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Champions
and Premier League leaders, Chelsea, suffered their second defeat of
the season as Fernando Torres scored twice to guide resurgent Liverpool
to a deserved 2-0 victory at Anfield on Sunday.

The Spaniard was
back to his predatory best with two well-taken goals in the first half,
inspiring Liverpool to their best performance of the season and their
third successive league win. Arsenal failed to take advantage of the
leaders’ slip, however, as they were beaten 1-0 at home by Newcastle
United courtesy of Andy Carroll’s header at the end of the first half.
Manchester City did gain ground, with Italian striker Mario Balotelli,
scoring both goals in a comfortable 2-0 win at West Bromwich Albion,
before being sent off in the second half.

The results
squeezed the top of the standings with Chelsea still top on 25 points,
two ahead of Manchester United, who beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 on
Saturday. Arsenal and Man City have 20, with Newcastle up to fifth on
17 points. Liverpool, in the bottom three a week ago, jumped to ninth
on 15. Arsenal suffered their second home defeat by a promoted side
this season when they were beaten 1-0 by a Newcastle United team who
climbed into the Premier League’s top four on the back of their victory
on Sunday. Andy Carroll headed the only goal at the end of the first
half to give Newcastle their third successive win. Arsenal, beaten by
Shakhtar Donetsk in their midweek Champions League game, quickly
imposed their usual dominance with some neat passing in midfield. Cesc
Fabregas hit the bar with a deflected free kick after 13 minutes, while
Newcastle keeper Tim Krul made a great one-handed save to keep out a
Samir Nasri shot after 39.

Different proposition

However, Newcastle,
on a high after last week’s 5-1 thrashing of Sunderland, were a very
different proposition both in personnel and attitude than that on show
when they were beaten 4-0 at home by Arsenal in the League Cup last
month. Arsenal goalkeeper, Lukasz Fabianski, had been a virtual
spectator but when he was called into action in the last minute of the
first half he needlessly tried to punch a Kevin Nolan free kick box but
was out jumped by Carroll whose header looped into the empty net.
Arsenal resumed their territorial control in the second half with Theo
Walcott rattling the bar again soon after the restart. However,
Newcastle worked tirelessly to keep them at long range and the home
threat gradually petered out.

Arsenal’s bad day was completed when defender Laurent Koscielny was
shown a straight red card for a last-man foul on substitute Nile Ranger
in stoppage time. “These are big weeks for us and what we have is a
group of players who are all in this together fighting together,
supporting each other and I think that showed in the performance,”
Newcastle manager Chris Hughton told Sky Sports. Captain Nolan, who
scored a hat-trick against Sunderland, added: “We were quite confident
we would come here and get a result and I felt we could win. It’s just
fantastic to come here against such a great footballing side and get a
great result.”