Villa stun City; Liverpool into second
Aston Villa beat champions Manchester City on Wednesday to extend their remarkable winning run at home as Liverpool closed to within two points of leaders Arsenal with victory at Sheffield United in the English Premier League. Villa, who have now won 14 league games in a row at Villa Park, scored the only goal of the game in the 74th minute, when Leon Bailey's shot took a huge deflection off Ruben Dias. The win lifts Unai Emery's men into third place while Pep Guardiola's off-colour team are now winless in four games and six points behind Arsenal. Liverpool, looking increasingly dangerous, saw off basement club Sheffield United 2-0. The victory takes Jurgen Klopp's team to 34 points – just two behind Arsenal, who beat Luton 4-3 on Tuesday. Manchester United secured a priceless three points in a 2-1 win against Chelsea, shrugging off a rare penalty miss from Bruno Fernandes in the first half. Chelsea's Cole Palmer finished an impressive team move on the stroke of half-time to cancel out Scott McTominay's opener. But the Scotland international headed home Alejandro Garnacho's cross for his second with about 20 minutes left to lift United to sixth in the table, just three points behind City. Manager Erik ten Hag, who dropped out-of-form Marcus Rashford, brushed off rumours of dressing room unrest, saying he did not care "about the noise". Nottingham Forest, in their second season back in the Premier League, slumped to a fourth straight defeat at Fulham to heap the pressure on manager Steve Cooper. Alex Iwobi and Raul Jimenez scored two goals apiece and Tom Cairney completed the 5-0 humiliation in the final minutes. Brighton recorded a 2-1 home win against Brentford courtesy of goals from Pascal Gross and Jack Hinshelwood, while Bournemouth notched their third win in four games, beating Crystal Palace 2-0. (AFP)