The English Premier League kicked off the New Year with an early kick-off on Saturday saw a Midlands derby at Villa Park between Aston Villa, who are trying to break into the "big four" and West Bromwich Albion, who are trying to fight their way out of the relegation dog fight. However it was the home team, Villa who won 2 - 1. The win promoted Aston Villa into third place in the English Premier League ahead of the current champions Manchester United who play Chelsea on Sunday in the weekend's top clash.
Aston Villa went into half-time with a 2-0 lead but West Brom scored just four minutes after the start of second half to give the visiting fans some encouragement but their team could't turn the pressure into an equalising goal.
Aston Villa are now on 39 points, which is one more than Manchester United, although the Champions will still have a couple games in hand even after their game game against Chelsea. Villa are also unbeaten in nine league games as they seek to finish in the top four to claim a berth in Europe's Champions League. If they keep this form up though, they could do even better.
Manchester United will regain third place later today if they don't lose at Old Trafford to another Title contender Chelsea. In the other Sunday game, Harry Redknapp's Tottenham visit Wigan and Steve Bruce.
The result of the day was probably at Stoke, as they pulled themselves out of the bottom three with a home draw against the league leaders Liverpool. Stoke now have 21 points and jump a place above Tottenham into 17th place, while Liverpool moved four points ahead of Chelsea before their games at Man Utd. It could have been 6 points clear for Liverpool but the more the game went on the less likely it looked that they would secure another away win.
It was not a good performance from the leaders and it might have been a lot worse when Stoke's Rory Delap hit the underside of the crossbar from close range in the first half. Then Stoke's Ryan Shawcross did put the ball in the net in the 31st minute, but it was disallowed for offside. Although Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard did twice rattled shots off the post in the second half.
After the game Liverpool Manager Rafael Benitez, said, "It was a difficult game. When you can't control the game, you find it hard to win." Can't really argue with that. Although Benitez could probably hear the laughter of Alex Ferguson and the rest of the Utd team all the way from Manchester after the Spaniard's rather strange little diatribe on Friday against the Utd manager.
One of the teams Aston Villa are trying to knock out of the top four are Arsenal who left it late to beat Bolton 1 - 0. Arsenal moved level on points with Manchester United with the home win over Bolton, though the Gunners have played three more games. Second - half substitute Nicklas Bendtner scored in the 84th minute as Arsenal extended its unbeaten run to eight matches overall.
Marouane Fellaini and Mikel Arteta scored the goals for Everton as they won for just the third time at home this season. The victory lifts the Toffees into sixth place with 35 points. There was some bad news for Everton and Fellaini though. He picked up his 10th yellow card of the season, which is good going by anyone's standards. That's a booking every two games. Anyway, as a result Fellaini will miss both Merseyside derbies at Anfield taking place this morning. Firstly in the league and then in the 4th Round of The FA Cup.
Andy Carroll's goal in the 78th minute gave Newcastle the home draw with West Ham. Newcastle's Michael Owen opened the scoring in the 19th minute and Craig Bellamy tied it 10 minutes later. Carlton Cole then put West Ham ahead in the 55th minute.
Kenwyne Jones's goal with eight minutes remaining gave Sunderland the away draw with Middlesbrough. Afonso Alves scored just before halftime for Boro.
Portsmouth vs. Manchester City and Fulham vs. Blackburn both fell victim to the very cold weather currently hitting the UK and were postponed due to frozen pitches.
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