With the Premiership end only two months away and the International break coming up, the top and bottom ends of the table are continuously in a state of flux as the action restarted after last week's FA Cup quarter-finals. The lunch-time kick-off was at White Hart Lane with Tottenham entertaining their Olympic Stadium bid rivals West Ham. West Ham won the bid but needed to regain momentum after losing to Stoke last weekend. Spurs were the main attacking force in the game but were thwarted by Green and co as West Ham earnt themselves a goalless draw to get themselves a little further away from the bottom.
The reason why the bottom is so tight this year is because the teams at the bottom keep winning games. Wigan have been cast aside for the past few weeks but reopened their survival chances with a win at home to Birmingham who also find themselves in deep trouble. It was Birmingham who took the lead with Ridgewell surviving offside calls to smash it home. On-loan Tom Cleverly equalised for Wigan after 25 minutes after Foster palmed to the cross into his former Manchester United team-mate's path. Birmingham had a late penalty shout wrongly turned down when Alcaraz body checked Curtis Davies in the box. But the game was won in injury time when a Maynor Figueroa shot wrong-footed Foster as it hit the back of the net.
When Blackpool are playing, you know there's going to be drama. It started with Luke Varney having two disallowed goals for offside, both were right decisions but the first incident saw the flag go up extremely late. The deadlock was broke by Blackpool when Charlie Adam converted a penalty after 25 minutes, he then doubled the lead after striking a free-kick past Robinson just four minutes later. Captain Samba pulled one back for Blackburn after Kingson couldn't completely clear the cross, four minutes into the second half. Another injury time goal, this time from Junior Hoilett saw that Blackburn got themselves a point.
Stoke carried on with their progression into the FA Cup semi-finals with a demolition of Newcastle at the Britannia. Jon Walters made it 1-0 after 28 minutes before a Harper blunder allowed Pennant to make it 2-0 just a minute into the second half. Fresh from his free-kick last week-end, Danny Higginbotham smashed another in past a flaky wall just three minutes later. Ricardo Fuller finished off a route one counter attack in injury time to make it 4-0 final score.
Manchester United extended their lead at the top, but only just. Bolton held their own for much of the game but couldn't test Van Der Sar enough in a defence that saw Vidic and Ferdinand still missing. Their defensive got worse fourteen minutes from the end when Jonny Evans received a straight for going into a fifty-fifty challenge with Holden studs showing. Holden unfortunately had to stretchered off with what could be broken leg. But United came through when Jaaskelainen fumbled a Nani shot into the path of substitute Berbatov, allowing the Bulgarian to steal all three points two minutes from time.
United's lead is now up to five but could have been six as Arsenal dropped points at West Brom. Arsenal were behind after just three minutes when Steven Reid broke the deadlock. Another piece of goal-keeping cock-up gave West Brom their second, Almunia came rushing out of his goal into no man's land where Squillaci looked comfortable in getting the ball. But Odemwingie won it and played it into the empty net thirteen minutes into the second half. But Arsenal fought back with Arshavin scoring a nice goal with twenty minutes to play, Van Persie equalised just eight minutes later but West Brom held on for the point.
Aston Villa are now one of four teams that are a point away from the relegation zone after losing a Midlands derby at home to Wolves. A Wolves goal was looking ominous as they had two already correctly disallowed. It came seven minutes before half-time courtesy of Matt Jarvis to give Wolves a needed three points.
The tea-time kick-off saw Everton host Fulham at Goodison Park. Everton took the lead through Seamus Coleman nine minutes before half-time. Everton then doubled their lead four minutes after the restart with Saha getting the goal. Fulham pulled one back with Clint Dempsey scoring his eleventh of the season two minutes after the hour but Everton held on for the win.
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