Monday & Tuesday Night Football

Monday Night Football returned this week with Stoke hosting West Brom at the Britannia. After a goalless first half, Stoke broke the deadlock with Rory Delap scoring eight minutes into the second half. West Brom equalised left it late, just like last week against Wolves, with the same player getting the goal; Carlos Vela scored his second goal in as many games to earn the draw three minutes from time. The point sees West Brom leapfrog Wolves and West Ham into seventeenth with Stoke moving ahead of Everton and Villa in tenth.

Last night saw the most anticipated rescheduled match with Chelsea taking on Manchester United at the Bridge. All the talk was about Rooney escaping a ban after his elbow on James McCarthy and Ashley Cole escaping punishment for shooting an intern with an air rifle. So the script was set up for one of them to controversially score, and it was Rooney. After a inside pass from Nani, Rooney turned into space and shot into the bottom corner from outside the box just before the half hour mark. It stayed that way until half-time but that was only due to some heroic goalkeeping from Van Der Sar off Ivanovic. Chelsea equalised eight minutes into the second half with David Luiz also firing a bottom corner shot. But the Brazilian was lucky to stay on the pitch after receiving a yellow in the first half and then came in late on Rooney. Referee Martin Atkinson gave nothing and two minutes later Chris Smalling was adjudged to have fouled sub Zhirkov in the box and a penalty was awarded. Frank Lampard stepped up and converted it with ten minutes left. Vidic did receive red though in injury time for a second yellow which sees him miss the Liverpool trip on Sunday. United stay four points clear of Arsenal but have now played a game more, Manchester City are still ten behind but Chelsea close the gap to twelve with a game in hand over United.

There was a big shock in the FA Cup as Everton entertained Reading in the fifth round. Only one goal was needed to settle the tie and it came from Matthew Mills after 26 minutes. Reading will face either Manchester city or Aston Villa who play their tie tonight. Worse news for Everton however is that Fellaini is out for the rest of the season and Cahill is out for three weeks after both sustained injuries in the game.