LONDON: Liverpool just aren’t letting up in their pursuit of Manchester City.

A 1-0 win at home to West Ham United on Saturday, secured by Sadio Mane’s 27th-minute goal, moved second-placed Liverpool to within three points of the Premier League leaders with both teams having 11 games left to play.

Mane netted with a close-range finish from Trent Alexander-Arnold’s cross at Anfield. The Senegal forward’s goal survived a VAR check for offside and that was all Liverpool needed to make it seven successive league wins.

“I don’t know if we will remember this game as one of the important ones,” said Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp after West Ham missed a number of chances to take a point. “If you are not well organised you have to defend with passion and that’s what we did.”

Defeat was a blow to fifth-placed West Ham’s hopes of finishing in the top four, leaving them two points behind fourth-placed Manchester United.

Earlier, Chelsea put aside their ownership issues to solidify their grip on third place with a 4-0 win at Burnley with manager Thomas Tuchel slamming fans who sang Roman Abramovich’s name during a minute’s applause in a show of solidarity with Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.

“It’s not the moment to do this,” Tuchel said. “If we show solidarity we show solidarity. As a club we need our fans to commit to this minute of applause. We do it for Ukraine and there is no second opinion about this situation. We should stand together.”

Chelsea, whose Russian owner Abramovich put the club up for sale this week amid calls for sanctions against him, scored four times after the break at Turf Moor.

Burnley wasted a series of first half chances but fell to pieces after Reece James opened the scoring in the 47th minute.

German forward Kai Havertz headed home a Christian Pulisic cross and then converted a James cross for his second before American Pulisic completed the scoring.

Chelsea remain 10 points behind Liverpool and six ahead of Man United, while third-bottom Burnley remain a point off Everton in the safety zone but having played two more games.

Newcastle United’s resurgence continued with a 2-1 home win against Brighton & Hove Albion to move further away from trouble.

Ryan Fraser and Fabian Schar scored in the space of two minutes for Eddie Howe’s Newcastle side who then dug deep to extend their unbeaten run to eight games after Lewis Dunk pulled one back for Brighton in the 55th minute.

In severe relegation trouble when Howe took over as manager, Newcastle are now seven points above the bottom three.

Brentford dealt a hammer blow to bottom side Norwich City’s hopes of escaping the drop zone and eased their own fears as Ivan Toney scored a hat-trick in a 3-1 victory at Carrow Road.

Aston Villa’s Brazilian midfielder Philippe Coutinho scored one goal and made another as they thrashed

visiting Southampton 4-0, while Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha created the opener and netted a penalty in a 2-0 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Published in Dawn, March 7th, 2022