The England midfielder put on a show on Monday night (Picture: Getty)

Manchester City have leapfrogged Arsenal and moved within two points of Premier League leaders Liverpool ? with a game in hand ? after securing a 3-1 victory over Brentford courtesy of a Phil Foden hat-trick.

The hosts took the lead at the Community Stadium on Monday night but gave up an avalanche of first-half chances, with goalkeeper Mark Flekken setting a club record for saves in a match.

On the stroke of half-time, Foden finally found an equaliser in somewhat fortuitous fashion before quick-fire goals after the restart put the game to bed ? and put the rest of their title rivals on notice.

The reigning champions made a strong start to the match with Julian Alvarez twice stinging the palms of Flekken, who had to make a number of saves as sky blue shirts swarmed the penalty area virtually from the first minute.
Incredibly, it was the Dutch goalkeeper who had an impact at the other end of the pitch with a booming goal-kick cunningly left by Ivan Toney which allowed Neal Maupay to race through on goal for a one-on-one.

He kept his cool and slotted into the bottom corner, with Flekken picking up the assist as City?s players claimed offside ? though you cannot, of course, be offside from a goal kick.

City upped their intensity even more after falling behind and should have levelled almost immediately when the returning Erling Haaland was played clean through, but again Flekken was on hand to race out...