Manchester City’s hat-trick ignites the top race and increases the pressure on Arsenal

Manchester City took full advantage of its postponed match of the thirty-first stage of the English Football League to tighten the noose on leaders Arsenal, with a great victory over its guest Crystal Palace 3-0 on Wednesday in Manchester.

Spanish coach Pep Guardiola’s team, which is preparing to face Chelsea on Saturday at Wembley Stadium in the cup final after having previously won the League Cup as well, is now two points away from Arsenal with two matches remaining for each of them.

City’s path towards regaining the title that it gave up last season to Liverpool seems difficult, as it plays its last two matches at Bournemouth VI, which aspires to participate in the Champions League, and against its guest, Aston Villa 5th.

As for Arsenal, it will play against Burnley, relegated to the second level, and Crystal Palace, making it the most likely to win the title for the first time since 2004, before facing Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final on the 30th of this month.

Given that the cup final is due on Saturday, Guardiola decided to start the match by keeping Norwegian top scorer Erling Haaland, Belgian Jeremy Doku, Frenchman Ryan Chergui and Nico O’Reilly on the bench, relying on the Egyptian quartet Omar Marmoush, Phil Foden, the Brazilian Savinho and the Ghanaian Antoine Semenyu in the front line.

Against a team that achieved only one victory over the Citizens in the last nine matches and was in the cup final last season (0-1), Guardiola’s team suffered and found itself threatened on more than one occasion, but the goal came from the opposite side when Foden played a wonderful ball with the heel of the foot for Semenho, who advanced it into the penalty area before shooting it into the net (32).

From a long ball from Croatian Joshko Gvardiol into the penalty area, Foden failed to control it properly, but it found its way to his teammate Marmoush, who manipulated the defense and then shot it into the net, scoring the second goal for the home team (40).

In the second half, the score remained the same, without any real chances for the goalscorers until the 84th minute, when substitute Sharqi passed the through ball to Savinho, who was penetrating on the right side of the penalty area, and the Brazilian shot it into the far corner, dealing the final blow to the London guest, who is competing in the Conference League final on the 27th of this month against Rayo Vallecano of Spain.