De Bruyne Scores 4 In Man City Rout, Chelsea Inch Leeds Closer To Relegation

Manchester City took a step toward retaining the English Premier League title with a scintillating 5-1 demolition of Wolves at the Molineux on Wednesday.

Pep Guardiola described Kevin De Bruyne’s form as “beyond perfect” after the Belgian scored four goals to inspire the victory that took their tally to 89 points.

This means they are three points clear of Liverpool with two games to play and boosted their goal difference to seven superior to the Reds.

City need just four points from Sunday’s trip to West Ham and the visit of Aston Villa on the final day of the season to be crowned champions for the fourth time in five years.

And with De Bruyne on this form, they will take some stopping as the Belgian produced his brilliant best to blow away the hosts with a hat-trick inside 24 minutes.

De Bruyne’s was the third quickest hat-trick in Premier League history and his first since he played for Genk 11 years ago.

Since a 2-2 draw with Liverpool left the title race still on a knife edge last month, City have scored 23 goals in five games.

Elsewhere, Leeds United inched closer to relegation as they suffered yet another defeat, going down 3-0 to Chelsea at Elland Road.

Leeds were reduced to 10 men in consecutive matches as Daniel James was sent off for a reckless challenge on Matteo Kovacic in the 24th minute.

Mason Mount opened the scoring in the 4th minute with a stunning effort and then he turned provider in the 55th minute as Christian Pulisic added a second.

Romelu Lukaku scored a third goal in two matches as he put the icing on the cake in the 83rd minute to seal all three points for the Blues.

Chelsea remain in third place with 70 points, four more than Arsenal who take on Tottenham Hotspur in a London derby on Thursday night.

Leicester City snapped a four-match winning streak to add to Norwich's embarrassing season with a comfortable 3-0 win inspired by a Jamie Vardy brace.

The win brought them into the EPL top half with 45 points after 35 games.

Elsewhere, already relegated Watford played out to a barren draw against Everton, who look to be on course to avoid relegation to the Championship.

Everton are 16th with 36 points, level with Burnley who are not in action until Saturday when they travel for a tough test against Tottenham.