Hodgson sees Fulham squander lead

LONDON, England -- New Fulham coach Roy Hodgson saw his side squander a one-goal lead as they slipped to a 2-1 home defeat against west London neighbors Chelsea.

It was a familiar enough sight for the Fulham supporters who have now watched their team fail to win 10 games in which they have opened the scoring this season.

The defeat left Fulham, who have picked up only two wins in the Premier League this season, second-bottom of the Premiership with only Derby County below them.

Chelsea's victory leaves them six points adrift of Premier League leaders Arsenal and four behind second-placed Manchester United, who both won at home.

Aston Villa climbed to sixth with a 2-1 victory at home to Tottenham.

Hodgson's team made an encouraging start against a depleted Chelsea and had a 10th minute boost when Moritz Volz was tripped in the area by Joe Cole and Danny Murphy scored from the spot.

Fulham again proved vulnerable when leading, however, and nine minutes after the restart Alex headed a Shaun Wright-Phillips corner back across goal and Salomon Kalou headed home.

Eight minutes later Chelsea were in front when Clint Dempsey was penalized for tugging Michael Ballack's shirt in the penalty box and the German, captaining the team, converted the spot-kick.

Ballack revealed that Chelsea manager Avram Grant had plenty to say to them after their lackluster first-half display..

"It was a little bit loud in the dressing room but we needed this result," Ballack said. "We couldn't keep playing like we did in the first half so we changed a lot. We put pressure on Fulham and it was better for us.

"It's a great pleasure for me to captain Chelsea but it's more important we come through this difficult period because we have a lot of injured players."

Reading were forced to play for 87 minutes with 10 men after the early departure of Ibrahima Sonko for a foul on Portsmouth striker Benjani Mwaruwari in the area.

Niko Kranjcar fired the penalty kick against the post but Pompey went on to win 2-0 at the Madejski Stadium, with goals from Sol Campbell and John Utaka.

Everton bounced back from their defeats against Manchester United and Arsenal by winning 2-0 at Middlesbrough. Andrew Johnson and James McFadden were on target in the last 23 minutes.

Martin Laursen's 84th-minute winner gave Aston Villa a 2-1 win at home to Tottenham.

Olof Mellberg put Villa ahead when he rose unopposed to head home Ashley Young's free-kick five minutes before the interval.

Spurs equalised in the 79th minute when Jermain Defoe finished acrobatically after Dimitar Berbatov set up the chance but Laursen headed the winner for Villa from Gareth Barry's corner kick. E-mail to a friend