In the end, only Man City and Liverpool competed for the EPL title. Man City's points tally is getting closer to just two points, De Bruyne's return has a big impact on Man City's game and Liverpool lost Moh Salah who played in the Africa Cup of Nations. Looking at Liverpool's current condition, it is not impossible that they will lose points, because Moh Salah is Liverpool's mainstay player on the front line. To stay in the top four until the end of the season I think Arsenal and Tottenham.
I think so too. Both Liverpool and Man City will be the tightest competitors in the EPL with a very small point gap. So we can see that if one of them slips even once, it will really benefit the other. Man City experienced a decline in performance when several of its main players were injured for a long time, especially de Bruyne. But now, Man City has returned to normal. With the hope that the contribution of all Man City key players, including de Bruyne in particular, can really bring Man City back to being as strong as before. So, the competition between Man City and Liverpool will really be exciting.
On the other hand, Arsenal seems to be starting to move away from the competition due to some of their performance which has declined quite a bit since the middle of the season. Arteta has several times not been able to get his team to achieve the victory they should have, and instead experienced failures that were actually unnecessary. In this case, Arteta must work even harder to rebuild Arsenal and compete with Man City and Liverpool for the EPL title. Oh yes, regarding Aston Villa, this was really unexpected because they also turned out to be progressing very well. However, when compared to Man City and Liverpool, it looks like Aston Villa still has to try harder. At least, them being in the top 3 or getting into the UCL is something that is definitely very valuable.