United ousted

EPL: Fulham inflicted a second consecutive defeat on Manchester United at Craven Cottage with Danny Murphy, Bobby Zamora and Damien Duff supplying the goals for a 3-0 victory over a depleted United side.

After their midweek win over Wigan, Liverpool was looking to capitalise on that confidence and beat Portsmouth, but were undone by two quality goals from Nadir Belhadj and Frederic Piquionne to claim a Portsmouth win. Arsene Wenger described his side’s victory over Hull as lucky, but in the end the Gunners ran out 3-0 victors.

It was a tale of two penalties in the all-London clash between West Ham and Chelsea as Frank Lampard scored from the spot that give the leaders a share of the spoils albeit through contentious circumstances. Alessandro Diamanti had earlier given West Ham the lead from the spot.

Aston Villa clipped Ricardo Fuller’s Stoke City 1-0 while Blackburn was undone by a Peter Crouch brace as Tottenham won 2-0. Despite there victory in the 4-3 thriller over Sunderland it was enough to save Mark Hughes as he was relived of his duties as Manchester City shortly afterwards with Roberto Mancini taking immediate effect.

Mick MaCarthy decision to rest several first team regulars appears to have paid dividends as Wolves defeated Burnley 2-0. In the second draw of the round, Everton and Birmingham played to 1-1 draw.

Whiteout

La Liga: Real Madrid closed the gap on Barcelona in fine style by thrashing Real Zaragoza 6-0. Rafael van der Vaart and Gonzalo Higuain both scored twice with Christiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema contributing the others.

Sevilla dropped more points at home slumping to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Getafe. Athletic Bilbao dispatched Osasuna 2-0 with both goals coming in the first 12 minutes.

Villarreal and Espanyol had similar 2-0 victories over Racing Santander and Almeria respectively. Malaga and Valladolid also had similar 2-1 victories over Mallorca and Sporting Gijon.

Atletico Madrid gained their fifth away point of the campaign drawing 1-1 with Tenerife. Deportivo La Coruna v Valencia ended in a tame

Humiliation

Serie A: Juventus’ title aspirations are fading fast as they succumbed to yet another embarrassing defeat, this time at the hands of Catania.

Mariano Izno gave Catania a late, unlikely 2-1 win in Turin. Roma climbed into fourth spot defeating Serie A’s surprise package Parma who occupied fourth spot 2-0.

Second-half goals from Nicolas Burdisso and Matteo Brighi did the job for the men from the eternal city. Sampdoria continued their poor run of form going down 3-1 to Livorno.

Palermo and league leaders Inter Milan both had 1-0 victories Siena and Lazio respectively. Napoli recorded their tenth consecutive game without defeat following a 2-0 victory over Chievo.

Bayern blitz

Bundesliga: Bayern Munich was in rampant form as they brushed aside Hertha Berlin 5-2 with five different players getting on the score sheet. Daniel Van Buyten, Mario Gomez, Arjen Robben, Thomas Mueller and Ivica Oilic were the scorers.

Bayer Leverkusen and Bochum had similar nail-biting victories over Borussia M’gladbach and Hanover respectively coming out on top 3-2. VfB Stuttgart eased past Hoffenheim 3-1 while Borussia Dortmund defeated Freiburg by a goal to nil.

In the only draw of the round, defending champions Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt played to a 2-2 draw.

Ten-man Hamburg held on for a 2-1 victory over Werder Bremen with the opposite happening to Cologne as they steam rolled Nuremberg 3-0. Schalke 04 completed a 1-0 win over Mainz.