City keep 100 per cent home record

LONDON, England -- Sven-Goran Eriksson's Manchester City maintained their perfect home record with a 4-2 win over struggling north-west neighbors Bolton to move into fourth place in the Premier League.

It was the ninth win in nine matches at Eastlands for City, who have 33 points from 17 games. Fifth-placed Liverpool, who are three points behind with two games in hand, take on champions Manchester United in the first of two key games on Sunday.

Leaders Arsenal play Chelsea later in the afternoon in another match which will play a big part in the outcome of the title race.

Eriksson's men are showing every sign of being able to gatecrash the "big four" but after trailing 2-1 to Bolton, who have enjoyed a good recent run under new manager Gary Megson, hit back with three second half goals.

City went ahead in the seventh minute through Rolando Bianchi before El-Hadji Diuof completed a neat move to make it 1-1 in the 31st minute.

Just before half-time Bolton regained the lead when Kevin Nolan turned in Ricardo Gardner's cross.

City drew level in the 48th minute when Bolton's Lubomir Michalik headed into his own net as he tried to block a shot from Dietmar Hamann.

Darius Vassell put them 3-2 ahead with substitute Kelvin Etuhu wrapping up the win with his first Premier League goal in injury time.

Tottenham Hotspur had started the season with Champions League pretensions of their own, but a disastrous start under the now departed Martin Jol saw them in the relegation zone.

Their 1-0 win at Portsmouth, courtesy of a second half strike from Dimitar Berbatov, was their first away win of the season and lifted them to the comparative safety of 12th place.

Sunderland manager Roy Keane was furious with referee Steve Bennett after his side had a late goal disallowed in the 1-1 home draw with Aston Villa to leave them in the thick of the relegation dogfiight.

Asked if he felt his side had been cheated, he nodded and then said: "What's there to see? It was a header, we scored, three yards out and the referee disallows it for...I don't know."

Middlesbrough had Sanli Tuncay to thank again for another vital goal in the 1-0 win at bottom side Derby.

Turkish star Tuncay scored the winner in last week's 2-1 win over Arsenal and was on target for the third successive game.

Marcus Bent's hat-trick lifted fellow strugglers Wigan to a 5-3 win over Blackburn in an incident-packed match, but Steve Bruce's men are still second bottom.

Blackburn, who had Brett Emerton sent off in the second half, hit back to equalize at 3-3 with a hat-trick of their own for Roque Santa Cruz.

Republic of Ireland international Stephen Hunt scored a second half equalizer from the penalty spot as Reading held Birmingham 1-1 at St Andrews in another match between sides who are looking to pull clear of the relegation battle.

Fulham slipped into the bottom three when beaten 1-0 at home by Newcastle in the Saturday evening game.

A 90th minute penalty by Joey Barton gave Newcastle victory after Fulham had created the better chances at Craven Cottage.

Everton's excellent recent run continued apace as Aiyegbeni Yakubu scored in the 2-0 win at West Ham, who were looking for revenge for a League Cup quarterfinal defeat to the same opponents in midweek. E-mail to a friend