Teddy Sheringham scored as Portsmouth ended Arsenal's perfect start to the Premier League Saturday, holding the Gunners to a 1-1 draw at Highbury.
Arsenal was the only team that had all wins in the league this season, but fell behind when former Spurs striker Sheringham scored from a 26th minute header.
PGOTO: EPA
Thierry Henry equalized through a 40th minute penalty that had to be taken twice because players encroached into the box. Portsmouth has yet to lose since being promoted to the Premier League this season and withstood heavy Arsenal pressure in the second half.
"I don't want to take anything away from Portsmouth, who impressed me," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. "In my opinion, they have enough technical level to easily stay in the Premiership."
Arsenal still leads the standings with 13 points, one ahead of Manchester United. Chelsea is third with 10 points and Portsmouth and Southampton have nine.
Ruud van Nistelrooy scored twice to give Manchester United a 2-0 win over Charlton at The Valley. Van Nistelrooy scored his first in the 62nd, with Charlton losing Jason Euell three minutes later after he received a second yellow card.
The Dutchman scored again in the 80th.
"It wasn't a brilliant performance from us today, but it was a decent performance overall," Van Nistelrooy said. "It was a 50-50 game, I think the one who scored first had a good chance of winning and I'm happy to see we did."
Chelsea extended a 13-year advantage over crosstown rival Tottenham with a 4-2 win at Stamford Bridge.
Spurs took the lead through Frederic Kanoute after 25 minutes, but Frank Lampard equalized with a header ten minutes later. Adrian Mutu put Chelsea ahead in the 37th minute and added another in the 75th.
Kanoute added his second in the 87th minute, with Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink pushing Chelsea ahead again in the final minute in his 100th Premier League start.
"Once again we started after we conceded a goal and that is not good," Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri said. "Maybe the players put themselves under pressure by thinking they must win every game, but they need to be calm.
"We are building, we are not a team yet. Some people think we are a strong team but at this moment in time we are not."
The loss represented Tottenham's worst start to a season since the Premier League was formed in 1992. Tottenham now hasn't beaten Chelsea in 27 games over 13 years.
Liverpool beat ten-man Blackburn 3-1 at Ewood Park. Matt Jansen scored the opener for Blackburn after eight minutes, but Michael Owen equalized four minutes later with a penalty and put the Reds in the lead in the 68th. Harry Kewell added Liverpool's third in the 90th minute.
Blackburn defender Lucas Neill was sent off in the 13th minute for a bad two-footed tackle on Jamie Carragher, who needed to be substituted.
"I don't know how long Jamie will be out for but it was a very bad tackle and could have broken his leg," Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier said.
Liverpool's injury worries had started in the fifth minute when striker Milan Baros had his ankle broken in a challenge by Markus Babbel -- a Liverpool striker on loan to Blackburn.
"It is a sour victory, a victory marred by the fact we lost two players injured," Houllier said. "But the referee did the right thing -- it was not even a foul, Markus tackled properly and got the ball and it probably happened when he fell over on the floor."
Blackburn goalkeeper Brad Friedel had a standout match against his former club -- with repeated strong saves from Michael Owen, Steven Gerrard and Emile Heskey.
"It was a dramatic start to the game and a deserved victory -- we played very well. If Michael Owen had been clinical it would have been 6-1 or 7-1, I said to Brad Friedel at the end that he kept them in it for a long time," Houllier said.
Duncan Ferguson scored the equalizer with two minutes left as Everton drew 2-2 with Newcastle, a match in which both sides finished with 10 men.
The Magpies had Laurent Robert sent off in the 40th minute for a second yellow card. Everton went down to ten men in the 58th minute when Gary Naysmith was shown a straight red card.
Alan Shearer scored both Newcastle's goals from penalties, sandwiched by Tomasz Radzinski's Everton goal in the 67th minute. Ferguson leveled with a penalty.
"Alan was the man of the moment, you need to be ice cool in a situation like that. He had two penalties in a cauldron and scored them both with great calmness," Newcastle manager Bobby Robson said.
Bruno N'Gotty and Kevin Davies scored as Bolton beat Middlesbrough 2-0 for its first win of the season, while James Beattie scored twice as Southampton beat bottom club Wolves 2-0.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
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