Manchester City brought newly-crowned champions Liverpool crashing back down to earth with a bump on Thursday night as they made a statement with a 4-0 win at the Etihad Stadium in the Reds' first match since winning the title.

Liverpool's second league defeat of the campaign made little tangible difference other than closing the gap at the top of the table to 20 points, but it was nonetheless a warning sign that Pep Guardiola's side are unlikely to be as far off the pace next season.

Behind them, the top-four race continues to intrigue with Wolverhampton Wanderers and Manchester United both winning to close the gap on Leicester City and Chelsea, both of whom were beaten.

Sheffield United also returned to winning ways with a 3-1 triumph over fellow European hopefuls Tottenham Hotspur, while at the bottom West Ham United's victory over Chelsea ensured that they took full advantage of defeats for Watford, Brighton & Hove Albion, Bournemouth, Aston Villa and Norwich City.

Here, Sports Mole selects its Premier League team of the week for gameweek 32.

Plenty of attacking players stole the show during Man City's rout of Liverpool on Thursday night, but the contribution of Ederson should also not go under the radar. The Brazilian made three saves, including an important one to deny Mohamed Salah while the scores were still goalless.

The wealth of attacking talent worthy of a place in this week's XI forces us into a gung-ho and - quite frankly - unbalanced lineup, but this was very much a gameweek for the forwards and so only three defenders make the cut.

Two of those come from Burnley, with Ben Mee and James Tarkowski winning 13 aerial duels between them and Mee also having the decisive impact at the other end of the field by scoring the only goal of the game against Crystal Palace. Nick Pope in goal behind them also deserves an honourable mention.

Joining them in the back three is Aaron Wan-Bissaka, who is more used to playing at right-back but seems to have all the attributes to succeed on the right of a central three too. The Manchester United man registered an assist, four tackles and a 91% pass success rate in the 3-0 win over Brighton.

It is fortunate that we have three players who relish defending as from thereon in it is all-out attack - a situation forced by the sheer number of outstanding performances in the final third this week.

Indeed, there are a host of players who would ordinarily make the XI with ease but miss out this week - the likes of Sander Berge, Raheem Sterling, Tomas Soucek, James Ward-Prowse, Jarrod Bowen, Willian, Michail Antonio and Oli McBurnie all deserve mentions and can consider themselves very unfortunate not to be included.

There are a host of star names who do make the cut, though, and none more so than our central midfield pairing of Bruno Fernandes and Kevin De Bruyne from the two Manchester clubs.

Fernandes continued his remarkable start to life at United with two goals, including a superb volley to cap off a sweeping team move, while De Bruyne still managed to look a cut above the rest even in a match between the best two teams in the country, registering a goal and another assist.

Phil Foden matched that haul and is proving with every appearance that he is very much one for the present rather than one for the future, giving Andrew Robertson - arguably the best left-back in the world - the runaround at times.

On the opposite flank, Allan Saint-Maximin is the only member of the front six who did not get on the scoresheet this week, but he produced three assists in Newcastle United's 4-1 win over Bournemouth.

The best goal return of the weekend came from Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, who moved joint top of the Golden Boot list and broke Thierry Henry's record for quickest Arsenal player to 50 Premier League goals courtesy of his brace against Norwich, while also adding an assist for good measure.

The right side of this team certainly hints at a bright future for England, with Foden being joined by another highly-rated prospect from Manchester in Mason Greenwood, who also helped himself to a goal and an assist.

Danny Ings, meanwhile, is hot on the heels of Aubameyang and Vardy in the Golden Boot race having moved to 18 for the season with his brace against Watford.