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Chelsea
needed a win and got a well deserved one against a some-what flat West
Ham performance even though there was an initial scare when former
Blue, Scott Parker turned in a half volley on 30 minutes. Didier Drogba
celebrated his African Player of the year award by scoring a brace to
momentarily take the Blues top on Saturday.

Chelsea’s focus
will now turn to the Champions League match against Inter Milan on
Tuesday. The Blues will be without their first and second choice
goalkeepers and will have Ross Turnbull handed a debut against the
Italians who lost 1-3 to Catania on Friday.

At the KC Stadium,
Arsenal had to wait until the third minute of extra time to deliver the
coup de grace to a battling Hull City team that had lost their captain,
George Boateng after his rash tackle on Bacary Sagna in the first half.
Andrei Arshavin had given the Gunners the lead but Hull City won a
dubious penalty through Jan Hennegor of Hesselink as he had made his
move from an offside position and was nudged by Sol Campbell – in for
the injured William Gallas. After the sending off, Hull defended
gallantly but the Tigers were undone by a mistake from goalkeeper Boaz
Myhill in the 93rd minute as he punched a Denilson strike straight at
Nicolas Bendtner. The Danish international made no mistake in putting
in the rebound thereby capping a fruitful week where he also scored
three goals against Porto. That is a turnaround for the young Dane as
he missed a plethora of chances against Burnley at the Emirates Stadium
last weekend.

United fight back

On Sunday,
defending champions, Manchester United needed another Rooney reprise to
see off a hard fighting Fulham to storm back to the top with Chelsea
having a game in hand. After slamming AC Milan with four goals, the Red
Devil striker has now scored 23 goals in 27 appearances in the league
and a total of 35 goals for the season in all competitions for his club.

The first half had
ended goalless with goal scoring chances at a premium from both sides.
Wayne Rooney though eased the nerves of the fans at Old Trafford with
just 30 seconds into the second half. After his mid-week pass of the
year, Nani was again the provider when he found a bit of space on the
left and cut a ball low across the box for Rooney to slide home his
24th league goal of the season.

England hopeful,
Bobby Zamora almost restored parity for the Cottagers in the 75th
minute when he got into, a one-on-one with Edwin Van der Saar but
Nemanja Vidic just managed to get a last-ditch tackle in. That was
Fulham’s chance and they blew it. If only Zamora had been a bit quicker.

The gloom that was
descending on Old Trafford was lifted with Rooney’s second in the 84th
minute but this time the provider was Dimitar Berbatov who had almost
scored with a header on 79 minutes. The Bulgarian forward took the ball
from the air, skipped past a couple of challenges and cut back the ball
to Rooney who decisively finished into the far corner past Schwarzer.

Dimitar Berbatov
finally scored his tenth goal of the season when he met Fabio’s cross
with a stooping header only two yards out. Wayne Rooney then had a
couple of chances towards the end to get his hat-trick but was stopped.
The English man is blooming this season in the absence of Cristiano
Ronaldo, who was sold to Real Madrid at the end of last season.

United are back on top after dropping down to third place after
Chelsea and Arsenal both won their matches on Saturday. With nine
matches left, there is little room for errors at the top.