Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney were on target for Manchester United as the Premier League leaders swept aside Sunderland 3-1 at Old Trafford on Saturday to stay six points clear of champions Manchester City.
United were 2-0 up after 19 minutes, Van Persie opening the scoring with a left-foot finish from close range for his 12th league goal of the season and Tom Cleverley adding a quickfire second three minutes later.
England striker Rooney, who was a doubt due to midweek sickness, made it 3-0 with a 59th minute tap-in before substitute Fraizer Campbell pulled one back against his old club with a header four minutes after coming on. Manchester United now have 42 points to City’s 36, while European champions Chelsea, in Japan for yesterday’s Club World Cup final against Brazilian side Corinthians, remained third on 29 points with a game in hand.
Photo: AFP
City, beaten 3-2 by United in last weekend’s Manchester derby after an agonizing Van Persie stoppage-time winner, defeated Newcastle United 3-1 at St James’ Park earlier in the day to temporarily narrow the gap to three points.
The visitors were a goal up after 10 minutes when Ivorian midfielder Yaya Toure split the Newcastle defense with a superb pass to Samir Nasri who rolled the ball back for forward Sergio Aguero to stroke home.
Javi Garcia headed the second after a corner in the 39th minute and Toure wrapped up the points late on after Demba Ba’s goal had briefly revived Newcastle’s hopes.
Elsewhere, Queens Park Rangers celebrated their first win of the season after beating west London rivals Fulham 2-1 thanks to two-goal Adel Taarabt to end a record run of 16 matches without a victory and move off the foot of the table.
The victory stopped QPR, still five points from safety, becoming the first top-flight team since Bolton Wanderers in 1902-1903 to fail to win any of their opening 17 games.
“It would have been a gross injustice if we hadn’t won today,” QPR manager Harry Redknapp told Sky Sports television after Mladen Petric set up a nervous finish with an 88th-minute goal for Fulham.
Aston Villa fans had plenty to cheer after a fighting 3-1 win at Liverpool moved them three points clear of the relegation zone and gave the Reds a reality check.
Christian Benteke scored in each half at Anfield with Andreas Weimann grabbing the other goal for Villa who were 2-0 up at halftime. Steven Gerrard headed an 87th-minute consolation for Liverpool.
Norwich City beat Wigan Athletic 2-1, while Stoke City and Everton drew 1-1.
Everton were lucky to end with 11 men after Marouane Fellaini headbutted Stoke captain Ryan Shawcross without the referee noticing in an incident that drew censure from his own manager, David Moyes.
“I’ve seen it, it’s a terrible thing to do and I expect him to be punished — it’s down to the FA. I’ve told him it’s not acceptable and whatever he gets, he and us deserve it,” Moyes told the BBC.
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