Manchester City Two Victories Away from Premier League Title After Beating Everton

Man­ches­ter City need two more wins to clinch their third con­sec­u­tive Pre­mier League title fol­low­ing their vic­to­ry over Ever­ton at Good­i­son Park.

Pep Guardi­o­la’s side will secure the title if they earn six points from their remain­ing games against Chelsea, Brighton and Hove Albion, and Brentford.

Ever­ton paid a heavy price for a small mis­take when Mason Hol­gate was unmarked at the far post. Before then, City had been the sec­ond-best side but showed their effi­cien­cy in front of goal by scor­ing twice in two minutes.

Ilkay Gun­do­gan was the star, involved in all three of City’s goals with a sub­lime back­heel fin­ish and sup­ply­ing a cross for Erling Haa­land’s close-range header.

Arse­nal could cut the gap if they beat Brighton on Sun­day, but the mid­field­er scored a free-kick from the edge of the box in the sec­ond half to lift City’s lead to four points.

Ever­ton’s defeat left them one point above the rel­e­ga­tion zone with two games left, leav­ing them with a cramped feeling.

City’s rivals Man­ches­ter Unit­ed had an unfor­get­table tre­ble suc­cess in 1999, becom­ing the only Eng­lish team to win the Pre­mier League, Cham­pi­ons League and FA Cup. How close City gets to that feat will be deter­mined in the com­ing days.

Mean­while, Unit­ed will try to pre­vent an unprece­dent­ed feat in the FA Cup final at Wem­b­ley next month. But Europe’s elite club com­pe­ti­tion is their most cov­et­ed win, with a 1–1 first-leg draw to meet cham­pi­ons Real Madrid in the semi-finals on Wednesday.

In addi­tion, they are in excel­lent form with 12 league wins in a row and 22 match­es unde­feat­ed in all competitions.

City’s skill­ful play­ers failed to cre­ate chances. But cap­tain Gun­do­gan con­trolled Riyad Mahrez’s pass in his 300th appear­ance for the club, scor­ing with a back­heel behind the goal and also scor­ing a free-kick.

Dur­ing this time, Haa­land touched the ball only twice to head in his 52nd goal in an aston­ish­ing cam­paign that trails Ever­ton leg­end Dix­ie Dean’s record of 63 goals in a game. A spec­tac­u­lar scis­sor kick went awry in the sec­ond half, leav­ing the Nor­we­gian with just six games to beat Dean’s record, which has remained unbro­ken for 96 years.