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Despite extending an 11-point lead with a 2-0 win over Manchester City on Sunday, Liverpool manager Arne Slot said the depth of the Premier League meant his side can take nothing for granted.

Second-placed Arsenal are in the lead, but Slot’s men made a huge comeback with their first league victory at the Etihad Stadium in ten years, leading to a record-equal 20th English top flight title.

During Pep Guardiola’s time in charge, cities have won four straight titles in the last four seasons, dominating English football.

They haven’t been as effective this year, and they are now 20 points adrift of Liverpool, who are currently fourth.

“If you play away at the Etihad, if you win there, it’s always a big win, no matter what the league table looks like,” said Slot.

After Mohamed Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai scored in the first half, City ran out of ideas in their pitiful search for a way back into the game. The travelling Liverpool supporters sang, “We are going to win the league.”

Slot, though, remains cautious after suffering a shock FA Cup exit to second-tier Plymouth Argyle earlier this month and being pushed all the way by relegation-threatened Wolves in a 2-1 win last weekend.

“The fans can sing whatever they want, I think they’ve been singing it quite long already. But as a team, we are aware of how hard we must work to ensure that every victory is celebrated,” Slot continued.

“So in every other league, having a lead like this would be very comfortable, except for this one, because this league, every single game gives you a lot of challenges.

“Even Plymouth Argyle gave us a lot of challenges. ”

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City Miss the ‘Magic’ 

When Guardiola’s men lost just one win in 13 games between October and December, City’s title defense was actually over.

City were much more competitive with the Premier League champions-elect after a harrowing Champions League exit to Real Madrid in midweek.

The home side enjoyed 66 percent possession and had 16 shots on goal to Liverpool’s eight.

However, Liverpool could rely on Salah for inspiration in the final third while City were lacking Erling Haaland’s talismanic presence as a result of their injury.

“I think (Jeremy) Doku and Savinho played an incredible game and got to the by-line a lot but then just from there we missed the magic,” said Guardiola.

“We played really good so I have no regrets. The chances in the final third, when we want to shoot and cross, for the amount we arrived there, we did not create much. ”

Guardiola claims that City has occasionally appeared to be an ageing team during this season’s fall from grace.

But the Catalan coach saw signs of rejuvenation as three of his January signings, Omar Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez and Abdukodir Khusanov, started along with the likes of Doku, Savinho, Rico Lewis and Phil Foden.

“I saw a bright future. Other than Kevin (De Bruyne) and Nathan (Ake), they are the future of this club in the next years, with others who will come in future windows. ”

Real Madrid defeated Girona 2-0 on Sunday, putting them back on top of La Liga, with Luka Modric scoring a brilliant goal from long range, to claim a victory.

Carlo Ancelotti’s team put together a strong performance at the Santiago Bernabeu, and Vinicius Junior came out on top late in the game.

After rivals Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, now third, both won on Saturday, the pressure was on for the champions in the extremely tight title race.

Madrid had not yet won any of their previous three league games, but they showed their muscles by defeating Man City in the Champions League in midweek.

“It’s a very important win, we have to stay in the fight”, Modric told Real Madrid TV.

“We can’t let our level slip and consider ourselves satisfied, we can still grow as a team”.

The Croatian’s goal was the highlight of the match.

“I was by myself, I controlled the ball, I hit it well and it went in”, Modric added.

“I don’t know if it’s one of the most spectacular I’ve scored, it was really nice, it’s always special to score at the Bernabeu”.

READ ALSO: &nbsp,]FULL FIXTURES] Liverpool Play PSG In Champions League Last 16

After seeing Jude Bellingham red last weekend, he was suspended for England.

Madrid’s surprise title rivals from last year’s competition were difficult to defeat but less dangerous in attack than at their best.

Paulo Gazzaniga made a good save from Kylian Mbappe, but Vinicius chose to ignore his French strike partner when a promising attacking opportunity fell apart.

Viktor Tsygankov, a winger for Girona, should have hit for the visitors, but he missed a good chance and snuck at his shot.

With the game trickling towards half-time, Modric sent Madrid ahead with a rocket from distance.

After a corner was cleared into his path, the 39-year-old midfielder slammed a superb strike past the helpless Gazzaniga.

“Modric is a gift for football, he should continue as long as he wants”, Ancelotti told reporters.

“What he does, he does very well, we’ve been lucky to have a legend with us”.

&nbsp, ‘Very very happy’&nbsp,

With a curling effort from the edge of the box from the edge of the box, Madrid had more chances to increase their lead in the second half.

After the former Paris Saint-Germain star brilliantly controlled a dropping ball, Gazzaniga made a fine save to stop Mbappe.

Eventually Mbappe fed Vinicius with a perfectly-weighted pass for the second goal, which the Brazilian brushed past the Girona goalkeeper.

Real Madrid and Spanish officials have been at odds with each other in recent weeks, but with the exception of one instance in which Rodrygo’s path was blocked by the referee, they had nothing to complain about on a quiet afternoon in the Spanish capital.

Some home fans whistled as players stood alongside a slogan reading “respect the referee, respect football” before the game.

After suffering a severe knee injury, David Alaba made his first appearance for Los Blancos in more than a year.

“It’s very important win for us, we are very happy, it’s a good moment for us”, the Austrian defender told Real Madrid TV.

“I am very, very happy, after the injury, I was ready to start this game”.

On Wednesday, Real Madrid will face Real Sociedad in the Copa del Rey semi-finals.

Girona coach Michel Sanchez said his side, 12th, were bound to struggle against the European champions.

Real Madrid recognizes that every decision is crucial, and Sanchez described it as “hard” at this difficult time of the year.

To stay on course for Champions League football next season, Athletic Bilbao defeated bottom team Real Valladolid 7-1 earlier.

Fourth-placed Ernesto Valverde’s side, fourth, had a lot of goals in the victory, which saw them four points clear of Villarreal in fifth place thanks to Spain star Nico Williams scoring twice.

With four goals in 11 minutes, Newcastle blew away Nottingham Forest to move into the top four of the Premier League with a crucial 4-3 victory.

After Callum Hudson-Odoi’s opening goal, Eddie Howe’s men won the match with a first-half goal slam on Sunday at St James’ Park.

Lewis Miley bagged Newcastle’s equaliser, sparking an astonishing spell of dominance as Jacob Murphy put the hosts ahead.

In less than two minutes, Isak scored twice to leave Forest in disarray with 50 Premier League goals.

The Sweden striker has 19 league goals this season, taking him level with Manchester City’s Erling Haaland in second place behind Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah in this season’s scoring chart.

In the second half, Forest scored goals from Nikola Milenkovic and Ryan Yates, but the result was a spectacular escape.

Fifth-placed Newcastle are now in the hunt for a place in the Champions League after falling behind in their previous four league games by three goals.

The Magpies are behind fourth-placed Manchester City on goal difference, with third-placed Forest just three points above them.

“I’m trying to control my thoughts and stay positive. We won the game and that’s what we needed to do”, Howe said.

“In the first half, it was a fantastic performance, but there were some weaknesses in the defense of set plays.”

” We can reflect on that. There are things we can do better. We take great care to get the details right.

Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo added:” In the first half I didn’t recognise our team. We significantly improved in the second half.

“We made mistakes. Two completely different halves, exactly. They just rolled over us as we got going.

Nick Pope, the starting keeper for Newcastle since early December, replaced Martin Dubravka in his first league start.

However, Pope was partially responsible for Newcastle’s shoddy performance in which Forest took the lead after just six minutes.

Hudson-Odoi pressured the Newcastle midfielder into giving up possession by forcing him to lose the ball in his own half.

The winger unleashed a powerful low drive that caught Pope out of position as it flashed into the net, but the Hudson-Odoi wasn’t quickly enough shut down by Dan Burn.

Miley ensured Newcastle’s strong response to that early setback was rewarded in the 23rd minute.

READ ALSO:]FULL FIXTURES] Liverpool Play PSG In Champions League Last 16

&nbsp, Newcastle hold on&nbsp,

Miley had time to control Lewis Hall’s pass inside the penalty area and fire his shot past unsighted keeper Matz Sels while Forest’s typically solid defense was slow to react.

Murphy made amends for his earlier mistake to put Howe’s team ahead two minutes after Miley’s equaliser.

The defender took Isak’s return pass and deflected a cross that fell over Sels, who had just about hit the goal-line, to score a deflected shot that Murphy bundled home from almost the end zone.

Newcastle were on fire, and they struck once more in the 33rd minute.

Isak sent an audacious lofted effort past Sels, who was forced to use his arm to block Hall’s cross, which resulted in the keeper being forced to try in vain to get it out.

Newcastle’s intensity was unbearable, and Forest didn’t come away with a fourth goal until just 60 seconds later.

Isak’s shot from 12 yards had a deflection on its way past the wrong-footed Sels, but Joe Willock ran unchecked through the Forest midfield.

In the 63rd minute, Milenkovic flicked Chris Wood’s cross past Pope from close range, and Newcastle grew in the second half.

When Yates steered home in the 90th minute, a nervous hush descended on St James ‘ Park, but Newcastle held on by their fingernails.

In a crushing 1-0 defeat to West Ham on Saturday, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta criticized his players for not meeting the standards set by the league’s title winners.

With their first home defeat of the season, the Gunners were eight points adrift of leaders Liverpool, denying them a first league title in 21 years.

Just before half-time, Jarrod Bowen headed in for his 50th Premier League goal to seal the game’s only goal.

Arsenal’s indiscipline also cost them when Myles Lewis-Skelly was sent off with 18 minutes remaining — the fifth red card shown to Arteta’s men this season.

With recent losses to Everton and Aston Villa, Liverpool had begun to feel the pressure of title rivals.

However, when they travel to Manchester City on Sunday, they can now have an enormous 11-point advantage.

“It’s not in our hands”, said Arteta on the title race.

The performance and the outcome are two things that are in our hands, and we didn’t do that as effectively as we could, which is really, really annoying.

” I am very disappointed, and obviously very angry as well. Even though we received 20 shots, I never believed that our standards and requirements were adequate.

“We have to be (angry), and I hope we are because we didn’t hit the levels today, and I am very much responsible of that so I am very, very angry”.

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Nearly their entire forward line has been injured, which has devastated Arsenal’s title challenge.

Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka were again sidelined, forcing midfielder Mikel Merino to deputise as a centre forward.

Arteta, though, refused to rely on that excuse as he demanded more from those who were available.

The Spaniard added, “I completely reject that because I’m referring to the standards of the players and the team that we played today, including myself.”

That was not at the levels required for us to reach in order to have a chance to win the Premier League.

We must examine our own abilities in order to make improvements. The will, the desire, the way we run and the way we want it, (there is) zero question about that.

“But at that level that is not enough. To defeat a really good team and put in the actions that can make threatening moments win games, you must deliver, and that is where we failed today.

Following a costly error from Blues goalkeeper Filip Jorgensen on Saturday, Marco Asensio’s first goals for Aston Villa earned them a dramatic 2-1 victory over stodgy Chelsea.

Chelsea and top four contenders at Villa Park battling it out for Champions League qualification with Enzo Fernandez’s quick-fire opener.

However, Asensio scored after the break when he was initially denied offside before being given by VAR. He had earlier signed on loan from Paris Saint-Germain.

The former Real Madrid forward squirmed past Jorgensen’s terrible attempted save to equalize with Villa’s stunning winner.

After Jorgensen replaced Robert Sanchez, who is even more prone to errors, this was Chelsea’s most recent goalkeeping disaster this season.

Chelsea are now one point adrift of the top four in sixth place after being defeated four of their last five games in all competitions.

Bemoaning Jorgensen’s error, coach Enzo Maresca said: “The keeper position is very difficult. Everyone is aware of your error when you make it.

Filip is our keeper at this time, but he made a mistake, and we must work together.

We did not deserve to lose, the author said. Even after the 1-1 we had chances to score.

We had some excellent chances, and “anything can happen in this league unless you’re clinical,” he said.

Seventh-placed Villa, who held leaders Liverpool to a hard-fought 2-2 draw in midweek, are one point behind Chelsea thanks to a result that rekindled their own top four ambitions.

– Fresh blow –

Unai Emery, the manager of Villa, criticized the impact of the signings of Asensio and Marcus Rashford as saying: “We were trying to improve our squad with their skill and quality.

“Asensio can get the tempo we need,” he said. As he did today, he can score goals and receive assists. I need that. Marcus played a fantastic 45 minutes. We now want him to be consistent”.

Chelsea failed to score a single shot on target in a league game last week, losing 3-0 to Brighton, for the first time since 2021.

Maresca was so frustrated that he branded it the “worst performance” of his first season in charge.

Chelsea could still challenge for Champions League eligibility next season, the Italian said confidently this week.

This was a fresh blow to Maresca’s belief as Chelsea capitulated in dismal fashion.

After Pedro Neto’s sharp run and low cross opened Villa’s defense, Fernandez gave the Blues a ninth minute lead with a tap-in.

The Argentine midfielder almost doubled the lead with a curling effort that flew just over, and Tyrone Mings, the Villa defender, deflected his shot into the sidenett.

However, Chelsea once more blew the lead after winning just one of their previous five league games, in which case they had scored the first goal.

Rashford, sent on at half-time, stretched to turn Matty Cash’s cross into the six-yard box, where Asensio poked home as Chelsea appealed for offside.

Initially the 57th minute goal was disallowed, but a VAR review showed Fernandez was playing Rashford onside, allowing Asensio to celebrate.

Palmer sprinted clean through his lines before taking an unnecessary long shot as Ezri Konsa cleared his goal-bound effort.

The 89th minute saw Villa receive the points, which was a significant moment.

Asensio was picked out by Rashford, but Jorgensen’s shot slipped past him as it flew over the line.