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The records keep coming for Erling Haaland at Manchester City, while the losses keep piling up for Frank Lampard at Chelsea.
City’s 3-1 win over Leicester on Saturday, which moved the defending champions three points behind Premier League leaders Arsenal, was inevitably propelled by Haaland even though the prolific striker had just 45 minutes on the field.
By the time he was substituted at halftime, the Norway international had scored twice — one from the penalty spot, another a clipped finish following Kevin De Bruyne’s through ball — to move to 32 league goals for the season.
That left Haaland tied with Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah for the most goals in a 38-game Premier League season. Salah’s haul came in the 2017-18 campaign.
Haaland will surely go beyond that, and he’s also on course to break the record for a 42-game campaign, which stands at 34, jointly held by Andy Cole (at Newcastle in 1993-94) and Alan Shearer (at Blackburn in ’94-95).
John Stones was the other scorer for City, who have won 10 straight games in all competitions and are piling the pressure on Arsenal, who visit West Ham on Sunday, in a title race that looks destined to go to the final weekend.
While there’s so much still to play for at the top of the league, Chelsea’s woeful campaign is finishing with barely a whimper as Lampard, the interim manager, fails to get anything out of a squad assembled at such great expense.
A 2-1 home loss to Brighton was a third straight defeat for the club’s playing hero since he came in as the replacement for the fired Graham Potter until the end of the season.
Chelsea are 11th with seven league games remaining, as some fans were seen showing their fury toward the club’s co-owner, Todd Boehly, in the directors’ box.
“In terms of performance, that was the most disappointing one because we were well beaten in the basics of football,” Lampard said.
“Brighton are a fantastic team, and they can perform like that against anyone in the league. But we were short.
The match at Stamford Bridge came between games against Real Madrid in the Champions League quarter-finals. After a 2-0 loss in Spain on Wednesday, Chelsea host the defending champions on Tuesday.
The race for Champions League qualification may have two more teams involved.
One is Brighton, who are now just seven points off the top four with a game in hand; the other is Aston Villa, who overwhelmed third-placed Newcastle 3-0 after a double by Ollie Watkins.
Villa, who’ve won seven of their last eight games, are sixth, just six points behind Newcastle and fourth-placed Manchester United.
Fifth-placed Tottenham’s hopes were hurt after a 3-2 loss to relegation-threatened Bournemouth, who scored their winner in stoppage time. Spurs are three points above Villa and three behind Newcastle and Man United.
At the other end of the table, bottom club Southampton are running out of time to preserve their top-flight status after a 2-0 home loss to Crystal Palace, who have won three in a row under interim manager Roy Hodgson.
Southampton are four points from safety and have seven games remaining, while Everton are only out of the bottom three on goal difference after losing at home to Fulham 3-1.
Wolves moved seven points clear of trouble by beating Brentford 2-0 at home.
© AAP
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