Arsenal shrugged off the loss of four suspended players to score a 3-0 victory at Birmingham City on Saturday and stay top after a Premier League record unbeaten start of 13 games.
Fredrik Ljungberg scored after three minutes and late strikes by Dennis Bergkamp and Robert Pires ensure all three points for the Gunners who were without Patrick Vieira, Lauren, Martin Keown and Ray Parlour. They were suspended for their misbehavior at the end of a 0-0 tie at Manchester United in September.
PHOTO: AP
Chelsea remained second after a 1-0 victory at Southampton where Dutch defender Mario Melchiot scored a rare goal while defending champion Manchester United edged Blackburn 2-1 to stay third.
Three days after his hat-trick steered the Dutch into the European Championship finals, United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy netted the first against Blackburn.
A record Premier League crowd of 67,748 saw the Dutchman fire the Reds ahead in the 24th minute and Brazilian World Cup star Kleberson add a second just before half time for his first goal in a Reds shirt.
Australian midfielder Brett Emerton gave United a nervous second half with a 62nd minute strike but Rovers wound up the loser for the sixth time in seven games while the Reds made it six wins in seven.
The result also gave Tim Howard the edge over Brad Friedel in the matchup of two American goalkeepers.
Rovers manager Graeme Souness, whose team finished sixth last season and had 15 shutouts, blamed the loss on more defense errors.
The results mean that the Gunners remain top with 33 points from 13 games, Chelsea has 32 and Manchester United 31. The gap to fourth place Charlton is now nine points so that the title race appears down to the top three.
A late and disputed Paolo Di Canio penalty gained Charlton a 1-1 tie at Leicester and Leeds United's woes continued with a 2-0 loss at home to Bolton.
Two goals in two minutes by Kevin Davies and Stelios Giannakopoulos earned Wanderers a fourth shutout in a row and Leeds, which fired manager Peter Reid last week, is last with just eight points from 13 games.
Next to last Wolves -- 10 points -- tumbled 2-0 at Everton which climbed out of the bottom three to 14th place. Canadian striker Tomasz Radzinski scored for the Toffees in the 16th and Irish winger Kevin Kilbane added the second three minutes later.
Scottish league
Chris Sutton scored a hat-trick and Henrik Larsson added the other two as leader Celtic romped to a 5-1 victory at Dundee United on Saturday to remain five points clear in the Scottish Premier League.
Danish forward Peter Lovenkrands netted twice in the last two minutes as defending champion Rangers gained a 3-0 beating of Aberdeen at Ibrox Park to make sure the lead didn't become eight points.
Celtic manager Martin O'Neill, whose side faces Bayern Munich in Champions League action tomorrow, decided to team Sutton with Larsson in attack at Tannadice and leave Welsh international John Hartson on the bench.
Larsson headed home Stilian Petrov's corner in the 52nd, Sutton added the third four minutes later after United goalkeeper Paul Gallacher had fumbled Larsson's lob and the Swedish striker fired the fourth into the top corner in the 58th.
Dundee United hit back in the 76th minute when Jim McIntyre punished a mistake by Didier Agathe to fire past Rab Douglas. But Sutton won a penalty after a clumsy challenge from Alan Archibald and complete his hat-trick by firing home the spot kick.
Aberdeen appeared on course to shut Rangers out at Ibrox until Stephen Hughes fired the Gers ahead 13 minutes from the end.
Then Lovenkrands gave the scoreline a lopsided look with further strikes in the 89th and 90th minutes.
Spanish League
Deportivo de La Coruna played out a 0-0 draw with Real Betis on a waterlogged field Saturday to extend its lead at the top of the Spanish league standings to three points.
In other games, Brazilian striker Sonny Anderson scored in injury time as Villarreal downed FC Barcelona 2-1, while Mallorca topped struggling Real Sociedad 1-0.
Deportivo leads with 26 points from 12 games. Valencia and Real Madrid have 23 from 11, while FC Barcelona has 19 from 12. Atletico de Madrid is fifth with 19 from 11.
Valencia and Madrid each has the chance to replace Deportivo on goal difference if they win their games today. Valencia was visiting Murcia, while Madrid was hosting Albacete.
With surface water covering the center of the field at Betis' Manuel Ruiz de Lopera Stadium, Betis and Deportivo found it impossible to create many chances in a game which could easily have been suspended.
Betis, which had lost its previous three games, wasted its best chance in the 28th minute when forward Fernando Fernandez's weak penalty was comfortably saved by Deportivo goalkeeper Jose Francisco Molina.
Deportivo enjoyed a second escape on the hour when Betis striker Dani Martin's goal was disallowed, presumably because Argentine substitute Martin Palermo's previous overhead kick was ruled to be dangerous play.
Deportivo hosts AEK Athens in the Champions League tomorrow, its first game in the competition since its humiliating 8-3 defeat by Monaco.
Bundesliga
High-flying VfB Stuttgart won its eight straight match Saturday, beating Hannover 96 3-1 in the 13th round of the Bundesliga behind two goals from reserve midfielder Silvio Meissner.
Stuttgart, whose team record run includes Champions League and German Cup matches, moved two points clear when Bayer Leverkusen was forced to charge back to gain a 2-2 draw against Borussia Dortmund. Leverkusen fell to third, with Bremen moving up to second as Ailton scored a hat trick in his side's 3-1 rout of Bochum. The Brazilian forward has rung up 13 goals in as many rounds, five more than anyone else.
Dutch League
Mateja Kezman scored two goals within a minute Saturday as PSV Eindhoven came back to beat NEC Nijmegen 3-2 and keep Guus Hiddink's side in the Dutch championship race.
PSV rose to within a point of leader Ajax, which hosts Heerenveen on Sunday.
Third-place AZ Alkmaar lost at fifth-place Roda JK Kerkrade 5-1 as Greek striker Yannis Anastasiou scored two and set up another. Feyenoord stayed fourth by topping second-to-bottom Vitesse Arnhem 3-0.
Ex-PSV midfielder Bjorn van der Doelen and Frank Demouge put NEC up 2-0 within 10 minutes. PSV responded through John de Jong, but it took until the 71st minute for Kezman to latch onto a defensive blunder and level the score.
Within a minute, the Serbian sharpshooter, back from a three-game suspension for striking a player during an early October game, netted the match-winner with his 11th goal of the season in just his ninth appearance.
Italian League
David Trezeguet and Pavel Nedved scored a goal each Saturday as Juventus beat lowly Modena 2-0 to consolidate its lead in Italy's top league.
La Juve, which stretched its unbeaten streak to 10 matches, has 26 points in the Serie A standings, five clear of AS Roma and AC Milan, which are tied in second place ahead of Sunday's matches.
The Roman team is at Bologna and AC Milan is at Chievo Verona.
Inter Milan closed the gap on the top places by thrashing Reggina 6-0 at home on a scoring spree by Fabio Cannavaro, Obafemi Martins, Andy van der Meyde, Francisco Farinos, Julio Ricardo Cruz and Christian Vieri.
The third consecutive win since coach Alberto Zaccheroni took over from dismissed Hector Cuper vaulted Inter to 19 points, back into the title fight.
Italy captain Cannavaro opened the scoring in the 33rd minute with a sensational drive from 30m -- his seventh goal in a 12-year Serie A career.
"I shut my eyes and I kicked," Cannavaro said.
Martins, taking advantage of some lucky rebounds, beat four Reggina defenders and scored with a diagonal shot in the 42nd. The 19-year-old Nigerian forward celebrated with a streak of somersaults.
Juventus and Inter Milan had their Serie A games on Saturday because of their Champions League commitments.
Inter Milan will play Arsenal at San Siro tomorrow while Juventus' match with Galatasaray, originally scheduled on the same day, was postponed by UEFA to Dec. 2 following suicide attacks in Istanbul.
Juventus, which already qualified for the next round of the European competition, has been pressing UEFA to play Galatasaray at a neutral venue in its Group D game.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier