Man City Open Eight-Point Lead, Chelsea Stumble
30 December, 2021
Brentford 0-1 Manchester City
Manchester City opened an eight-point lead at the top of the Premier League table after defeating Brentford 1-0 on Wednesday night.
Pep Guardiola made four changes from the win over Leicester City, as Nathan Ake, Jack Grealish, Gabriel Jesus and Phil Foden were re-called to the line-up at the expense of Raheem Sterling, Ilkay Gundogan, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Riyad Mahrez.
The changes certainly paid off as the visitors broke the deadlock on 16 minutes through Foden, who turned home a pin-point cross from Kevin de Bruyne.
After a waves of attack throughout the clash, City finally had the ball in the back of the net for a second time on 88 minutes through Ruben Dias but celebrations were cut short after the Video Assistant referee spotted an offside.
Nevertheless, one goal was enough to hand City maximum points ahead of their New Year's day fixture against Arsenal.
Chelsea 1-1 Brighton and Hove Albion
Chelsea's title hopes took another knock after being held to a 1-1 draw by Brighton and Hove Albion at Stamford Bridge.
Romelu Lukaku was restored to the line-up after making a big impact in the win over Aston Villa over the weekend, while Mateo Kovacic and Cesar Azpilicueta also returned.
There was a bit of bad news for the home side as Reece James had to be forced off after 27 minutes with an injury. He was replaced by Marcos Alonso.
The European champions took the lead a minute later when Lukaku made it two goals in two games with a glancing header at the near post.
Brighton kept themselves in the game and eventually got their reward in the 91st minute when second-half substitute Danny Welbeck rose above Trevoh Chalobah to head into the far corner.
The point takes Thomas Tuchel's charges above Liverpool into second spot, but they sit eight points behind the Citizens heading into the new year.
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