Fulham and Bolton gave themselves hope of staying in the Premier League with wins over Reading and West Ham respectively on Saturday. Although they each remained in the bottom three, Bolton’s 1-0 success saw them move to within two points of Birmingham and Wanderers boss Gary Megson praised Kevin Davies, whose goal wrapped up what could be a priceless victory.
Meanwhile Fulham’s 2-0 victory at the Madejski Stadium — their first league win on their travels since 2006 — left them four points adrift of relegation rivals Birmingham.
US international Brian McBride put Fulham ahead in the 24th minute. They then hit the crossbar three times before Erik Nevlan’s late goal secured their fifth league win this season.
PHOTO: AFP
Everton missed out on the chance to go level on points with near-neighbors Liverpool in the battle for fourth place after Birmingham City claimed a point in a 1-1 draw at Goodison Park.
Only the Premier League’s top four at the end of the season will qualify for the Champions League and Everton’s draw left them two points behind fourth-placed Liverpool ahead of the Reds’ match against Blackburn yesterday.
At St Andrews, the match was deadlocked until Everton’s England defender Joleon Lescott headed in from close range in the 78th minute. But Mauro Zarate drew Birmingham level seven minutes from time with a 20m free-kick, a point leaving the Midlanders on the brink of the drop zone.
PHOTO: AP
One consolation for Everton was that fifth-placed Portsmouth remained four points behind them after a goalless draw at home to Newcastle.
Sunderland were left looking nervously over their shoulders after a late flurry of goals saw them lose 2-1 to Manchester City while their north-east rivals Middlesbrough too were left just seven points above the drop zone after a 1-1 draw away to Tottenham.
It was goalless at the Stadium of Light until Nyran Nosworthy’s foul on Daniel Sturridge led to a penalty 11 minutes from time. City’s Elano then scored from the spot. But Sunderland hit back minutes later though Dean Whitehead. That though was not the end of the scoring with City striker Darius Vassell scoring a second for the visitors three minutes from time.
Spurs went ahead at White Hart Lane in the 27th minute when Aaron Lennon’s mishit shot went in off Middlesbrough defender Jonathan Grounds for an own-goal before Stewart Downing drew Boro level in the 69th minute.
Aston Villa added to relegated Derby County’s woes with a 6-0 thrashing. At Pride Park, visitors Villa were 3-0 up by the 36th minute with Derby goalkeeper Roy Carroll contributing to all three goals.
The Northern Ireland intermational, under challenge from Olof Mellberg, made a hash of dealing with Ashley Young’s free-kick as Villa went ahead in the 25th minute and barely 60 seconds later his clearance straight to John Carew was returned into the net by the Norway striker from 20m.
Then another poor Carroll clearance led to a wonder-goal from Stilyan Petrov who lobbed the ball back over the keeper’s head from just inside the half-way line in the 36th minute.
Gareth Barry made it 4-0 just before the hour mark, Gabriel Agbonlahor added a fifth in the 76th minute and Marlon Harweood became the sixth different scorer five minutes from time.
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