Robin van Persie scored a hat trick to lead Arsenal to a 5-3 win over Chelsea on Saturday in the English Premier League, while first-place Manchester City beat Wolverhampton, 3-1.
André Santos and Theo Walcott also scored at Stamford Bridge in West London as Arsenal had its first road victory of the season and sent Chelsea to its second straight league defeat.
“You could see how happy we were at the end because we fought hard for this game,” van Persie, who leads the league with 10 goals, told Sky Sports after the game. “Every one of us showed character, and it was a big win for us.”
Manchester City’s win over Wolves maintains its five-point lead over Manchester United, which beat Everton, 1-0. Fulham and Swansea both won their first away games, while Norwich and Sunderland earned draws with late goals.
Van Persie scored in the first half, took advantage of a slip by Chelsea’s John Terry to break a 3-3 tie in the 85th minute and completed his hat trick in stoppage time. He now has 33 goals in 37 games for Arsenal in the 2011 calendar year.
Frank Lampard of Chelsea and van Persie each scored in the first 36 minutes, and Terry scored before halftime. Santos and Walcott had goals early in the second half to give Arsenal a 3-2 lead and Juan Mata tied the score in the 80th minute.
Van Persie ran to a loose ball as Terry slipped in defense, went around goalkeeper Petr Cech and scored to give Arsenal a 4-3 lead. He clinched the victory in stoppage time on a counterattack.
“We must evolve,” Chelsea Manager André Villas-Boas told Sky Sports. “It’s two defeats in a row and we have to get things right.”
Manchester City, which finished with 10 men, got second-half goals from Edin Dzeko, Aleksandar Kolarov and Adam Johnson to stay unbeaten. Stephen Hunt scored with a 75th-minute penalty kick for Wolves, which came after Vincent Kompany was red carded for taking down Kevin Doyle.
It was City’s second win over Wolves in four days, after a 5-2 victory in the fourth round of the Carling Cup last Wednesday.
Javier Hernandez scored the goal as Manchester United rebounded from last week’s 6-1 loss to Manchester City with the win at Everton.
Clint Dempsey and Moussa Dembele scored as Fulham beat Wigan, 2-0, the Latics’ seventh consecutive loss. Second-half goals from Joe Allen, Danny Graham and Scott Sinclair lifted Swansea past 10-man Bolton, which had Ricardo Gardner sent off for a second yellow card early in the second half.
Grant Holt scored with a penalty kick in stoppage time to give Norwich a 3-3 draw with Blackburn, while Stéphane Sessegnon’s goal in the 89th minute earned Sunderland a 2-2 home tie with Aston Villa.
MUNICH ROLLS AGAIN The German Bundesliga’s top scorer, Mario Gomez, scored twice as Bayern Munich crushed its Bavarian rivals Nuremberg, 4-0, to open a four-point lead at the top of the table.
The Dutch striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar grabbed two goals, one a penalty, to lead Schalke 04 to a 3-1 win over Hoffenheim that took them up to second.
Forward Vedad Ibisevic tied the score for Hoffenheim midway through the second half after Raúl had given the hosts a 28th-minute lead with a controversial goal that led the referee to ask the Spaniard if he had used his hand.
Bayern, which host Napoli in the Champions League on Wednesday, scored three times in the first half as it bounced back in style from a surprising league defeat by Hanover 96 last week.
Defending champions Borussia Dortmund fell to third with 20 points from 11 games, 5 points behind Bayern, after drawing, 1-1 ,at Stuttgart. (REUTERS)
RED BULLS SET TO FACE GALAXY The first time the Red Bulls were supposed to play the visiting Los Angeles Galaxy, Tropical Storm Irene intervened and the match was postponed.
Now the two teams are again preparing for a match that would be affected by the winter-like weather.
The Red Bulls, minus the suspended defender Jan Gunnar Solli, perhaps the injured striker Luke Rodgers (knee) and midfielder Dax McCarty (ankle), will face the Los Angeles Galaxy on Sunday at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, N.J., in the first leg of the home-and-home total goals Major League Soccer Western Conference semifinal series.
The Galaxy, the league’s top team in points scored and goals against during the regular season, have several players on their injury list. Listed as questionable for the match are: Landon Donovan (quadriceps strain), David Beckham (back spasms), Robbie Keane (adductor strain) and Gregg Berhalter (foot sprain).
“Definitely, we’re playing the best team in the league,” Red Bulls Coach Hans Backe said during a telephone conference call Friday. “They’ve been outstanding, picking up 67 points, doing well in the Champions League, they have absolutely the best roster in the league. Every game so far — the four games we’ve played against Los Angeles — have been quality games. I must say it’s been a different kind of game. I would call it more like a European game when we play Galaxy. It’s not that hectic 90 minutes, you get a little bit more time and space when you get Galaxy. I’m quite sure I’ll players will lift their game when you play the big guns like Galaxy.”
After winning the league’s Supporters Shield after finishing with the most points in the regular season (67), Galaxy Coach Bruce Arena said his team must reorder its thinking and concentrate only on the playoffs.
“They are two separate competitions,” Arena said Friday in a conference call. “They’re unique in themselves and one has nothing to do with the other. The playoffs are a couple of games over a short period of time and anything can happen. The Supporters’ Shield is a competition over the entire season, 34 games this year. You need to look at it as two completely different competitions, and that’s what we have to do.”
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