Arsenal, United wins leave league top unchanged
By Vic Mills
LONDON (JP): Comfortable victories for Arsenal and Manchester United left the top of the Premiership unchanged with the Londoners a point clear of their arch-rivals.
The gulf in class was all too evident at Highbury where two goals for Dennis Bergkamp and others from Ray Parlour, David Platt and Ian Wright consigned Barnsley to its sixth successive defeat and the bottom of the table.
After the verve and virtuosity of the win over Juventus, Manchester United reverted to cruise control Saturday against Crystal Palace. The match was over as a contest after just 22 minutes as first Teddy Sheringham fired home from a corner and then Palace's Hreldarsson stabbed the ball into his own net. Thereafter, United was content to play neat but blunt football.
The game was decided even earlier at Selhurst Park, where a 6th minute Chris Sutton goal for Blackburn Rovers put the game beyond Wimbledon. Carl Cort came close on several occasions, but Rovers' defense, superbly marshalled by Colin Hendry, was more than a match for anything Wimbledon had to offer.
After its modest showing against Celtic in the UEFA Cup, Liverpool came roaring back Sunday to beat Chelsea 4-2, courtesy of a Patrik Berger hat-trick. The Czech opened the scoring with a delicate lob in the 20th minute, only for Chelsea to equalize through a hotly disputed Gianfranco Zola goal two minutes later.
Chelsea was reduced to ten men while the sending off of defender Bernard Lambourde for a second bookable offense in the 25th minute. Ruud Gullit immediately substituted Zola and brought himself off the bench and into the back four.
The changes had little effect, however, as Berger completed his hat-trick with strikes either side of the interval and capped a superb individual display by making the fourth for Robbie Fowler. Gustavo Poyet added a late penalty for Chelsea, but by then the Londoners were well beaten.
The highlight of a dull game on Tyneside between Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur was the late arrival for the second half of Les Ferdinand and Ruel Fox. The game was already underway when the two, inadvertently locked in the toilets, made it down the tunnel and onto the pitch. It was that sort of an afternoon for Spurs, which lost to an injury time goal from Warren Barton.
There was last-minute drama of another kind at the Reebock stadium where Bolton's Andy Todd and Aston Villa's Stan Collymore were sent off for a fist fight that was the equal of anything in Atlantic City where Lennox Lewis and Andrew Golota met for the WBC heavyweight title. Villa won the points with a 12th minute Savo Milosevic header, Lewis followed several hours later with a first round TKO.
Easy winners
The only punch on view at Hillsborough was the sucker punch as Sheffield Wednesday hit Everton with three goals in the last 12 minutes, two from Benito Carbone and another from Paulo Di Canio, to finish comfortable 3-1 winners.
There was a fighting performance at The Dell, too, where troubled Southampton ran out easy 3-0 winners against a grossly underperforming West Ham side with goals from Egil Ostenstad, Kevin Davies and Jason Dodd.
Elsewhere, Coventry City and Leeds United played a lackluster nil-all draw at Highfield Road, while in the Monday night match Derby County moved to sixth in the Premiership with Francesco Baiano scoring both goals in its 2-1 at Leicester City.
On the European scene, a controversial penalty from Brazilian Ronaldo preserved Inter Milan's unbeaten start in Serie A, his strike cancelling a 35th minute goal from Pavel Nedved in the hard-fought 1-1 draw against Lazio.
The draw ended Inter's run of eight successive victories, but was enough to keep Luigi Simoni's side two points clear of AS Roma, Parma and Juventus.
Argentinian Abel Balbo's hat-trick for Roma in the 6-2 rout of Napoli lifted his career total in Italy to 102, a record for a foreigner in Serie A. The win moved Roma ahead of Parma, held 0-0 at Vicenza, on goal difference.
A 25th minute goal from Luis Oliveira for Fiorentina shocked Juventus into action at the Delle Alpi stadium in Turin. The reigning champions replied with two goals in three minutes from Filippo Inzaghi and Alessandro Del Piero to take the points.
Other matches
Lower down the table, Swede Andreas Andersson scored within minutes of coming on as a second half substitute to claim AC Milan's first victory of the season at Empoli.
In the Dutch first division, Ajax made it nine goals out of nine with a 1-0 victory at Willem II Tilburg, courtesy of a 12th minute goal from Michael Laudrup. The Amsterdam giants stand six points clear of PSV Eindhoven, who beat Heerenveen 3-1 with goals from Zeljko Petrovic, Luc Nilis and Ovidiu Stinga.
Two goals from Olaf Marschall in the 3-1 win away at Munich 1860 were enough to keep Kaiserslautern top of the German Bundesliga. Bayern Munich remains two points adrift after beating Vfl Bochum 3-2 with two goals from Mario Basler and another from Alexander Zickler. European Cup holder, Borussia Dortmund, slipped into the bottom three after going down 3-1 at Arminia Bielefeld.
Barcelona extended its lead to four points at the top of the Spanish first division with a 3-2 win at home to Tenerife, thanks to two goals from Oscar Garcia and another from Luis Enrique. Mallorca remains second after a 2-2 draw with Compostela, while Real Madrid stands fourth following a nil-all draw at home to Deportivo Coruna.
Finally to France, where Metz had its lead at the top cut to two points after losing to goals from Pascal Nouma and Oliveier Dacourt at Strasbourg. Paris St Germain missed the chance to go top after drawing 0-0 at Nantes.