Manchester City blew the Premier League title race wide open by capitalising on leaders Arsenal’s defeat in comfortably dispatching Sunderland at Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola’s side had seen the Gunners suffer a last-gasp loss against Aston Villa at lunchtime on Saturday and ensured there was no slip-up of their own by swatting aside the visitors to move to within two points of the top.<\/p>\n
City initially found it difficult to make inroads against the Sunderland’s low block and were frustrated by a solid five-man backline.<\/p>\n
Having kept the hosts at bay, the visitors saw the game snatched away in the space of four first-half minutes, courtesy of goals from City’s two centre-halves.<\/p>\n
The Black Cats defenders sat back on Ruben Dias and it proved fatal as the Portugal international strode forward and unleashed a thunderous 30-yard strike, which took a deflection off Dan Ballard and swerved into the top corner.<\/p>\n
The hosts doubled their advantage on 35 minutes when Josko Gvardiol leapt highest to power home an unstoppable header from Phil Foden’s inswinging corner and give the hosts a comfortable half-time cushion.<\/p>\n
City sought to add to the scoreline in the second half and Jeremy Doku’s low curling effort struck the post, while Foden’s first-time follow-up was brilliantly blocked.<\/p>\n
Erling Haaland’s hooked shot was cleared off the line by Lutsharel Geertruida, before Rayan Cherki provided a sublime assist for Foden to head in the third goal.<\/p>\n
Chances were at a premium for Sunderland in the opening period, with Enzo le Fee shooting into side-netting, but they did have better opportunities in the second half.<\/p>\n
City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma made a big save to deny Wilson Isidor after Dias’ mistake, while captain Granit Xhaka’s thumping low effort beat the Italy international but cannoned against the post.<\/p>\n
Sunderland saw Luke O’Nien sent off in injury-time for a nasty, studs-high challenge on Matheus Nunes, with the yellow card upgraded to a red after referee Andy Madley reviewed the challenge on the pitchside monitor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester City blew the Premier League title race wide open by capitalising on leaders Arsenal’s defeat in comfortably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-329605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-soccer","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}