Manchester United cut Chelsea’s lead at the top of the Barclay’s Premier League to just one point despite being held by Aston Villa as title race heats up following the top two sides dropping points in midweek.

Aston Villa 1 Man Utd 1
The Red Devils’ 1-1 draw at Villa Park, achieved after playing the majority of the game with 10 men following the sending off of winger Nani, hacked at Chelsea’s lead after the Blues were beaten at Everton. A fine header from Villa defender Carlos Cuellar handed Martin O’Neill’s men a 19th minute lead but the champions needed just 4 minutes to draw level as James Collins deflected into his own net – United’s 10th own goal in their favour this season.

Everton 2 Chelsea 1
Meanwhile, Chelsea had a lead overturned at Goodison Park where a Louis Saha double cancelled out Florent Malouda’s opener to condemn the league-leaders to a 2-1 loss. The defeat is a major blow to boss Carlo Ancelotti, who could have seen his side move four points clear of United and nine ahead of Arsenal had they held onto their lead.

Arsenal 1 Liverpool 0
The real victors of the midweek programme, however, were Arsenal. The Gunners needed just one goal to halt a rejuvenated Liverpool side as Abou Diaby’s 72nd minute header sealed a 1-0 win at the Emirates. The win puts Arsene Wenger’s side back into contention for the title, albeit with just a glimmer of hope as they trail Chelsea by six points.

Wolves 1 Tottenham 0
Liverpool’s loss was a chance for Tottenham to leapfrog their top-four rivals back into the coveted fourth spot, but they failed after going down 1-0 at Wolves in a repeat of the scoreline when the two met at White Hart Lane earlier this season. Midfielder David Jones grabbed his second goal of the season with 27 minutes on the clock and Mick McCarthy’s relegation battlers held out to take three points off the North London club once again.

West Ham 2 Birmingham 0
At the other end of the table, meanwhile, West Ham conjured up a huge win with a 2-0 defeat over this season’s surprise package Birmingham. Alessandro Diamati’s perfectly placed free-kick gave the Londoners the lead shortly before the break while Carlton Cole’s second half header sealed a morale-boosting win for under pressure boss Gianfranco Zola.

Blackburn 1 Hull City 0
Elsewhere, Hull City were brought back down to earth following last week’s win over Man City with a 1-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park. The Tigers had George Boateng harshly sent off when already a goal down to Boaz Myhill’s 16th minute own goal, which was enough to settle the contest.

Man City 2 Bolton 0
On Tuesday night, top-four contenders Man City strengthened their case for the cause with a comfortable 2-0 win over a battling Bolton side. A Carlos Tevez penalty and an Emmanuel Adebayor volley in either half sealed the win, with 5th placed City holding two games in hand over Liverpool.

Fulham 3 Burnley 0
Elsewhere, Fulham heaped more misery on struggling Burnley boss Brian Laws as goals from Danny Murphy, David Elm and Bobby Zamora ensured an emphatic 3-0 win for the Cottagers. After a bright start under the guidance of Owen Coyle, who left for Bolton in January, the Clarets have now dropped into the relegation zone with their early season confidence out the window.

Portsmouth 1 Sunderland 1
Meanwhile, there were three red cards at Fratton Park where a 94th minute strike from Aruna Dindane sealed a point for crisis club Portsmouth in a 1-1 draw with Sunderland. Darren Bent opened up the scoring from the penalty spot before Ricardo Rocha saw red first then Lee Cattermole evened up the numbers with a second bookable offence. Black Cats substitute David Meyler was on the field just two minutes before being dismissed for an elbow in a feisty encounter which will give Pompey a glimmer of hope for staging an unlikely survival bid.

Wigan 1 Stoke City 1
Finally, honours were even at the DW Stadium as well, where Wigan were held to a 1-1 draw with Stoke City. Paul Scharner’s exquisite header handed the home side the lead after just 14 minutes but a quarter of an hour before the final whistle Tuncay Sanli rescued a point for the Potters with a header of his own.

The two points dropped leave Wigan just a point above the dropzone and boss Roberto Martinez will no doubt be concerned by the constant inability to gain some consistency.

Everton manager, David Moyes, is under pressure ahead of the Europa Football League encounter with Benfica later today. Moyes has a long injury list in front of him that is making his task of picking a good standard eleven a difficult one in a match the club need to win.

Moyes is one of the more experienced managers in the league but this is no substitute when physical circumstances leave you with a lot of problems on your plate. Everton have been struggling with inconsistency in recent times and need to work out any way to win a match.

Moyes said: “We don’t have any extra players at the moment and I don’t have any extra options — we are optioned-out. The players we have will have to cope with the situation. It will be a case of putting them out and letting them cope.”

“It is going to take it out of them. It is going to be tough but we have always tried to put out the best team we can. If we had all of our squad fit we could perhaps rotate one or two players in our squad, but at the moment all we are doing is adding to our injury list. It is disappointing for us.”

“We take all competitions seriously and we certainly will this one. We are fortunate that we have two good results under our belt, which puts us into a good position.”

“There are parts of the game where we will need to stifle Benfica because their attacking prowess is excellent. But we will also have opportunities to have a go at them — so it will be a case of striking a balance between trying to stifle and trying to score. They are a really good attacking side and they will be a big threat to us.”

The club will need to raise their game hugely from some mediocre displays that have been appearing in the Premier League. Sides such as Benfica are very good and will be taking the competiton as a vital importance, if Everton give them any room for opportunity then they will not think twice about taking advantage of it.

They need to get their main players fit again very quickly and make sure that they stay fit. This game may have come just a little too quickly for them and it will be a test of their calibre to see if they can make it through. The only aim of the game seems to be damage limitation.

El Hadji Diouf has launched a seething attack against Everton after he revealed that bananas were thrown at him during Blackburn’s match with the Toffees at the weekend. Diouf stormed into the headlines after it was reported that he had filed racist allegations against a number of Everton fans.

The fans were said to have been chanting towards him throughout the match as the stewards stood and did nothing to stop it. Diouf believes the Stewards should be disciplined by the club and has revealed that nothing was done to stop the fans throwing the fruit onto the pitch whenever he went towards that section of the crowd.

He said: “People threw bananas at me and the referee told me that he would report this to the police. I have had problems before but never anything like the ones I had on Sunday. I don’t want to let this matter rest.”

Everton Chairman, Bill Kenwright, responded: “Everton abhors anything to do with racism. We have worked diligently and tirelessly to eradicate this blight not only on the game but on society.”

The matter has been reported to the Football Association because the referee mentioned Diouf’s claims in his after match report. The referee also made the police aware at the time but the authorities have not yet commented on whether anyone has been charged following the incident.

This is a worrying story for football because it proves that the clamp down on racism in the game does not appear to be working. Although a search of the area Diouf claims bananas were thrown did not produce any evidence, it is highly likely that the stewards may have cleaned this up after the game had finished.

Everton have said that because of this there will be no official review by the club into any incidents that may have taken place. Therefore they are saying that they are not going to deal with the allegations that they believe are being made up by an opposition player who may have been a bit tainted that his side were so soundly beaten.

Diouf is one of the figures in football that not everyone warms to. His manner and charisma can sometimes be very annoying when he is out playing on the pitch. If the allegations are false then it may have just been that Everton fans were shouting something similar at the player, that he tends to hear at every away ground he goes to.

Liverpool have become the latest Premier League club to be involved in the tapping up scandal that has infested English football. Crewe Alexandra have reported Liverpool after it emerged in the press that they had approached an unnamed 15-year-old player illegally.

The news comes shortly after Chelsea were banned from signing any players for the next two transfer windows, Manchester United about to launch legal action against Le Havre and reports of an apparent ban proposal to be put towards Manchester City.

It seems that the only way the biggest clubs in England are going to learn is if they are punished severely. At current it appears that there are holes all over the system that top clubs have been abusing and if these allegations from Crewe are correct then Liverpool could be next in the firing line.

Dario Gradi, Crewe’s Director of Football, said: “We have a situation where one of our 15-year-olds has been approached. He is an outstanding player by any standards and he has come in and told us that he wants to leave right now to join a big club.”

“The big clubs are stealing other people’s players and you worry financially for the clubs where the players are stolen from. What sort of compensation are we going to get for all the work that has gone into developing him? Any compensation is insignificant for the effort that gone in.”

“I’m delighted with what has happened with Chelsea. I would hope all the big clubs are frightened to death. There is no excuse for breaking the rules. We lost a 12-year-old to Everton. He was our best 12-year-old. The lure is that the bigger clubs pay big expenses. This kid will be getting several hundred pounds a week in expenses. We pay expenses but nothing like that. It’s more a case of giving out £20 if someone can pick a kid up en-route.”

Gradi’s point is a very simple one, only until similar situations appear, like the one at Chelsea, will big clubs stop poaching players from the clubs that have developed them. These are clubs that are in no position at all to be able to stop the bigger sides from offering financial incentives as a reward for playesr to break their contracts.

Credit must go for the action that has been brought against Chelsea but there has to be a universal action to stop poaching all together.