Arsenal and Man City win, Leeds and West Ham boost survival hopes

LONDON :Arsenal and Manchester City continued to slug it out in the Premier League title race with wins over Leicester City and Bournemouth respectively on Saturday while at the bottom Leeds United moved out of the relegation zone.

Gabriel Martinelli earned Arsenal a 1-0 win at Leicester City to briefly send them five points clear, but City responded with a 4-1 rout of struggling Bournemouth as Erling Haaland netted a club record 27th Premier League goal in a season.

New Leeds manager Javi Gracia's reign began with a vital 1-0 win over bottom club Southampton as Junior Firpo's goal snapped a 10-game winless run to move them into 17th place.

West Ham United also secured three valuable points as Danny Ings scored his first goals for the club with the hosts netting four times in the second half to thump fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest 4-0 at the London Stadium.

Everton fell back into the bottom three though as they went down 2-0 at home to Aston Villa.

ARTETA'S FAITH

Arsenal have responded impressively to their defeat at home by champions City with back-to-back wins at Villa and Leicester.

They had a goal by Leandro Trossard ruled out by VAR in the first half but it was the Belgian who played the pass which allowed Brazilian Martinelli to score in the 46th minute.

"I had full faith the players could do it," manager Mikel Arteta said of his team's response.

"I think defensively today we were incredible because we restricted Leicester to one shot on target in the whole game at home and that's a difficult thing to do."

Arsenal, bidding for a first title since 2004, have 57 points from 24 games while City have 55 from 25.

Since beating Arsenal, City lost momentum with draws at lowly Nottingham Forest and away to RB Leipzig in the