United stay three points clear of Blackburn in title race
United stay three points clear of Blackburn in title race
LONDON (Reuter): Manchester United stayed three points clear of Blackburn Rovers in the race for the English title when both sides scored contrasting victories in local derbies on Monday.
United, beaten 2-0 by Blackburn on Saturday, pulled off a far- from-convincing 3-2 victory over Oldham at Old Trafford, while Blackburn pushed Everton even closer to relegation with an emphatic 3-0 win at Goodison Park.
With both sides having six matches to play, Manchester United moved on to 79 points and Blackburn 76. Newcastle, who were held to a 0-0 draw at home by Chelsea, are third on 65 points.
It was a bad day for most of the clubs at the wrong end of the table. Tottenham and Southampton joined Everton and Oldham as the day's big losers, with Tottenham going down 4-1 at home to West Ham and Southampton, who, with bottom-placed Swindon are beginning to look doomed, losing 1-0 at home to fellow-strugglers Manchester City.
Sheffield United picked up a point in a 1-1 home draw with Arsenal to stretch its unbeaten run to eight games, although it is still in 20th place.
Big victory
Leeds scored a big victory, winning 4-0 at Queen's Park Rangers although play was held up when around 200 angry QPR fans stormed onto the pitch seconds before half time.
The fans were protesting over the way chairman Richard Thompson has been running the club and staged a sit-in on the halfway line which took more than 15 minutes to clear.
Manchester United, which plays Oldham again on Sunday in an FA Cup semifinal, took the lead after 17 minutes with a looping header from Ryan Giggs.
Oldham, which has improved after a poor start to the season by taking 17 points out of 24 from their previous eight games, came back four minutes after half-time.
Sean McCarthy equalized with a superbly-taken left-foot shot on the turn after 49 minutes, a fitting strike for the 1000th premier league goal of the season.
But just when Oldham looked capable of stealing at least a point, United scored twice in a minute.
Substitute Dion Dublin, who had only come on two minutes earlier, made it 2-1 after 66 minutes with his first league goal of the season, and in the 67th minute a sweeping United move ended with Paul Ince sliding the ball home.
Although Graeme Sharp pulled one back three minutes later, the nervy league leaders held on to win.
Blackburn had no such worries as they demolished an Everton team seemingly nose-diving out of the top division for the first time since 1954.
Everton, crushed 5-1 by Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, fell behind to a 27th-minute strike from former Everton forward Mike Newell, who scored his second and his side's third nine minutes from time.
In between, Jason Wilcox scored his fourth goal in seven games and Everton have now taken one point out of a possible 18 from their last six matches, scoring just twice.
Results
English Premier league Aston Villa 0, Norwich 0 Everton 0, Blackburn 3 Ipswich 0, Coventry 2 Manchester United 3, Oldham 2 Newcastle 0, Chelsea 0 Queen's Park Rangers 0, Leeds 4 Sheffield United 1, Arsenal 1 Southampton 0, Manchester City 1 Tottenham 1, West Ham 4 Wimbledon 1, Liverpool 1
Dutch 1st division Vitesse Arnhem 4, VVV Venlo 0 Tilburg 0, FC Volendam 2 Sparta Rotterdam 2, FC Twente 5 FC Utrecht 1, Roda 1 Maastricht 1, Feyenoord 1
Played Saturday: PSV Eindhoven 2, Leeuwarden 0 Eagles 2, Waalwijk 0
Leading standings (tabulate under played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points):
Ajax 26 21 2 3 67 19 44 Feyenoord 28 15 11 2 48 21 41 Eindhoven 28 13 10 5 46 27 36 Kerkrade 28 15 5 8 48 28 35 Breda 27 13 7 7 52 35 33 Arnhem 28 15 3 10 57 32 33 Twente 28 12 9 7 46 31 33