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Manchester United
are within reach of a record 19th English league title after seeing off
the challenge of champions and closest rivals, Chelsea with a 2-1 win
at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Alex Ferguson’s
side now require just a point from their final two league games of the
season, against relegation-threatened Blackburn next Saturday and
Blackpool on the final day of the season to seal a championship, which
will take them past the mark Liverpool have been on for so long.

Victory for
Chelsea, would have put the Blues ahead of United on goal difference
but they were yet to settle down into the game when United opened
scoring, as early as the 36th second of the game, through Javier
Hernandez, who beat Chelsea’s offside trap to latch onto Ji-sung Park’s
magnificent through pass before firing past an onrushing Petr Cech in
the Blues’ goal.

Wayne Rooney then
came agonisingly close on two occasions to put United further ahead,
and Hernandez had no excuse for not putting the ball into the back of
the Chelsea net from Park’s delightful cross before the Korean forced
Cech into pulling off an excellent save for a United corner kick.

However, from the
resultant corner kick, United grabbed their second goal. Salomon Kalou
allowed Park to race past him and play a short corner kick with Ryan
Giggs, who then easily went past the Chelsea forward before crossing
the ball into the area for Nemanja Vidic to get on, to no thanks to
some poor marking from his fellow Serbian Branislav Ivanovic.

Chelsea then came
close to reducing the tally from a corner kick of their own, only for
Kalou to head straight at Edwin van der Sar after John Terry had
flicked the ball onto the path of the Ivorian.

Changes

With their title
aspirations gradually slipping out of their hands, Chelsea manager
Carlo Ancelotti, at beginning of the second half, replaced David Luiz
with Alex in defence and John Obi Mikel with Ramires. His counterpart,
Ferguson also replaced the injured John O’Shea with Johnny Evans.

Chelsea’s changes
apparently brought the reaction Ancelotti was looking for, as Ivanovic
jumped higher than any other person in the Manchester United area to
reach a Ramires cross and nod down for Frank Lampard, who jabbed the
ball into the home side’s net from close range.

With Chelsea
desperately in search of an equalizer, United came close to wrapping up
the game as a contest, only for Rooney to spurn a number of good
scoring opportunities.

Hernandez also wasted a chance of his own when he nodded Antonio Valencia’s teasing cross over from six yards.

But in the end Manchester United celebrated like champions as only
the unthinkable will prevent them from becoming the most successful
team in English league history.