Haaland, Rayan Cherki and the in-form Jeremy Doku.
The numerous alterations seemed to affect City early on, in a flat showing before midfielder Phil Foden sparked the game into life.
The England international produced a sublime backheel to play Antoine Semenyo in on goal and the Ghanaian produced a clinical strike past Dean Henderson, before Omar Marmoush doubled the lead, spinning and finishing following Foden’s pass.
Full-back Tyrick Mitchell’s thumping effort immediately after the opening goal, which was pushed away by Gianluigi Donnarumma, was Palace’s best effort but Savinho added a third for the hosts late on to complete a fine victory.
City’s meeting against Palace was the game in hand from their appearance in the Carabao Cup final back in March – the top two have now both played the same number of games with 36 apiece.
Arsenal will guarantee a long-awaited title triumph if they win both their remaining games, while they can also claim the title early next week if they beat Burnley on Monday and City fail to beat Bournemouth the following day.
But it appears that Arsenal will have to go and win the title themselves rather than having it handed to them.
Guardiola shuffled the starting XI against Palace but his side still managed to get the job done without enduring too much trouble.
Foden has been consigned to the bench for much of the last two months and he made only his third start in City’s past 13 matches, but the 25-year-old took his opportunity with two assists in the opening 45 minutes.
The first was a delightful piece of skill that ignited an insipid contest, finished off first-time by Semenyo to end a run of five games without scoring, while the second pass across the box allowed Marmoush to scramble in his eighth goal of the campaign.
City were handed a boost by the return in defence of Josko Gvardiol, playing for the first time since 4 January after sustaining a broken shinbone, and the Croatian almost scored on his comeback but saw a header pushed away at full stretch by Henderson.
City have already claimed the Carabao Cup at Wembley this season and they will aim to make it a cup double on Saturday but the question remains, will it stay that way or can they complete a domestic treble come 24 May?
Palace produced a shock by beating City in the FA Cup final last May but there was to be no repeat result this time.