Cup weekend

In a weekend with FA Cup matches, Luis Suarez scored his 50th goal for Liverpool as the Reds edged Tottenham 3-2. Suarez scored first but Gareth Bale assisted two goals before two Spurs mistakes led to a Liverpool win.

Meanwhile, QPR put together their first consecutive wins of the season by beating a spiralling Sunderland 3-1.

In the FA Cup Wigan ran out surprise 3-0 winners at Everton, while Chelsea had to fight from two goals to down against Manchester United to earn a draw and a replay at Stamford Bridge. Wigan will play Blackburn in the semi-finals while, Manchester City who trounced Barnsley 5-0, thanks to Carlos Tevez’s hat-trick, will play whoever wins the United and Chelsea match-up.

Newcastle United 2 — 1 Stoke City

West Brom 2 — 1 Swansea

Norwich 0 — 0 Southampton

Reading 1 — 2 Aston Villa

40 for Messi

Lionel Messi scored his 40th league goal of the season in 27 matches, as Barcelona notched a 2-0 win over bottom-feeders Deportivo, to boost Barca’s confidence as they head into their Champions League match-up with AC Milan with a deficit of two goals.

Cristiano Ronaldo netted a brace as Real Madrid were made to fight for their 2-1 win over second-bottom Celta. Atletico Madrid however, went down to a lone Xabi Prieto goal leaving their Madrid rivals in second.

Athletic Bilbao 1 — 0 Valencia

Real Betis 2 — 1 Osasuna

Valladolid 1 — 1 Malaga

Vallecano 2 — 0 Espanyol

Mallorca 2 — 1 Sevilla

Napoli lose ground

Juventus were allowed to extend their lead in the race for the Scudetti with a 1-0 win over Catania as both Napoli and Lazio lost 2-0 to Chievo and Fiorentina respectively.

Paul Pogba had a good game as Juventus snatched the winner in the 91st minute. Napoli allowed that result to open up a nine-point gap atop the league as they went down to a workmanlike Chievo who took one more step towards staying in the Serie A.

In the top clash between Fiorentina and Lazio, Adam Ljajic set up one and scored another to help Fiorentina leapfrog Lazio, and Inter who lost 1-0 to Bologna, into third. Mario Balotelli scored yet again in AC Milan’s 2-0 win at Genoa.

Udinese 1 — 1 Roma

Parma 4 — 1 Torino

Cagliari 3 — 1 Sampdoria

Palermo 1 — 2 Siena

Bayern extend lead to 20

Bayern Munich twice came from behind against a staunch Fortuna Dusseldorf defence to see their lead extended beyond the teens in the Bundesliga.

Dusseldorf took the lead after 15 minutes, before Thomas Muller equalised on the stroke of half-time. They would again take the lead however but the Bavarians scored twice through Franck Ribery and Jerome Boateng for the 3-2 win.

Meanwhile, Schalke came out strong in the first-half and scored twice, then contained Dortmund to gain a 2-1 win in their derby. Leverkusen were clipped 1-0 by a Mainz team, who hadn’t won since January.

Freiburg 2 — 5 Wolfsburg

Stuttgart 0 — 1 Hamburg

Greuther Furth 0 — 3 Hoffenheim

Monchengladbach 1 —1 Werder Bremen