Arsenal cleared another hurdle in their Premier League title quest with a 3-0 victory over Bournemouth in their penultimate home game on Saturday, but Manchester City kept up the pressure with a 5-1 thrashing of Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Hours after Arsenal’s confident win, Pep Guardiola’s men responded with a resounding victory that pulled them to within a point of the North Londoners at the top of the standings, but with a game in hand.

City’s Erling Haaland struck four times, the first of his career, to boost his league-scoring lead to 25. He converted from the penalty spot in the 12th minute and doubled City’s lead in the 35th when he headed home at the far post from Rodri’s cross.

The 23-year-old Norwegian converted again from the spot just before halftime. Hwang Hee-chan pulled one back for Wolves in the 53rd. But a minute later, Haaland smothered any hopes of a comeback by the visitors with his fourth. Substitute Julian Alvarez got City’s fifth in the 85th.

Like City, Arsenal too took the lead through a penalty, shortly before half-time, converted by Bukayo Saka. Leandro Trossard then eased the nerves inside the Emirates Stadium with a second goal on 70 minutes and Declan Rice added the third deep into stoppage-time.

The victory put Arsenal on 83 points from 36 games.

Bournemouth had cause to feel aggrieved with the Arsenal penalty confirmed after a long VAR check and they also had a goal ruled out in the second half after another VAR check.

Gabriel also had a goal ruled out for Arsenal but Rice put the icing on the cake as Mikel Arteta’s team stayed firmly in the hunt to win a first Premier League title for 20 years.

“We played probably the best first half we’ve played all season. We could have gone three, four, five easily. We scored one,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said.

“Then credit to Bournemouth they changed things and the game became more open which we wanted to avoid.”

Ipswich promoted

Ipswich Town ended a 22-year exile from the Premier League when the second-tier Championship club secured a return to the top flight with a 2-0 win over Huddersfield Town, denying Leeds United the second automatic promotion spot.

Ipswich needed a point to confirm promotion going into the final day of the season as Kieran McKenna’s side became the first club since Southampton in 2012 to gain back-to-back promotions from third-tier League One to the Premier League.

After Leicester City had secured promotion last weekend, Ipswich and Leeds were battling for the second automatic promotion spot going into the final day of the league season. But a 2-1 home defeat by Southampton left Leeds third, six points behind Ipswich.

With inputs from Reuters