Change at the Bridge

Two goals from Ashley Young helped Manchester United to a 3-1 victory at Tottenham while Arsenal came from an own-goal down to win 2-1 at Liverpool with Robin van Persie completing his brace in stoppage time, and Chelsea fell further adrift with a 1-0 defeat at West Bromwich that resulted in the dismissal of manager Andres Villa Boas. Manchester City remain at the top after their two goals at home to Bolton while Sigurdsson scored both goals to give 10 man Swansea 3 points at Wigan and Norwich fell to a single goal at Stoke. Pavel Pogrebnyak netted a hat-trick as Wolves were torn apart 5-0 at Fulham while at Newcastle the hosts earned a 1-1 draw with a last-minute goal in a tempestuous match against 10 man Sunderland who had another player red-carded after the final whistle, and there were also 1-1 draws for Everton at QPR and Aston Villa at Blackburn Rovers.

Ten-man Barcelona defeated Sporting Gijon 3-1 at home but Spanish league leaders Real Madrid won their home match 5-0 against Espanyol and in Germany Bayern Munich suffered a 2-0 loss at Bayer Leverkusen while Leaders Stuttgart won 4-0 at Hamburg. In Italy Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored a hat-trick in Milan’s 4-0 win at Palermo.

Chelsea travelled to Birmingham with new manager Robero di Mateo to win their FA Cup replay 2-0 while Stevenage took the lead at Tottenham but lost 3-1 with Defoe netting twice for the hosts.

In the Champions League Arsenal opened up Milan 3 times in an explosive first-half but failed to add to their tally after the break and went out 4-3 on aggregate and 2 goals for Benfica put the hosts through against Zenit while Lionel Messi scored a record 5 goals as Barcelona battered Bayer Leverkusen 7-1 at the Camp Nou and Apoel went through on penalties after winning 1-0 against Olympiakos in Nicosia.

Both Manchester sides lost their first-leg matches in the Europa League with City going down to a single goal at Sporting Lisbon and United losing 3-2 to Athletic Bilbao at Old Trafford.