City, which was without league-leading scorer Erling Haaland, was made to work at Elland Road, but the victory put Pep Guardiola's side on 59 points.

Arsenal, which has also played 28 games, hosts Chelsea on Monday (AEDT) as the title race tightens.

Leeds had the better first-half chances, including a couple of near-misses by Dominic Calvert-Lewin, before Semenyo scored his sixth goal for City in first-half stoppage-time.

Rayan Ait-Nouri was sent through on the left side of the box and Semenyo slid to touch home his square ball from close range.

"It means everything," Semenyo said. "I think we just want to win all our games and whatever Arsenal do we just have to wait and see.

"We just need to control what we can control, win our games, and yeah, we'll see what happens. But we're all happy."

Second-placed City's win was its fifth in six league games.

Haaland missed the match with what Guardiola called a "little injury" in training this week. Rayan Cherki started in his place.

Leeds boss Daniel Farke made a beeline for the referee after the final whistle and was quickly shown a red card.

"I had a short chat with him," assistant manager Edmund Riemer said after the game. "There were incidents, there was time wasting. They got a yellow card in added time. Six minutes.

"You are emotional and then he ran on the pitch and he got a red card, I think for what he said. Perhaps it was too aggressive."

Buoyed by recent draws with Chelsea and Aston Villa, Leeds was on the front foot from the start and Calvert-Lewin missed a gilt-edged chance when he inexplicably fired wide and sent another shot from a tight angle trickling past the far post.

City settled into its game and started dominating possession before Semenyo's goal.

Leeds kicked off the second half with the same energy as it had in the first and Calvert-Lewin latched on to a ball from Anton Stach only for Matheus Nunes to charge in and clear it.

Marc Guehi nearly doubled City's lead late in the game but his header was clawed out by Welsh goalkeeper Karl Darlow.

Leeds kept pressing and Jaka Bijol headed a corner just wide in the dying minutes as Farke held his head in disbelief.

His are in 15th place with 31 points from 28 games, six points above the relegation zone.