Manchester City reduced Arsenal\u2019s lead at the top to three points with a 3-0 victory over Fulham, a result that arrives before Arsenal\u2019s next game on Thursday. The opener came from Antoine Semenyo after a cross from Matheus Nunes created the breakthrough. Six minutes later Nico O\u2019Reilly applied a composed finish to a sweeping team move that started deep in City territory; the referee allowed the advantage to unfold when Erling Haaland was fouled in the buildup.<\/p>\n
Haaland added the third before half-time, powering a finish beyond Bernd Leno after Rayan A\u00eft-Nouri won the ball near the halfway line and Phil Foden played it into the Norwegian\u2019s path. The second half saw Fulham threaten on a couple of occasions, but there was a sense that any comeback would be too late and the game fizzled out.<\/p>\n
R\u00faben Dias started his first game in just over a month and his return was notable for the title race. He was last named in the XI for the 1\u20131 draw against Chelsea on Jan. 4 and was forcibly withdrawn shortly before City conceded the very late equaliser in that setback. Dias made a comeback off the bench against Liverpool at the weekend, but during his absence the side recorded just three clean sheets in 10 games without the 2020\u201321 FWA Footballer of the Year. Keeping a clean sheet on his proper return feels like a turning point.<\/p>\n
There were questions elsewhere in defence. With no disrespect to Abdukodir Khusanov, it has not been easy on the talented 21-year-old in 2026. He is still raw himself, but has had to either be Nathan Ak\u00e9\u2019s legs or the senior man next to Max Alleyne. Marc Gu\u00e9hi is still learning his new surroundings, too.<\/p>\n
Notable performers included Gianluigi Donnarumma, Matheus Nunes, R\u00faben Dias, Marc Gu\u00e9hi, Rayan A\u00eft-Nouri, Bernardo Silva, Rodri, Nico O\u2019Reilly, Antoine Semenyo, Erling Haaland and Phil Foden. Match statistics showed City 56% possession to Fulham 44%, expected goals 1.47 to 1.50, total shots 13 to 14 and passing accuracy 91% to 85%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
City cut Arsenal’s lead to three points after a 3-0 win; Dias returned, clean sheet felt decisively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[713,238,172],"tags":[801,988,1393],"class_list":["post-6814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fulham","category-manchester-city","category-epl","tag-antoine-semenyo","tag-bernardo-silva","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}