City and Villa close gap on Arsenal, Liverpool edge Sunderland

Manchester City halved Arsenal’s lead at the top of the Premier League to three points with a 3-0 win overvisitors Fulham, while Aston Villa stayed in the frame with a late 1-0 victory at home to Brighton & Hove Albion on Wednesday.

Sunderland’s season-long unbeaten home record was ended as Liverpool won 1-0 to boost their top-four hopes.

Nottingham Forest squandered a chance to move away from the bottom three as they drew 0-0 with bottom side Wolverhampton Wanderers, while second-bottom Burnley priduced a remarkable 3-2 comeback win at Crystal Palace to boost their survival hopes.

City have little margin for error in their pursuit of leaders Arsenal, who are at Brentford on Thursday, but came up with a clinical display to dispose of Fulham.

Three goals in a 15-minute spell in the first half secured the points for Pep Guardiola’s second-placed side who moved to 53 points from 26 games and kept the pressure on Arsenal.

Antoine Semenyo poked City ahead in the 24th minute and then set up Nico O’Reilly with a pinpoint pass for the second.

Phil Foden then found Erling Haaland who dispatched a shot for his 22nd league goal of the campaign to confirm City’s 17th successive Premier League win against Fulham, the longest run by one team over another in the competition.

“The team in certain moments is growing, people are coming back. It is really, really important,” Guardiola said.

BRIGHTON OWN GOAL HANDS VILLA WIN

Villa’s slender title chances appeared to be ebbing away as they laboured at home to Brighton.

But they secured the points when the visitors’ Jack Hinshelwood put through his own goal after 86 minutes. Brighton midfielder James Milner, 40, came off the bench for his 653rd top-flight appearance, equalling Gareth Barry’s record.

Captain Virgil van Dijk was on target for Liverpool as they became the first team to leave Sunderland’s Stadium of Light with three points this season.

The Dutchman met a Mohamed Salah corner just past the hour mark and the ball crossed the line despite the efforts of Sunderland’s Habib Diarra to keep it out.

Liverpool are in sixth place with 42 points, two behind Chelsea who drew 2-2 at home to Leeds United on Tuesday.

“We can’t deny that it feels very big, but there are still 12 games to go. So we have to keep improving and trying to find consistency,” Van Dijk said.

FOREST FIRE BLANKS IN WOLVES STALEMATE

Forest had a remarkable 35 goal attempts against Wolves at the City Ground but none of them found the back of the net as Sean Dyche’s side dropped two important points.

The draw left them in 17th place, only three points above third-from-bottom West Ham United.

“It is very frustrating to dominate a game like that, with so many chances and there were plenty of good chances but it’s finding that killer moment,” Dyche said.

“The crowd get nervy, the team get nervy, there is a lot of pressure on these games.”

Wolves have nine points but are now only two points behind the lowest-ever Premier League total — Derby County’s 11 in the 2007-08 season.

Burnley ended a 16-game winless streak in remarkable fashion at Selhurst Park.

Palace were cruising after two goals by new signing Jorgen Strand Larsen inside the opening 33 minutes.

Burnley had not registered a shot on target in the first 39 minutes but bizarrely were ahead by halftime.

Hannibal Mejbri halved the deficit with a sweetly struck shot and Jaidon Anthony then drove a low effort inside the post to equalise. Burnley then went ahead in first-half stoppage time as Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson parried a shot but the ball trickled in off the foot of his teammate Jefferson Lerma.

Palace could not respond after the break as Burnley got their first league win since October, leaving them nine points behind Forest.