PL: Man City title woes deepen after Brighton draw

Erling Haaland returned to the scoresheet with his 150th goal for Manchester City, but it was not enough to ease the growing pressure on Pep Guardiola’s side as they were held to a third straight Premier League draw by Brighton.

City’s title challenge continues to lose momentum after an unconvincing start to the year, marked by dropped points and injuries to key players. The run of results has handed the advantage to Arsenal, who could move eight points clear at the top of the table if they defeat Liverpool on Thursday.

Haaland gave City the lead, but Brighton grew into the game and looked dangerous against a City defence weakened by absences. The visitors came close in the first half when Pascal Gross found space to power a header towards goal, only for goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma to produce a fine save. Gross was unable to turn in the rebound.

Brighton continued to threaten as Georginio Rutter sent Ferdi Kadioglu through with a long pass from the halfway line, but the Turkey international failed to beat Donnarumma, shooting straight at the imposing Italian.

The draw leaves City with more ground to make up in the title race, while Brighton will take confidence from another strong performance against one of the league’s top sides.

The Seagulls were exploiting gaps in the opposition defence – Rutter ran clear himself to bear down on goal but was denied by Abdukodir Khusanov’s brilliant, last-ditch challenge.

But Brighton failed the most of their chances and paid for that as City took a 41st-minute lead.

Star man Haaland converted a penalty, and scored the Premier League 35,000th goal since its 1992 inception, after Jeremy Doku was brought down in the box by Diego Gomez – the referee only awarding the spot-kick after reviewing it on the pitchside monitor.

Captain Bernardo Silva clipped the post in the second half as the hosts looked to stretch their lead, but Fabian Hurzeler’s men hit back through Kaoru Mitoma’s lovely finish from the edge of the area.

Gomez incredibly missed when picked out by Mitoma a couple of yards from goal, and both sides had to settle for a point.

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