A Ruud van Nistelrooy hat-trick fired Manchester United to a 3-0 victory over Fulham and top spot in the premier league for the first time in a year on Saturday.The convincing win at Old Trafford gave United 64 points while champions Arsenal, who play Everton at Highbury on Sunday after two consecutive defeats, have 63.Bobby Robson’s Newcastle United kept their title challenge on track by romping to a 5-1 win over Blackburn Rovers at St James’ Park to stay third but move on to 61 points.Chelsea consolidated fourth place, which would mean a place in the Champions League qualifiers, with a 5-0 demolition of Manchester City at Stamford Bridge, where the visitors’ Chinese defender Sun Jihai was red-carded in the last minute.Asked how it felt to be top of the table, Ferguson told Sky Sports: “It’s where you want to be and comes at an important part of the season. I hope we can stay there — I think we’ve a good chance. The players’ character is helping and you saw that today. There was good determination and resilience about them.“The important thing for us is to do our job and I think they’re doing that well now. We’re certainly not favourites, but we’ve got a good chance.”Van Nistelrooy converted his spot kick after Norwegian striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had been hauled down by Fulham’s French defender Martin Djetou.The Dutchman sprinted away for his second in the 68th minute, beating three Fulham men before slotting past keeper Maik Taylor and brought up his hat-trick in the 90th minute with a deflected shot from a pinpoint Ryan Giggs cross.“Saturday’s like this — with the atmosphere, the weather and the pitch — it was absolutely tremendous to play,” said Van Nistelrooy. “And with the result, and for me personally, it made it a hell of a good day.”Newcastle, who were knocked out of the Champions League in midweek, bounced back with a victory sealed with three goals in the last five minutes as their pace ripped the Rovers Defence apart on the break.Looking back to when the score was 2-1, Robson said: “I always knew that on the counter.we might just get through them again and we did. So we finished the game in a blaze of glory.“The third goal gave us the cushion we needed and on the counter we just murdered them.”Adding a note of revenge, he said: “It’s a huge result and I suppose it takes care of the one six months ago when they beat us 5-2 at Blackburn when we had to play with 10 players.”Rovers boss Graeme Souness summed up: “We didn’t play in thelast 15 minutes.and we got a roasting.”Southampton’s James Beattie became the premier league’s top scorer with his 20th of the season during their 2-2 draw with Aston Villa and Charlton Athletic finished 1-1 at Middlesbrough.In the relegation battle, Sunderland and West Bromwich Albion, respectively bottom and second-from-bottom, were both beaten and now look destined for the first division.Sunderland lost 2-0 to a West Ham United side who moved outof the bottom three for the first time since early November, while Birmingham City eased their own relegation fears with a 1-0 win over West Brom in the Midlands derby. (Reuters)
