Kevin De Bruyne inspired a Manchester City fightback from two goals down to beat Crystal Palace 5-2, while Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with Brentford on Saturday edged Liverpool closer to the Premier League title.
In De Bruyne’s first appearance at the Etihad Stadium since announcing his decade in Manchester will finish at the end of the season, the Belgian rolled back the years to save City’s blushes.
Palace found themselves 2-0 up after 20 minutes as Eberechi Eze slotted home Ismaila Sarr’s pass before Chris Richards took advantage of poor City defending to head in from a corner.
Eze had a third goal narrowly ruled out for offside before De Bruyne stirred the City fightback.
The 33-year-old fired in a free-kick off the post before heading down for Omar Marmoush to level just three minutes later.
City were rampant after the break as De Bruyne teed up Mateo Kovacic on 47 minutes to complete the comeback.
Goalkeeper Ederson provided his fourth Premier League assist of the season for James McAtee to make it 4-2 before Nico O’Reilly’s sweet strike rounded off the scoring.
“The performance of Kevin — as he has done for many, many years in many, many games — he played fantastic,” said City boss Pep Guardiola. “He helped us to break this momentum that was not good.”
Victory lifts Guardiola’s men back into the top four, with the top five in the Premier League this season qualifying for the Champions League thanks to the strong performance of English sides in European competition.
Arsenal paid the price for having one eye on their Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid as a 12th league draw of the season left them still 10 points adrift of Liverpool.
Mikel Arteta left Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Mikel Merino on the bench with the Gunners holding a 3-0 first leg lead over the European champions ahead of the return in Madrid on Wednesday.
It appeared the Spaniard would get away with that risk as Saka and Odegaard were introduced seconds after Declan Rice teed up Thomas Partey to open the scoring on the break from a Brentford corner.
But the Bees hit back with a well-worked set-piece of their own when Nathan Collins headed Michael Kayode’s cross down and Yoane Wissa flicked in his 16th goal of the season.
“We play every three days and are used to it, so there is not an excuse of energy,” said Arteta. “We had full control of the game and conceded a very poor goal. It was not good enough.”
Liverpool could now seal a record-equalling 20th English top-flight title as early as next weekend should they win their next two matches and Arsenal lose at Ipswich.
Nottingham Forest’s challenge for a Champions League place stumbled after a 1-0 defeat by Everton.
Forest remain in third but have lost their last two games to allow the chasing pack back onto their tails.
A forgetful game at the City Ground appeared to be meandering towards a stalemate until Abdoulaye Doucoure struck in the 94th minute to secure Everton’s first win in seven games.
Aston Villa closed to within three points of Forest and climbed into the top five after Unai Emery’s substitutes secured a 3-0 victory at already-relegated Southampton despite Marco Asensio having two penalties saved by Aaron Ramsdale.
Ollie Watkins was again left on the bench by Emery but made a stunning impact with a volley over Ramsdale from Youri Tielemans’ dinked pass 17 minutes from time.
Donyell Malen then sealed the points with his third goal in as many league games.
Asensio’s second spot-kick was saved in stoppage time, but John McGinn pounced on the rebound.
Leicester scored their first league goals since January to snap a nine-game losing run, but a 2-2 draw at Brighton still did little to help the Foxes’ hopes of survival.
© 2025 AFP
© Japan Today
