London - An Edin Dzeko double helped Manchester City move second in the Premier League with a 3-0 win at rivals Manchester United on Tuesday, while Arsenal's title hopes all but evaporated in a 2-2 home draw with Swansea City.
Manchester City took the lead after 43 seconds at Old Trafford and never looked back, exposing United's soft centre almost at will with Dzeko and Yaya Toure netting in the second half to inflict another painful defeat on home boss David Moyes.
City have moved into the slipstream of Chelsea, three points adrift of the league leaders with two games in hand.
“It was an amazing game from the first to the last minute,” striker Dzeko said on Sky Sports.
“We wanted to start playing our game early, to press high and get an early goal which we did.
“After that it was all about us. We could have had another goal (in the first 10 minutes) but we scored two more in the second half.”
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was, like Moyes, facing difficult questions after his side conceded a 90th-minute own goal from Mathieu Flamini to draw with struggling Swansea on the back of their 6-0 thrashing at London rivals Chelsea.
It looked like Arsenal would claim all three points when two second-half goals within a minute from Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud cancelled out Wilfried Bony's opener.
Everton made it four wins in a row to maintain their own push for Europe as they beat Newcastle United 3-0 away with England hopeful Ross Barkley, Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku and Leon Osman all on target.
Arsenal stay fourth, two points behind third-placed Liverpool who host Sunderland on Wednesday. Everton are up a place to fifth, six points behind Arsenal with a game in hand. - Reuters