Cup and League week

With FA Cup matches being played at the weekend a full fixture of league matches took place in midweek. On Friday evening Watford were knocked out of the cup 1-0 by their visitor from Tottenham and Fulham lost 2-1 at Everton while among other matches at the weekend Queens Park Rangers lost 1-0 at home to a controversial Chelsea penalty and Manchester United were beaten 2-1 at Liverpool.  Crawley Town claimed another scalp 1-0 at Hull and Newcastle lost by the same result at Brighton while Birmingham triumphed 4-0 at Sheffield United with Adam Rooney scoring twice. Millwall scored late to earn a 1-1 draw and a trip to Southampton and Swansea lost 2-1 at Bolton while there were 2-0 wins for Stoke at Derby and Leicester at home to Swindon. Arsenal came from 2 down at home to defeat Aston Villa 3-2 with the help of 2 van Persie penalties and West Bromwich Albion lost 2-1 at home to Norwich while Middlesbrough drew 1-1 at Sunderland.

In the Premier League a brace from Bale helped Tottenham win 3-1 at home to Wiagn while Liverpool won 3-0 at Wolves and Chelsea drew 1-1 at Swansea. Manchester United are level on points with Manchester City after winning 2-0 at home to Stoke while City lost 1-0 at Everton. Djibril Cisse scored on his debut for QPR at Aston Villa but the hosts came from 2 down to earn a draw and there were draws 1-1 for West Brom at Fulham and 0-0 for Arsenal at Bolton while Norwich lost 3-0 at Sunderland and Newcastle won 2-0 at Blackburn.

In Spain Real Madrid won 3-1 at home to Real Zaragoza while Barcelona coyuld only draw 0-0 at Villarreal. The big match in the Dutch Eredivisie saw Feynoord defeat Ajax 4-2 with Guidetti claiming a hat-trick.

No revenge for North London

After the humiliating defeats for Arsenal and Tottenham to their Manchester rivals earlier in the season, Arsenal lost 2-1 to United at the Emirates while Tottenham were defeated 3-2 in Manchester with Balotelli - who was lucky not to have been shown red - scoring a last minute winner from the spot. Clint Dempsey scored a hat-trick as Newcastle were taken apart 5-2 at Fulham and Wigan lost 3-1 at QPR while Chelsea played a goalless match at Norwich. Robbie Keane scored twice for Aston Villa who won 3-2 at Wolves and WBA grabbed a late 2-1 winner at Stoke. while Swansea fell 2-0 at Sunderland. Liverpool went down 3-1 at Bolton and Everton were held to a 1-1 draw at home to Blackburn.

In Spain Real Madrid and Barcelona won 4-1 at home to Atletico de Bilbao and away to Malaga respectively with Messi netting a hat-trick for the Catalan side, and the 2 Spanish giants clashed in the Copa del Rey with hosts Barcelona going through 4-3 on aggregate after a 2-2 draw.

Cardiff City reversed their 1-0 away defeat to Crystal Palace to take the match to extra time and penalties, with the visitors reduced to 10 men, and earn a place in the Wembley final where they will meet Liverpool for the League Cup trophy after the Reds drew 2-2 at home to Manchester City.   

Manchester winning

A single goal at Wigan on Monday kept Manchester City at the top of the league while the weekend matches saw Manchester United beat Bolton 3-0 with Paul Scholes opening the scoring for the host amd Chelsea also picked up 3 points with a Lampard goal against visiting Sunderland, but 3^rd place Tottenham could only draw 1-1 at home to Wolves and Liverpool were held to a goalless draw at home to Stoke. Arsenal took the lead but lost 3-2 at Swansea and QPR lost 1-0 at Newcastle while Blackburn moved out of the bottom 3 after celebrating a 3-1 home victory over Fulham. Norwich won 2-1 at West Bromwich Albion and Everton drew 1-1 at Aston Villa.

In Spain Messi scored twice as Barcelona won 4-2 at home to Real Betis but Real Madrid remain at the top of the La Liga table 5 points ahead of them after a 2-1 win away to Real Mallorca while 3^rd place Valencia lost 1-0 at home to Real Sociedad. In Italy the Milanese derby ended 1-0 in favour of Inter.

Among FA Cup replay matches played in Midweek Nottingham Forest were felled 4-0 at Leicester with Beckford scoring a hat-trick and Birmingham went through with a single goal at Wolverhampton while Millwall, Bolton, Queens Park Rangers and Brighton also made it to the next round.