Didier Drogba scored for Chelsea as they won their fourth straight match under temporary manager Guus Hiddink with a 1-0 victory away to Premier League strugglers Portsmouth on Tuesday.
Drogba’s goal 11 minutes from time at a wet and windy Fratton Park saw Chelsea close the gap on leaders Manchester United to four points.
But the reigning champions have two games in hand.
PHOTO: AFP
Liverpool joined Chelsea on 58 points after they bounced back from the shock of their 2-0 loss to Middlesbrough with a 2-0 victory at home to Sunderland.
And in Tuesday’s other Premier League match, Nicklas Bendtner scored twice as Arsenal ended a run of four consecutive goalless league draws with a 3-1 win away to bottom-of-the-table West Bromwich Albion.
That victory saw the Gunners move to within three points of fourth-placed Aston Villa in the race for a Champions League place.
Chelsea left it late before seeing off Portsmouth.
“I had prepared my third substitution, but at a good moment the goal came,” Hiddink told Sky Sports.
But the Dutchman was cautious regarding talk of Chelsea challenging United.
“If they can give us this one game also, but it [this result] is good,” Hiddink says. “The team is mentally strong. They showed in difficult circumstances a lot of character. It’s good to keep the pressure on.”
A counterattack led by Peter Crouch in the second-half led to a fine chance for Niko Kranjcar, but the Croatia international shot wide.
And that miss became all the more painful for Pompey when Drogba fired Chelsea into the lead in the 79th minute following a cross from Jose Bosingwa.
Despite their defeat, Pompey’s first under boss Paul Hart, who was later confirmed as manager until the end of the season, the south coast club remain above the relegation zone.
After a goalless first half at Anfield, Liverpool eventually took the lead against Sunderland when Steven Gerrard’s header across goal was turned in by David Ngog in the 52nd minute.
And it was 2-0 to the Reds when Israel international Yossi Benayoun pounced on a mistake by keeper Martin Fulop, who fumbled Ngog’s cross, to score from close range.
“He showed he is quality,” Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez said of Ngog. “He is a young player who has just arrived and I think he has a great future here.”
Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, insisted his faith in the team had never wavered following the victory over West Bromwich Albion.
“We kept going and there is a very strong, healthy spirit in this team,” Wenger said.
Arsenal had to wait only as long as the fourth minute at The Hawthorns to end their goal drought when Bendtner put them ahead.
A corner was cleared to Denilson, the Brazilian played the ball out to the unmarked Bendtner and the forward’s scuffed shot beat Baggies goalkeeper Scott Carson.
However, three minutes later the home side were level when Chris Brunt’s 25m free-kick went through a gap in the Arsenal wall and left Gunners keeper Manuel Almunia helpless.
But seven minutes before halftime, Arsenal restored their lead. Andrei Arshavin’s inswinging free-kick from the left was met by the unattended Kolo Toure and the central defender’s first goal in a year made it 2-1 to the Gunners.
And there was still time before the break for Denmark striker Bendtner to make it 3-1 when Toure’s long ball over the top evaded the West Brom defense and Bendtner controlled it on his knee before volleying home.
In the second half, Bendtner then beat a couple of players only to miss out on a hat-trick when his shot hit the post.
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