Liverpool thrash Swansea as Manchester United draw with Burnley in EPL

LIVERPOOL, Dec 27 (Agencies): Liverpool handed struggling Swansea an expected 5-0 thrashing in the English Premier League on Tuesday. The win kept Liverpool in the top four, a point ahead of fifth-placed Tottenham.

However, Juergen Klopp's side was 17 points adrift of leader Manchester City.

Having fired Paul Clement a week ago, managerless Swansea remained on the bottom of the table.

Liverpool extended its unbeaten league run to 11 games, but after all three draws of its previous four matches it felt it should have emerged as a winner.

Captain for the day, Philippe Coutinho scored the only goal of the first half. Roberto Firmino's double and strikes from Trent Alexander-Arnold and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain completed a convincing victory.

With Jordan Henderson injured, Coutinho, who wanted to leave Liverpool for Barcelona during the summer transfer window, was handed the captain's armband. Klopp's gesture seemed to inspire the Brazilian midfielder, who produced a trademark long-range strike after just six minutes to put his side in control.

Swansea competed well up until the break but could have gone two down moments before as Firmino was guilty of wasting a fine opportunity.

Meanwhile, Manchester United came from two goals down to rescue a dramatic 2-2 draw against Burnley thanks to Jesse Lingard's double, while Tottenham striker Harry Kane shattered a Premier League record with a hat-trick in a 5-2 rout of Southampton on Tuesday. United are now 12 points behind the runaway leaders. Ashley Barnes gave Burnley the perfect start in the third minute when he poked home from Johann Berg Gudmundsson's free-kick.

Burnley hadn't won at Old Trafford since 1962, four months before United coach Jose Mourinho was born, but they scored again in the 36th minute. Belgian midfielder Steven Defour administered the knockout blow, bending a superb free-kick into the top corner.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic, making his first league start since April after a major knee injury, was hauled off at half-time and his replacement Lingard gave United hope with a sublime back-flicked finish from Ashley Young's cross in the 53rd minute.

And Lingard finished as United's hero when he fired into the bottom corner in the first minute of stoppage-time.

At Wembley, Kane established a new record for the most Premier League goals in a year and will finish as Europe's leading scorer for 2017.

In another match, Alvaro Morata returned to lift Chelsea to a 2-0 win over Brighton that took the champions to within a point of second placed Manchester United. Morata was badly missed during his one-gane ban as Chelsea laboured to a goalless draw at Everton in their previous match.

But the Spain striker was back in the line-up at Stamford Bridge and he netted 51 seconds into the second half with a header from Cesar Azpilicueta's cross.