Manchester City, Tottenham Look to Keep Pace with Liverpool in EPL Title Chase

Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur will each have to collect a full three points on Sunday in order to avoid giving up ground to Liverpool in the tightly contested Premier League title race.

Liverpool bounced back from its recent struggles on Saturday, using goals by Sadio Mane, Georginio Wijnaldum and Mohamed Salah to coast to a 3-0 victory over Bournemouth.

Three-Way Title Race Heating Up

The victory put Liverpool three points ahead of Manchester City, with both teams having already played 26 matches. Tottenham is eight points back, but has played just 25 EPL matches on the season.

On Sunday, both City and Tottenham will be in action with the chance to stay within striking distance of the Reds.

Spurs has the first match of the day, as they will host a Leicester City team that has lost three of its last four EPL matches. However, the one exception was a critical 1-1 draw against Liverpool, showing that 12th place Leicester still has the quality to cause problems for the title contenders.

But Leicester may find it more difficult to contend with the likes of Tottenham without midfielder Marc Albrighton, who the club say needs surgery after hurting his hamstring in practice.

“He will not be available until the end of the season,” Leicester manager Claude Puel told reporters in a pre-match press conference. “It’s longer than just a hamstring injury. He will have surgery.”

Spurs Believe They Can Win League

That may be welcome news to Tottenham, which can ill afford to give away any points if it wants to stay close to Liverpool and Manchester City at the top of the table. But while they might have a tough road to an EPL title, midfielder Moussa Sissoko believes his team has what it takes to stay in the race.

“If people want to talk about Liverpool and Man City then it’s better for us,” Sissoko told the Daily Telegraph. “It means we can just do our job. We will fight to the end and anything can happen.”

According to William Hill, Tottenham is a 7/10 favorite to collect a win at home, with Leicester given 9/2 odds of pulling off an upset and a draw being offered to bettors at 11/4.

Guardiola: Chelsea Game ‘A Final for Us’

While Man City has an easier path to a league title, they also face a stiffer challenge on Sunday, hosting Chelsea in a game that manager Pep Guardiola thinks could be as big as any in the EPL season.

“When you see the team, the players they have, the squad they have…I have a lot of respect,” Guardiola told reporters ahead of the match. “The game tomorrow is a final for us and we have to play in that way.”

In fifth place and 15 points behind Liverpool – albeit with a game in hand – Chelsea is all but out of the EPL title race after consecutive losses to Arsenal and Bournemouth in late January, even if Guardiola insists that they still have an outside chance. But Chelsea is in the final of the Carabao Cup and has eased into the Europa League knockout stage, showing they are a quality side even if the EPL season hasn’t gone their way.

Still, oddsmakers think Man City will be able to collect three points at home. William Hill has City as a 47/100 favorite, with 7/2 odds on a draw and 11/2 on Chelsea grabbing a road win.

When it comes to the overall EPL race, oddsmakers see little to choose from between the top two sides. Man City (10/11) and Liverpool (1/1) are virtual co-favorites at the moment, with Tottenham (16/1) refusing to go away just yet.