Apr 19, 2008, 20:07 GMT
London - Manchester United suffered a blow to their hopes of winning the English Premier League title on Saturday after they were held to a 1-1 draw at Blackburn Rovers.
Carlos Tevez equalised five minutes from time as United avoided a defeat that had looked likely when Blackburn led for much of the match after Roque Santa Cruz had put them ahead on 20 minutes.
United now lead Chelsea by just three points from Chelsea with three games remaining. The two sides still have to meet at Stamford Bridge, though United do have the cushion of a far superior goal difference to their rivals.
Elsewhere on Saturday, Bolton Wanderers gave their hopes of survival a huge boost as they clinched a 1-0 win at Middlesbrough to move out of the relegation zone.
Gavin McCann scored the only goal of the game after an hour and Bolton held on in the latter stages to move on to 32 points, above Reading on goal difference after their 2-0 defeat at Arsenal.
Birmingham City are now in the relegation zone on 31 points, but they can move above Bolton and Reading if they beat Aston Villa on Sunday.
Fulham, though, look doomed after their 2-0 defeat at home to Liverpool. Jermaine Pennant and Peter Crouch scored the goals to leave second-from-bottom Fulham stranded on 27 points, while Liverpool are now eight points ahead of Everton in the battle for fourth.
Wigan picked up another good point to be on 36 points after a 1-1 draw with Tottenham, while West Ham United beat bottom side Derby 2-1.
Blackburn were the better side for long periods at Ewood Park and took a deserved lead on 20 minutes when, after the ball broke kindly in the area, Santa Cruz slotted the ball into the far corner.
United should have had a second-half penalty when Brett Emerton handled the ball, while Ronaldo hit the post and Brad Friedel saved brilliantly from Wayne Rooney.
But just when it looked like it would not be their day, Tevez headed the equaliser five minutes from the end.
Arsenal lifted their spirits and plunged Reading deeper into the relegation mire with a comfortable 2-0 win at the Emirates Stadium in Saturday's early kick-off.
First-half goals from Emmanuel Adebayor and Gilberto Silva gave the home side only their second league win in nine matches, though they remain in third place on 74 points.
Bolton manager Gary Megson was full of praise for his side's spirit as they moved out of the bottom three with three games to go.
'At this stage of the season you roll up your sleeves and hope that is good enough and we have given ourselves a chance,' he said.
'Today was not a classic performance and we set off poorly. We were fortunate to go into half-time at 0-0. But we played well in the second half and it really was a case of two halves.'
In the early stages at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal found it hard to find a way through Reading, who sat deep and marked their opponents extremely tightly.
But the breakthrough came on the half-hour mark as Adebayor scored his 27th goal of the season as he controlled Kolo Toure's cross from the right and finished coolly past Reading goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann.
The second goal followed just eight minutes later as Gilberto grabbed his first goal of the season with a speculative shot from 20 yards which took a fortunate deflection off Andre Bikey.
Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott struck the woodwork for Arsenal in the second half and Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said he was proud of his team.
'We are still ambitious, we have 74 points and want to finish with 83 points which is a decent total,' Wenger said. 'We want to finish off as close as we can to the winners of the league.
'We showed pride and responded after the disappointment of last week. We have to bounce back because the strong always come back stronger. We have a very young team with a great future.'
Reading manager Steve Coppell said his team now had to dig deep to save themselves.
'We have a three-game mini-season and must aim to get enough points to stay up,' he said. 'There are nine points available to us and we have got to be genuine in our attempts to get them.'
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