Chelsea lost further ground on league-leaders Manchester City as Liverpool inflicted their third league defeat in four games. Glen Johnson’s 87th minute winner won it for the visitors after Daniel Sturridge had cancelled out Maxi Rodriguez’s first-half opener.
The result further dented the London club’s title ambitions as they trail Manchester City by 12 points after the league-leaders kept up their unbeaten start to the season with a 3-1 home win over Newcastle United.
Manchester United and Arsenal both took three points from promoted clubs Swansea and Norwich respectively.
Southampton maintained a five-point lead at the top of the Championship table with a 3-0 victory over South Coast rivals Brighton. West Ham kept up the pressure on the leaders, though, producing a second-half fightback away at Coventry to register a 2-1 win.
David Beckham celebrated the end of his five-year stint with LA Galaxy as his side overcame Houston Dynamos to lift the MLS Cup. Beckham, who is strongly linked with a move to Paris Saint-Germain when his contract in Los Angleles expires next month, combined with another Premier League export Robbie Keane to create the only goal of the game for Landon Donovan.
After a tight first half, Australia’s superiority told as they ran out 30-8 winners over England in the rugby league Four Nations final at Elland Road. Kangaroos captain Darren Lockyer ended his career in style as he scored his side’s final try in the dying seconds of the match.
Defending champion Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal won the opening matches of the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 Arena last night, both requiring three sets to battle past Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Mardy Fish respectively.
There was a mixed set of results for English sides in the rugby union’s Heineken Cup this weekend. Bath beat Montpellier 16-13 at The Rec while Leicester won 20-9 at home to Ulster but Saracens went down 15-10 away at Biarritz. Leinster trounced Glasgow 38-18 and Ospreys drew 26-26 at Treviso.
In cricket, former England all-rounder Basil D’Oliveira has died aged 80. South African-born D’Oliveira was barred from first-class cricket for being “coloured” under his country’s apartheid regime and emigrated to the UK before playing for England.
In 1968 he was set to return to his homeland to play for England against South Africa but was refused entry to the country and England called off the tour, marking the beginning of South Africa’s sporting isolation in the apartheid era.
