Chelsea signalled their intention to push Manchester United all the way to the wire in the Premier League title battle by cutting the champions' lead at the top back to two points with a 2-0 win at Manchester City on Saturday.
United can re-establish a five-point advantage with five to play by winning at Middlesbrough on Sunday and Arsenal appear to have slipped out of contention after a 1-1 draw at home to Liverpool. But there is little sign of Chelsea making life easy for Sir Alex Ferguson's men.
Manchester City captain Richard Dunne handed the west Londoners the perfect start at Eastlands when he swept a cross from City old boy Nicolas Anelka past his own goalkeeper, Joe Hart, in the sixth minute.
Salomon Kalou then made sure of victory on the hour mark, breaking into the box and going round Hart before slotting home. Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger watched his side struggle to overcome a weakened Liverpool side at the Emirates but would not concede defeat in the title race.
"I said before that we would need at least five wins and a draw," said the Frenchman. "In my brain it is not over, because it is not over mathematically." Liverpool left Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres on the bench as Rafael Benitez made wholescale changes to his line-up with one eye on Tuesday's Champions League quarter-final second leg with Arsenal at Anfield.
But they were still sharper than their hosts, although they were denied victory when Peter Crouch's well-taken strike just before half-time was cancelled out by Nicklas Bendtner's near-post header nine minutes into the second half.
Aston Villa bounced back from last weekend's thrashing at Manchester United by dishing out similar treatment to Bolton in a 4-0 win at Villa Park. Elsewhere, Newcastle's revival continued to gather pace with a 3-0 defeat of Reading making it three wins on the spin for Kevin Keegan's Magpies.
COLLATED ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE RESULTS ON SATURDAY: Arsenal 1 (Bendtner 54) Liverpool 1 (Crouch 42); Aston Villa 4 (Barry 9, 60, Agbonlahor 56, Harewood 85) Bolton 0; Blackburn 1 (Pedersen 30) Tottenham 1 (Berbatov 7); Fulham 1 (Healy 74) Sunderland 3 (Collins 45, Chopra 54, Jones 76); Manchester City 0 Chelsea 2 (Dunne 6-og, Kalou 53); Newcastle 3 (Martins 18, Owen 43, Viduka 58) Reading 0; Wigan 2 (Taylor 15, 55) Birmingham 0
PLAYING SUNDAY: Everton v Derby Middlesbrough v Manchester Utd.
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