/world sport
LONDON, England -- Ten-man Arsenal staged a stunning comeback to recover from two goals down at half-time to beat Bolton Wanderers 3-2 at the Reebok Stadium on Saturday.
Cesc Fabregas is ecstatic after his shot is deflected into the Bolton goal for the winner.
Arsene Wenger's men trailed to a pair of Matt Taylor goals and saw midfielder Abou Diaby shown red in the 31st minute, but showed immense character to claim a vital three points.
They are still six points adrift of champions Manchester United, who beat Aston Villa 4-0 in a later kick-off, but inched two points ahead of Chelsea for second place in a close English title race.
Still trailing after an hour, Wenger finally brought on Emmanuel Adebayor and Theo Walcott to change the course of the match.
A Robin Van Persie corner on 63 minutes saw Arsenal captain William Gallas steal in unmarked to narrow the deficit with a header at the far post.
Six minutes later the Gunners were level when Van Persie converted from the penalty spot after Gary Cahill was adjudged to have brought down Alexander Hleb.
Arsenal pressed forward relentlessly and after Van Persie spurned a pair of chances, Cesc Fabregas' shot from the left took two deflections, the last off JLloyd Samuel to give them victory.
Bolton, who remain in 18th and four points shy of safety, opened the scoring after Gretar Steinsson delivered a dangerous cross from the right and Taylor stole in front of his marker to head the ball home from close range.
Gunners midfielder Diaby was then shown a red for a bad tackle on Iceland international Steinsson in the 31st minute.
Gary Megson's side doubled their advantage two minutes before the break when Taylor's shot took a deflection to beat goalkeeper Manuel Almunia.
"We didn't give up. It was a mental test -- 2-0 down and 10 against 11 with half an hour to go," Wenger said.
"We knew that 2-2 wasn't good enough, we wanted it to be a win to stay in the race. Only three points was good enough."
In other games, bottom club Derby County were guaranteed relegation after a 2-2 draw at home to next-to-last Fulham.
Birmingham did their fight against the drop a power of good with a 3-1 win over Manchester City to go four points clear of Bolton for the final relegation place.
Portsmouth beat strugglers Wigan 2-0, while Reading and Blackburn drew 0-0 and Sunderland pulled further clear of the drop zone as Andy Reid scored in injury time to beat West Ham 2-1. E-mail to a friend 
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