LONDON, April 3: With north London rivals Tottenham and Arsenal neck and neck, the fight for Champions League qualification looks like being as hard fought as the title race in the English Premier League.
Tottenham’s superior attacking power might yet prove decisive in the final stretch.
Out of nowhere, Antonio Conte’s team is the highest-scoring team in the league in 2022 – with 30 goals in 13 games – after overwhelming Newcastle 5-1 on Sunday.
It lifted Spurs above Arsenal into fourth place, the final qualification spot for the Champions League, but only on goal difference. Arsenal has two games in hand, the first being a tricky one at Crystal Palace on Monday.
With Ben Davies, Matt Doherty, Son Heung-min, Emerson Royal and substitute Steven Bergwijn scoring, the big surprise was that in-form striker Harry Kane didn’t get in on the act.
Fourth place might not be the ceiling for Tottenham and Arsenal, who have only the Premier League to focus on. Chelsea is only five points ahead in third and has to juggle playing in the Champions League and FA Cup over the next month, too.
West Ham vs Everton
Everton remained in deep trouble in the Premier League after losing 2-1 at West Ham on Sunday, with defender Michael Keane getting a second-half red card.
Jarrod Bowen scored the winning goal in the 58th minute, converting a rebound into an empty net.
Aaron Cresswell gave West Ham the lead with a curling free kick into the top corner in the 32nd, only for Mason Holgate to equalize in the 53rd with a deflected shot.
On Saturday, Liverpool completed its 119-day mission to displace Manchester City from atop the English Premier League.
It lasted only a matter of hours. Liverpool was first up, beating third-from-last Watford 2-0 thanks to goals by Diogo Jota and Fabinho to make it 10 straight victories in the league.
That meant City dropped out of first place for the first time since Dec 4 – but not for long.
Pep Guardiola’s team kicked off barely 30 minutes later at next-to-last Burnley, took the lead after five minutes through Kevin De Bruyne, and coasted to a 2-0 victory. Ilkay Gundogan scored the other goal.
Chelsea vs Brentford
If third-placed Chelsea had any faint ambitions of catching the top two, they were surely extinguished after conceding four second-half goals in a stunning 4-1 home loss to London rival Brentford.
One of Brentford’s scorers at Stamford Bridge was Christian Eriksen, who netted the second for his first goal in the Premier League since returning from suffering a cardiac arrest at last year’s European Championship. He also scored in back-to-back games for Denmark over the international break.
Chelsea – up for sale and beset by unrelenting takeover talk – might now be looking over its shoulder, with fourth-placed Arsenal five points adrift but with a game in hand. That’s at Crystal Palace on Monday.
Man Utd vs Leicester
Manchester United looks increasingly unlikely to capture a Champions League qualification place from the wreckage of its season.
A 1-1 draw at home to Leicester kept United in sixth place but the gap was four points to Arsenal, which has two games in hand.
Leicester went ahead through Kelechi Iheanacho’s 63rd-minute diving header, only for Fred to equalize three minutes later.
Other results
Southampton midfielder James Ward-Prowse earned his team a 1-1 draw at Leeds with a free kick into the top corner.
Last-placed Norwich ended a run of six straight losses in the league by drawing at Brighton 0-0. Norwich is seven points from safety with eight games left.
In the other game, Wolverhampton climbed to seventh and to push for a finish in the European positions by beating Aston Villa 2-1. (AP)
