By DPA
London : Wins for Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea left the top of the English Premier League unchanged.
Champions United grabbed a hard-fought 2-0 win at Reading with two late goals from Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo Saturday while Arsenal’s comfortable 3-0 win at struggling Fulham kept up their chase for the title. Arsenal sit behind United on goal difference, with both teams level on 54 points. Chelsea’s 1-0 win over Birmingham keeps them four points behind the leaders on 50 points and puts them 11 points clear of Liverpool, who play on Monday, in fourth place.
In an entertaining and competitive game at the Madejski stadium, both Reading and Manchester Utd had chances to open the scoring before Wayne Rooney slotted the ball into the net after good work by Carlos Tevez in the 75th minute.
As the home side pushed for a late equaliser, United hit their opponents on the break with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring yet again to seal the points.
Manchester Utd manager Sir Alex Ferguson hailed the victory as “an important result for us” but acknowledged that Reading had made it difficult for his team to get all three points.
“Credit to Reading, they keep going all the time,” said the United boss. “We kept making chances, but you do start to worry when the game goes on and you haven’t scored. By the end we were quite happy to get through it,” added Ferguson.
Two first half goals from Emmanuel Adebayor enabled Arsenal to keep pace with Manchester United as they brushed aside Fulham at Craven Cottage. Fulham, who are still without a win under new manager Roy Hodgson, were punished further late in the second half as Tomas Rosicky rounded off the Gunners’ win.
Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, was happy with his team’s performance, particularly after the points that were dropped in last week’s 1-1 draw with Birmingham City.
“We gave a strong response to our result last week and it will be a big lift for us,” Wenger said. “I believe that we were in control of the game for the whole 90 minutes. We scored early and we played well.”
Discussing the closeness of the race for the title this season, Wenger claimed that he was enjoying the challenge. “It’s interesting, it’s exciting and that promises a very interesting end of the season,” added the Arsenal manager.
Chelsea’s excellent form continued with a tight 1-0 away win over Birmingham City. A rare Claudio Pizarro goal in the 80th minute – only his second in English football – gave the Blues their sixth straight win in all competitions.
Blues’ boss Avram Grant was pleased with his side’s hard-fought victory.
“It was not high quality,” the Chelsea manager acknowledged, “but we deserved to win.”
The race for the final remaining Champions League spot tightened further as Blackburn drew 1-1 at home with Middlesbrough and a Benjani hat-trick gave Portsmouth a 3-1 win over Derby County.
With Everton – in fifth – travelling to Wigan tomorrow and fourth-placed Liverpool playing sixth-placed Aston Villa on Monday, just 2 points now separates Liverpool from Blackburn in 9th.
Lower down the league, Tottenham edged closer to the top half of the table with a 2-0 home win over Sunderland.
In the day’s evening kick-off, Kevin Keegan’s first match back in charge of Newcastle – 11 years after he walked out on the club – ended surprisingly in a drab 0-0 draw against Bolton.
Neither team was able to create many chances but Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given denied the away side a last-gasp winner with a crucial save from Jlloyd Samuel in the final minute.