Chaos reigned in the English Premier League’s relegation battle on Monday as Everton scored five goals in a surprising win to climb out of the bottom three and Leicester conceded five in a confidence-sapping loss to drop into it.

Southampton’s 11-year stay in the top division is surely over, meanwhile, after a 4-3 loss at Nottingham Forest plunged the last-placed team eight points from safety with three games left.

There was a total of 21 goals in three games involving relegation-threatened teams, who appeared to take the view that attack was the best form of defense with time running out in the fight to avoid the drop.

Everton’s goal spree was the most surprising. A 5-1 victory at Brighton came out of nowhere, ending a seven-game winless run at the home of a team that had an outside shot at Champions League qualification.

Even wilder was Fulham’s 5-3 win over Leicester, which is in danger of going down just seven years after capturing the league title in one of the greatest sporting stories of all time.

Leicester and Leeds fell into the relegation zone and were tied on 30 points, two behind Everton and three adrift of Forest.

More worrying for Leicester is its remaining schedule, with games to come against Liverpool at home, Newcastle away and West Ham at home.

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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Steve Douglas, The Associated Press