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Man Utd blasts Chelsea to get back in title chase

Source: Agencies | January 13, 2009, Tuesday | Print Edition

MANCHESTER United exploited some slack Chelsea defending on Sunday and went on to a 3-0 Premier League win with goals from Nemanja Vidic, Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov.

The win put United within a point of second-place Chelsea with two games in hand, and winning both of those home matches would allow the defending champions to overtake league leader Liverpool, which was held to a 0-0 draw at Stoke on Saturday.

"I'm not bothered what this result does to them. What it does is give us confidence," United midfielder Ryan Giggs said. "We'd only taken one point from three matches against the top teams. We've got them all at home in the second half of the season and we have to make the most of it, like we did today."

Chelsea's first away loss of the season will compound the intense pressure already on current manager Luiz Felipe Scolari.

"It's done some very big damage because we didn't come here to play like this," Scolari said. "We were thinking about winning the game. Now we need to think about the result, what happened to some players, what happened from set-plays and now we have to think about the future."

Also on Sunday, Maynor Figueroa scored his first goal for Wigan in injury time to give his team a 1-0 win over Tottenham.

With Spurs defender Michael Dawson off injured and goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes laboring with what appeared to be a muscle problem, Figueroa headed in a corner by Ryan Taylor at the near post.

The result kept Tottenham in the relegation zone and winless in five league matches, while Wigan consolidated its hold on seventh place and maintained its status as the Premier League's most in-form team ?? with 18 points from the last seven games.

Liverpool leads the league with 46 points, four ahead of Chelsea, which never tested United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar at Old Trafford.

Vidic scored the opening goal in first-half injury time only moments after Cristiano Ronaldo had what appeared to be a legitimate goal disallowed because the referee hadn't given permission for United's previous corner to be taken. Vidic's downward header beat Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech after Berbatov had flicked on a corner from Giggs.

The match was marred by Chelsea fans chanting that Ronaldo should have died on Thursday when he crashed his Ferrari.

Rooney scored his 11th goal of the season in the 63rd minute to make it more comfortable for United. Ronaldo backheeled to Patrice Evra on the left flank and Rooney volleyed the France defender's cross through the legs of Ashley Cole beyond Cech.

Berbatov scored in the 87th off Ronaldo's free kick.



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