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Manchester City remained the front-runner in the English Premier League title race after winning at Leeds 4-0 on Saturday, Associated Press.

Liverpool won at Newcastle 1-0 in an early kickoff to keep the pressure on City, which responded.

Rodri headed City into a halftime lead, and further goals from Nathan Ake, Gabriel Jesus and Fernandinho lifted it back above Liverpool by a point.

City coach Pep Guardiola made five changes after the midweek Champions League win against Real Madrid, but it made little difference as the defending champion secured a third straight league win for the first time in 2022.

However, it was not as easy as the scoreline might suggest against an embattled Leeds side hungry for points in their fight to beat the drop. Leeds’ first league defeat in six games left it one place and five points above third-from-bottom Everton, which has two games in hand.

Leeds was dealt another injury blow before kickoff when captain Liam Cooper limped out of the warmup and was replaced by Mateusz Klich. The new-look defence was undone in the 13th minute, according to the Associated Press.

Stuart Dallas was penalised for his foul on Raheem Sterling and Phil Foden’s excellent out-swinging free kick was headed home by Rodri.

Leeds’ wretched luck with injuries continued in first-half stoppage time when Dallas twisted his knee in a 50-50 challenge with Jack Grealish and was carried off the field on a stretcher.

City doubled its lead from another set-piece nine minutes after the break when Foden’s corner was headed goalwards by Ruben Dias and Ake turned to sweep the ball home from six yards at the far post.

Ake hobbled off soon after and was replaced by Oleksandr Zinchenko. Leeds went close through Raphinha, whose shot was deflected over by Aymeric Laporte, Associated Press reported.

But City sealed the match in the 78th when Ederson’s clearance was chested into Foden’s path and his throughball was buried by Jesus.

The Leeds players didn’t let their heads go down and Daniel James and Sam Greenwood saw successive goalbound shots blocked and fellow substitute Joe Gelhardt’s effort was saved by Ederson.

Fernandinho, a late replacement for Rodri, arrowed home a low shot in stoppage time, according to the Associated Press.

Real Madrid made it look easy this time.

With a title-winning campaign few could contest, Madrid clinched its record-extending 35th Spanish league title on Saturday, lifting the trophy with four rounds left after routing Espanyol 4-0 with its backup players, Associated Press reported.

Led by a red-hot Karim Benzema, Madrid was in control from the start, successfully fending off every run made by its challengers and comfortably winning its second league title in three seasons.

“We were very consistent throughout the season,” coach Carlo Ancelotti said. “We faltered in very few matches.”

Barcelona thought it could have had a chance to catch Madrid after improving late in the season, but it never came close. Sevilla was near the top for a period but could not keep up, eventually seeing its chances disappear after a demoralizing 3-2 loss to Madrid at home after leading 2-0 at halftime a few rounds ago. Defending champion Atlético Madrid got off to a slow start and never had enough momentum to contend, according to the Associated Press.

After its win over Espanyol, Madrid was 17 points ahead of Sevilla, 18 points in front of Barcelona and 20 points ahead of Atlético.

Madrid led in all but six rounds early in the season, being at the top since the 14th round in November.

It was Madrid’s third league title in the last six seasons, one more than Barcelona and two more than Atlético in that period. Before that, Barcelona had won six titles in eight seasons, with Madrid one and Atlético another, Associated Press reported.

Delhi Capitals defeated Kolkata Knight Riders by four wickets in the Indian Premier League on Thursday, The Indian Express reported.

Sent into bat, Kolkata Knight Riders were restricted to 146 for nine. DC chased down the target with six balls to spare. Opener David Warner blasted 42 off 26 balls for DC.

With the exception of skipper Shreyas Iyer (42), the KKR top-order struggled to get going against the Capitals’ bowlers at the Wankhede Stadium.

Batting at number six, Nitish Rana top-scored with 57 off 34 balls and hit three fours and four sixes, even as the others failed to leave KKR reeling at 35/4 at one stage, according to the Associated Press.

Wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav was the most impressive bowler with figures of 4/14 from three overs, while Mustafizur Rahman took three wickets in a brilliant final over.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s fifth goal in three games salvaged a point for Manchester United in a 1-1 draw against Chelsea on Thursday that further damaged his team’s chances of a top-four finish in the Premier League, Associated Press reported.

Ronaldo ran onto a ball over the Chelsea defense from Nemanja Matic and delivered a clinical finish in the 62nd minute, two minutes after Marcos Alonso gave the visitors the lead.

Reece James later curled a shot against the post for Chelsea, which dominated the first half but found United goalkeeper David de Gea in fine form.

With only three games left to play in the league, United stayed in sixth place — five points behind fourth-place Arsenal and having played two matches more than its rival for Champions League qualification.

Tottenham is between the two teams, in the fifth spot, with three more points than United and two games in hand.

Chelsea consolidated third place and is six points above Arsenal.

Ronaldo came into the game having scored a hat trick against Norwich and another goal against Arsenal in his previous two games, according to the Associated Press.

On 17 goals, Ronaldo is tied with Son Heung-min in second place in the Premier League scoring chart behind Mohamed Salah.

“Not only the goal Cristiano scored but his whole performance, his attitude at age of 37, this is not normal to do that,” interim United manager Ralf Rangnick said. “If he plays like he did today he can still be a big help to this team.”

The buildup was dominated by reports that Rangnick was considering taking over as Austria’s national team coach as well as more protests against the Glazer family’s ownership.

Some protesters entered Old Trafford in the 17th minute, having missed a minute for each of the Glazers’ 17 years in charge.

“Glazers out” read a banner above the tunnel before kickoff at Old Trafford, where a mixture of De Gea’s saves and poor-decision making meant Chelsea failed to turn their 11 shots into a deserved halftime lead, Associated Press reported.

Thomas Tuchel’s team finally broke the deadlock when Alonso volleyed home following Kai Havertz’s flick-on but Chelsea was unable to build on that.

United defender Victor Lindelof saw a stoppage-time header denied and the highlight of the closing stages was the introduction of 17-year-old talent Alejandro Garnacho for his United debut.

“One team deserved to win and that was us,” Tuchel said. “We didn’t take it. It was a very, very good performance but we were not decisive enough. We lacked a bit of determination in the box to win the game, according to the Associated Press.

“It sometimes happens. It’s on us to learn from it. You need to be clinical to get the reward. We have to live with a point but it’s not a fair result.”