Premier League Talking Points: Man City’s New Homegrown Star Shines As Leicester Face Relegation To The Championship

‎Liverpool moved within one win of securing the Premier League title, while Leicester’s relegation was confirmed on Sunday, with Ipswich poised to join the Foxes in the Championship next season.

‎The battle for Champions League places is heating up in the closing weeks of the season as victories for Manchester City, Chelsea, and Aston Villa tightened the race even further.

‎Sportxparte looks at three talking points from this weekend’s action:

‎Premier League poles apart

‎Last season was the first since 1997-98 and only the second time in Premier League history that all three promoted teams faced relegation.

‎Now, it seems likely that this will occur for a second consecutive season.

‎This trend is raising concerns about the growing divide between the Premier League and the Championship.

‎Leicester’s 1-0 defeat to Liverpool on Sunday meant they have joined Southampton in being mathematically relegated with five games to play.

‎Ipswich is still technically in the race for survival, but they are 15 points behind with just five games remaining and have a goal difference that is 20 goals worse than West Ham’s.

‎”I think you see among the promoted sides that it’s such a mountain to climb to stay in the Premier League,” said.

‎Leicester manager, Ruud van Nistelrooy, has won just two of his 20 league matches in charge of the Foxes.

‎”The gap appears to be too big for promoted sides.”

‎The bottom three have combined for just eight wins in 91 matches against the other 17 teams in the division.

‎Man City’s new homegrown hero

‎City was drifting toward a third consecutive away game without a goal in their final visit to Goodison Park until Nico O’Reilly scored a crucial goal to secure a 2-0 victory over Everton.

‎The 20-year-old is primarily a midfielder, but he has earned his place in Guardiola’s starting lineup in recent weeks with a series of impressive performances at left-back.

‎Manchester-born O’Reilly has netted his first two Premier League goals in City’s last two games along with three goals and two assists in the FA Cup this season.

‎”We are so grateful because he’s not a left-back,” said Guardiola.

‎”He’s an attacking midfielder but when you play as a left back, if the build-up is not quick, you can arrive there (in the box).”

‎Mateo Kovacic added a second as City closed in on a 15th consecutive season in the Champions League.

‎However, City English champions in the last four seasons still have little margin for error in their final five games.

‎Guardiola’s team has only a one-point lead over Chelsea, Nottingham Forest, and an in-form Villa, whom they will host on Tuesday in a crucial matchup.

‎Watkins Channels Frustration to Lift Aston Villa

‎Ollie Watkins took out his anger towards Aston Villa boss Unai Emery by opening the scoring inside the first minute of an impressive 4-1 rout of third-placed Newcastle.

‎The England striker admitted to “fuming” that he had not started either leg of Villa’s Champions League quarter-final defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.

‎Watkins has been Aston Villa’s key player since joining the club in 2020, but he has been sidelined by the abundance of attacking talent that Emery brought in during the January transfer window.

‎”Champions League, we have put in a lot of hard graft to get to that position,” said Watkins.

‎”I played 20 minutes against PSG in both games. I’m not going to lie; I was fuming that I wasn’t playing, and I let him know that.”

‎The additional strength in depth provided by the arrivals of Marcus Rashford, Marco Asensio, and Donyell Malen is boosting Villa’s bid to return to the Champions League next season.

‎Under Emery, the team has won their last five league matches. They currently sit outside the top five only on goal difference.