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On Wednesday, four more matches of the 25th round took place in the English Premier League, where the leaders "Man Utd" and "Chelsea" achieved overwhelming victories, "Newcastle" celebrated with three points, and one match ended in a draw.
In the first match, London's "Chelsea" faced "Blackburn". The hosts took the lead after just 6 minutes with a goal from Didier Drogba, creating opportunity after opportunity. Ukrainian Andrei Shevchenko had several chances to score, but the opponent's goalkeeper Brad Friedel played reliably. Meanwhile, "Blackburn" responded with rare, but dangerous counterattacks.
At the beginning of the second half, "Blues" defender Ashley Cole suffered a serious injury and was immediately replaced.
In the 67th minute, Frank Lampard doubled the score with a great strike from more than 20 meters. "Chelsea" continued their attacks, and in added time, Salomon Kalou scored the third goal.
The championship leaders "Man Utd" faced the underdogs "Watford". The match, you could say, went in only one direction. The first goal came in the 20th minute, when Cristiano Ronaldo converted the penalty earned by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
Fifteen minutes later, "Watford" launched a rare, but very dangerous attack. Home goalkeeper Tomas Kuszczak failed to catch the ball, and Chris Powell hit the target.
The match's outcome was revealed midway through the second half. In the 60th minute, after Kieran Richardson's pass from the wing, the ball unexpectedly went into the visitors' goal due to a mistake by their defender Lloyd Doyley.
In the 70th minute, Wayne Rooney made a great pass to Henrik Larsson, who scored. Just a minute later, Rooney himself found the net, making the score a resounding 4-0. "Man Utd" secured their ninth consecutive victory at their stadium.
The "Aston Villa," who ended an 11-game winless streak in the last round, once again had to admit defeat to the opponents, losing to "Newcastle" as visitors. Both teams rested over the weekend due to FA Cup matches.
The start of the match stunned the visitors. James Milner scored a goal from long range in the 5th minute, followed by Kieron Dyer's goal two minutes later. Later on, Scott Parker made a dangerous long shot as well.
In the 25th minute, the visitors reduced the gap, and the new Birmingham team acquisition Ashley Young scored from a corner kick.
The majority of the remaining match time "Aston Villa" controlled the situation on the field. However, any hope the visitors had of at least leveling the score was shattered by Antoine Sibierski's goal in the 93rd minute.
In the evening's fourth match, "Bolton" faced the recently recovering "Charlton" from a crisis.
In the 6th minute, "Bolton's" Norwegian Henrik Pedersen scored with a precise header to put his team ahead, but just 12 minutes later, Talal El Karkouri equalized. The rest of the game was dominated by "Bolton," while "Charlton" barely threatened. Despite this, the match ended in a draw.
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