Chelsea, Gunners leave it late
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English Premier League leader Chelsea snatched a late 2-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers with a rare goal by Branislav Ivanovic while Alex Song's 88th-minute header secured a 1-0 home win for Arsenal over bottom club West Ham United yesterday.
A lackluster Chelsea was meandering towards a 1-1 draw at Ewood Park after Nicolas Anelka had canceled out Benjani Mwaruwari's opener.
But six minutes from time Yuri Zhirkov's cross was headed home by the Serbian defender Ivanovic.
There was disappointment for Manchester City, which was beaten 1-2 at Wolverhampton Wanderers for its second successive defeat.
Chelsea leads the table with 25 points from 10 games, five points ahead of Arsenal and eight clear of City and Manchester United, which was hosting Tottenham Hotspur (17) later yesterday.
Elsewhere yesterday, it was: Fulham 2, Wigan Athletic 0; and Everton 1, Stoke City 0. Everton is now seventh on 13 points while Fulham rose to eighth on 12 points.
At the Emirates Stadium, Cameroon midfielder Song nodded home from close range in the 88th to deny the Hammers a point.
Arsenal had earlier hit the bar twice, through Samir Nasri and substitute Theo Walcott. West Ham goalkeeper Robert Green also produced a number of saves to thwart the hosts.
West Ham stayed rooted to the foot of the league table on just six points, with the loss increasing the pressure on manager Avram Grant.
In Germany, a Milivoje Novakovic hat-trick helped lowly FC Cologne to a 3-2 win over Hamburg SV in the Bundesliga yesterday.
Slovenian Novakovic struck twice in 18 first-half minutes to put Cologne ahead and then level after the visitors had taken a brief 2-1 lead through Min Son-heung.
Paolo Guerrero rattled the crossbar early in the second half for a superior Hamburg before Novakovic completed a swift move six minutes from time to seal a victory that lifted Cologne off bottom spot and into 15th place.
Hamburg dropped to eighth place on 15 points.
Werder Bremen missed its chance to climb up the table after Nuremberg's Hugo Almeida grabbed a late winner in a 3-2 victory.
Steve McClaren's VfL Wolfsburg celebrated its first win in four games when it beat VfB Stuttgart with goals in either half from Simon Kjaer and captain Edin Dzeko to move up to 12th on 13 points from 10 games.
Also, Fanis Gekas brought his season total to a league-high nine goals by scoring twice in Eintracht Frankfurt's 3-1 win at 10-man St Pauli.
Kaiserslautern sent Borussia Moenchengladbach to the bottom of the standings with a 3-0 victory.
On Friday, Bayern Munich eased past SC Freiburg 4-2 to move up to seventh place on 15 points, with forgotten men Martin Demichelis and Anatoliy Tymoshchuk scoring.
Leader Mainz 05 was hosting second-placed Borussia Dortmund, two points adrift on 22, yesterday while Hoffenheim was entertaining Hanover 96.
