Arsenal fought back from 2-0 down to beat Bolton Wanderers 4-2 and go top of the Premier League while Liverpool re-ignited their season with a 2-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday.
Arsenal’s victory at the Emirates Stadium, thanks to goals from Tomas Rosicky, Cesc Fabregas, Thomas Vermaelen and Andriy Arshavin, lifted them above Chelsea on goals scored and put them top for the first time since August.
“We were 2-0 down after about the first 20 minutes but I believe this team will never give up and they showed it again tonight,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger told reporters.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Arsenal have 48 points from 22 games, followed by Chelsea (48 from 21) and Manchester United (47 from 22).
Spurs are fourth on 38, but Liverpool, who moved up from seventh to sixth, are just a point behind them after two Dirk Kuyt goals gave them a victory to ease the pressure on beleaguered manager Rafa Benitez.
“It was very important today, the players showed great character,” Benitez told Sky Sports. “We were winning in the first half without playing well and worked very hard in the second half against a very good team.”
Arsenal and Bolton were meeting for the second time in three days following Arsenal’s 2-0 win at Wanderers on Sunday and it was Bolton who took the initiative after seven minutes when defender Gary Cahill volleyed home from close range.
The visitors, deep in relegation trouble, stunned the home crowd when they deservedly doubled their advantage 20 minutes later, Denilson’s sloppy tackle on Chung-Yong Lee leading to a penalty which Matt Taylor squeezed past the diving Manuel Almunia.
Arsenal grabbed one back just before halftime after a host of wasted chances when neat footwork from captain Fabregas played in Rosicky who smashed home from inside the box.
Arsenal equalized with a controversial goal after 52 minutes when they played on following a fierce tackle by William Gallas on Bolton’s Mark Davies.
The midfielder was left in a heap but Fabregas rode two tackles before calmly rolling the ball past goalkeeper Jussi Jaaskelainen.
Arsenal went ahead after 65 minutes when defender Vermaelen smashed home from a corner and Arsene Wenger’s side added a fourth through Andriy Arshavin 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