(AFP) - Manchester City, the defending champion last season, tightened the screws on leaders Arsenal with a deserved and difficult victory over its host, Crystal Palace, 1-0, on Saturday, in the twenty-seventh stage of the English Football League , which witnessed the fall of Liverpool from its perch after its historic victory over Manchester United by seven. Clean, losing 1-0 to Bournemouth.
At Selhurst Park in London, Manchester City, who dominated the course of the match by a large percentage, suffered a lot and needed a penalty kick in the last quarter of an hour to come out victorious with a clean goal.
City raised its tally in second place to 61 points, trailing only two points from Arsenal, who will visit its neighbor Fulham on Sunday, while Crystal Palace once again failed to achieve its first victory since the beginning of this year in 10 matches.
Manchester City Spanish coach Pep Guardiola decided to rest his Belgian playmaker Kevin De Bruyne, sparing his efforts for the match against German Leipzig in the second leg of the Champions League final next week, after they drew 1-1 in Leipzig in the first leg.
Manchester City found it very difficult to penetrate the organized defense of Crystal Palace, despite its repeated attempts, while the owners of the land relied on quick counter-attacks by its ivory wing, Wilfried Zaha in particular.
The same scenario continued in the second half until City got a penalty kick after obstructing its Portuguese midfielder Bernardo Silva inside the area, and the Norwegian Erling Haaland succeeded in it in the 78th minute.
Haaland raised his score to 34 goals in various competitions this season and 28 is the top scorer in the league since his move to City from Borussia Dortmund.

Bournemouth, bottom of the standings, quelled Liverpool's ecstasy from a historic victory, and dropped it 1-0 with the help of Egyptian Mohamed Salah, who missed a penalty kick in the second half,
And after five matches in which he did not concede, the last of which was the historic victory over rivals Manchester United 7-0, Liverpool fell from its perch by losing to Bournemouth, which is threatened with relegation.
On the other hand, Bournemouth rose from last place to sixteenth temporarily, to respond in its own way to its humiliating loss in the first leg against the red team 9-0, a week after it embarrassed leaders Arsenal when it advanced 2-0 before falling 3-2 in the last breath.
German coach Jürgen Klopp made a single change to Liverpool's winning squad over United, pushing young Spanish midfielder Stefan Paichetic instead of captain Jordan Henderson, while Salah played his 200th match in the English Premier League, a week after he broke the record for his club's goals in the league.
Despite a good start for Liverpool and a header by Dutch defender Virgil van Dyck that was saved by Colombian Jefferson Larma from the goal line, and Brazilian goalkeeper Neto denied Scottish full back Andy Robertson from scoring, Bournemouth caught his breath and set Liverpool into a counterattack.
The host opened the scoring when he dribbled Burkinabe striker Dango Ouattara on the right side and played a cross, quickly snatched it from the center of the area, Danish Philip Billing (28), raising his tally to six goals this season, double what he scored in three seasons.
Midfielder Billing opened the scoring last week against Arsenal 9.18 seconds after the whistle, marking the second fastest goal in Premier League history.
Klopp was not satisfied with his team's performance, so he pushed the Portuguese Diogo Jota instead of Harvey Elliott.
Bournemouth full-back Adam Smith was unlucky when Jota's header bounced off his hand, so the guests got a penalty kick after resorting to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), Salah wasted it with great carelessness, far from the woods (70).
Bournemouth then succeeded in achieving its sixth victory this season, and Liverpool suffered its first loss in six matches, days before it went into the second leg of the Champions League final, where it fell behind Real Madrid 2-5.

The fourth Tottenham pressured Manchester United the third by defeating Nottingham Forest 3-1, reducing the difference between them to one point, but he played two more matches than the Red Devils.
Tottenham entered the match in a state of weightlessness after failing to score in its last three matches, as it lost 0-1 to AC Milan in the first leg of the Champions League final, then tied it negatively with it at home, and between the two matches it fell to Wolverhampton 0-1 in the league week. the past.
Tottenham advanced through top scorer Harry Kane with a header, out of reach of Costa Rican goalkeeper Keylor Navas (19), after Brazilian Richarlison scored a goal that the referee did not count after resorting to the video assistant referee after 3 minutes had passed.
Kane added the second from a penalty kick (35), raising his tally to 20 goals in the league, consolidating his second position at the top of the scorers’ ranking, behind Manchester City’s Norwegian striker Arling Haaland (27).
South Korean Heung-min Son finally settled the score in favor of Tottenham when he manipulated a Nottingham Forest defender and hit the net (62), and the guests responded with an honorary goal scored by Joe Worll (81).
Chelsea continued its revival recently and returned by winning from Leicester City 3-1. Former Leicester City left-back Ben Chilwell opened the scoring with a left-footed ball "on the fly" (11).
The Portuguese Joao Felix scored a goal that was not counted by the referee for offside (34), before equalizing Zambian Patson Dhaka with a powerful shot from outside the area (39). But German Kai Havertz gave the London team the lead in the last second of the first half when he broke the offside trap and passed the ball over the goalkeeper.
And the Ukrainian winger, Mykhailo Modric, thought that he had scored his first goals with Chelsea since he moved to him in the winter transfer market, but he was offside.
Chelsea settled the score when Croatian midfielder Mateo Kovacic scored the third goal (78), then Leicester completed the final minutes with ten players after his Belgian defender Vout Weiss was sent off after receiving the second yellow card (87).