Rearview Mirror

If you slept through the weekend, here's what you missed:

EPL - Manchester United picked up the gauntlet thrown down by their crosstown rivals with a 3-0 defeat of Tottenham in the Monday night game. United took over an hour to get on the board, but didn't look back once Danny Welbeck opened the scoring, moving into second place behind Manchester City after City's 3-2 win at Bolton. Arsenal are the team under early pressure, after Liverpool had their first away win at Arsenal since 2000. The introduction of Luis Suarez following the sending off of Arsenal's Emmanuel Frimpong gave Liverpool the cutting edge they had been lacking, and they finished 2-0 winners to leave Arsenal with only one point from two games, and a trip to Old Trafford next weekend - with the minor matter of a Champion's League qualifier at Udinese to negotiate during the week. With a lack of depth already cause for concern, Arsene Wenger did not need a second red card in as many league games. Chelsea recovered from conceding an early goal to win 2-1 at home to West Brom, while Wolves joined the two Manchester teams with a perfect record after beating Fulham 2-0.

AFL - Collingwood took advantage of Geelong's bye to move one game clear at the top of the table with a predictable victory over the Brisbane lions, although the Lions showed further evidence of a turnaround in their fortunes as they only went down by 18 points. Hawthorn kept Chris Judd and Carlton subdued to grind out a hard fought 12 point win, all but ensuring that Hawthorn and West Coast will finish with the double chance while Carlton will again be faced with a sudden death final in week one of the finals. West Coast moved ahead of Carlton with a 57 point win over Essendon. North Melbourne kept their faint final hopes alive with a 98-point hammering of Fremantle, all but killing the Dockers hopes of making the eight, as the Sydney Swans 15 point upset of St Kilda meant that the Saints, Swans and Bombers will likely join the Blues in the elimination finals. (Click here for the latest ladder.)

Cricket - England completed their series win over India with an innings win in the fourth and final Test, completing a 4-0 drubbing of the former number one ranked team who now drop to third. England showed there are a number of reasons for their rise to the number one spot, with another dominant batting performance, anchored by Bell and Pietersen, followed by two Indian innings in which the English frontline quartet all played their part. Graeme Swann finally took a bag of wickets, finishing with six in the second innings, nine for the match and thirteen for the series. Dravid carried his bat in the first innings, and Tendulkar made 91 in the second, but India's top order again failed to bat with the tenacity necessary in the circumstances. Raina underlined their woes, facing 42 balls in the match, for the end result of a pair.

 

Over in Sri Lanka, Australia wrapped up the one day series with an emphatic win in game four, before Sri Lanka closed the final margin to 3-2 in the final game after a Malinga hat-trick truncated Australia's innings, and left Sri Lanka with a total they always looked likely to run down, even if they only did so with four wickets and three overs to spare.