Manchester United put the pressure back on Chelsea after easily beating Sheffield United 2-0 on Tuesday in the Premier League.
Wayne Rooney and Michael Carrick scored a goal each to give United a six-point lead over two-time defending champion Chelsea, which played at West Ham yesterday.
Arsenal moved into third place, at least temporarily, with a 3-1 win over Manchester City. Tomas Rosicky, Cesc Fabregas and Julio Baptista all scored for Arsenal.
PHOTO: AP
Carrick, who scored two goals in United's 7-1 rout of Roma last week in the Champions League, chipped the ball into the net from close range in the fourth minute after a perfect through pass from Cristiano Ronaldo.
Rooney doubled the lead in the 51st with a strike from inside the area after a long pass from Ryan Giggs. The England striker controlled the ball with his toe after running past two defenders and then beat Sheffield United goalkeeper Paddy Kenny.
"Michael's first one is a great run, beautiful pass from Cristiano and a nice dink over the goalkeeper," United manager Alex Ferguson said. "The second goal was a marvelous strike."
Rooney nearly scored another in the sixth minute but his left-footed shot went into the chest of Kenny after a nice move to get around a defender.
Ronaldo had two chances for United in the second half, but Kenny made a diving save to deny him in the 63rd, and the Portugal winger's shot a minute later was blocked by the defense.
"We saved our legs well and I think that was a sensible thing to do," Ferguson said. "The performance was ... economical. We didn't kill ourselves."
Luton Shelton had Sheffield United's best chance in the 68th, but Gabriel Heinze made a tackle from behind, which television replays appeared to indicate a foul. In the 88th, Michael Tonge hit the crossbar with a shot from outside the area.
Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock said that Heinze's tackle was a penalty and that the referee was out of position.
"Between the two of them, him and his linesman, they've got to get decisions like that," Warnock said. "We're not asking for anything other than what we deserve."
United, which leads the league with 81 points, is trying to win three major trophies this season, while Chelsea is aiming for four.
United played with Tomasz Kuszczak in goal because regular starter Edwin van der Sar took a blow to the nose against Watford on Saturday in the FA Cup semi-finals.
United's defensive worries also increased when Patrice Evra was taken off injured in the 20th. Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Gary Neville, John O'Shea and Mikael Silvestre have all been injured recently.
Sheffield United, which is in 17th place with 34 points and trying to avoid relegation, stretched its losing streak away from home to eight.
Arsenal's win pushed it into third place with 62 points.
Rosicky put Arsenal in the lead with his second goal in four days. Emmanuel Eboue sent in a cross from the right and the Czech Republic midfielder volleyed it into the net in the 12th.
DaMarcus Beasley equalized for City in the 41st after a poor clearance from Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann. The US midfielder took a pass from Michael Johnson and shot the ball into the far corner.
Joey Barton had another chance for City late in the first half but Lehmann pushed his shot away.
In the second half, Fabregas scored from 25m in the 73rd and Baptista made it 3-1 in the 80th from an Alexander Hleb cross. Reuters, BERLIN
Nuremberg crushed Eintracht Frankfurt 4-0 on Tuesday to advance to the German Cup final for the first time since 1982.
Nuremberg will play the winner of yesterday's semi-final between VfL Wolfsburg and VfB Stuttgart on May 26 in the final at Berlin's Olympiastadion.
Marco Engelhardt put Nuremberg ahead in the third minute, pouncing on a loose ball in front of Oka Nikolov after the Frankfurt goalkeeper managed to only fist away a difficult shot from Russian international Ivan Saenko.
In front of a frenzied Nuremberg crowd of 47,000, Saenko doubled the lead for the hosts in the 25th minute.
He took a perfect pass through the Frankfurt defense on the right from Andreas Wolf and his crisp shot from the right went between Nikolov's legs.
Tomas Galasek made it 3-0 for Nuremberg, who were beaten 4-2 by Bayern Munich in 1982 when they last reached the Cup final, with a curling free kick around the Frankfurt wall into the top left corner in the 54th minute.
Substitute striker Chhunly Pagenburg's breakaway goal in the 89th minute sealed it, making it 4-0 to Nuremberg.
"We didn't play magic football but we deserved to win, even if 2-0 or 3-1 might have more accurately reflected the match," Nuremberg coach Hans Meyer said.
Frankfurt coach Friedhelm Funkel agreed.
"Nuremberg were simply better," he said. "Last year we beat them in the round of 16. This year they beat us. I hope they take the Cup so we can say we were beaten by the cup winners."
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