LONDON • Manchester City's procession to a third Premier League title in four years hit a road bump yesterday, when they suffered just their fourth top-flight defeat of the season.
A 10-man Leeds shocked the runaway leaders thanks to Stuart Dallas' double in a 2-1 win at the Etihad.
The Northern Ireland midfielder opened the scoring three minutes before half-time, but hopes of a famous win for Marcelo Bielsa's men seemed to have disappeared when captain Liam Cooper was shown a straight red card in first-half stoppage time.
The visitors withstood a City bombardment until Ferran Torres equalised 14 minutes from time.
But Leeds still summoned the energy to pose a threat on the counter-attack.
They gained their reward when Dallas again fired past Ederson, becoming the first player to score an added-time winner against City since Robin van Persie for Manchester United in 2012.
Bielsa's first win in five meetings against Pep Guardiola propelled Leeds to ninth in their first season back in the English top flight after 16 years and his side are only the fourth promoted side to win away against the Premier League leaders in the competition's history.
The Catalan paid for heavily rotating his side with Wednesday's Champions League quarter-final, second leg, against Borussia Dortmund clearly his priority as Kevin de Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Riyad Mahrez, Phil Foden and Ruben Dias were named on the bench.
City still enjoy a 14-point lead at the top of the Premier League and need just 11 points from their remaining six matches to guarantee a third title in four years.
But United could close the gap to eight points should they win their two games in hand, the first of which is away to Tottenham today.
Ruing the smash-and-grab nature of Leeds' victory - Bielsa's men scored with their two shots as opposed to 29 for City - Guardiola said: "We played a real good game. The goal we gave them, we... make mistakes for a counter-attack.
"We did not control it. We did not create enough for the forwards. It is part of the game... The best moment we had in the game we make a mistake behind and we tried but could not score.
"We are going to rest and prepare two days for the game in Dortmund and decide on how we are going to play."
Having already secured their top-flight status for another season, Bielsa's side are now in the top 10, bumping Arsenal down to 11th in the table.
Their tally of 45 points is their highest after 31 games of a league campaign since 2001-02, when they had 51 points and went on to finish fifth.
And the Argentinian urged his players to keep pressing ahead with seven games left.
"New targets? No. The target is always to impose yourself in the next game and, in accordance to the results we take, it will leave us in a position we deserve to be," Bielsa said.
"I think we have to link the victory to the spirit of the players. The spirit of all the players added together creates a uniform effort."
In the later game, Liverpool came from behind to defeat Aston Villa 2-1 at Anfield.
Ollie Watkins opened the scoring for the visitors. But Mohamed Salah levelled for the hosts, before Trent Alexander-Arnold scored a stoppage-time winner. The victory snapped Liverpool's six-game losing streak in the league at home.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
