Premier League leader Manchester City and champion Manchester United switched attention back to the action and away from controversies surrounding racism with easy wins Wednesday. City ensured it will be top at Christmas for the first time since 1929 with a 3-0 home win over Stoke City thanks to two goals from Sergio Aguero and one from Adam Johnson. The performance delighhted boss Roberto Mancini who told the BBC: “We are happy to be top but as I said three days ago it's important to stay top at the end of the season.” United remained two points behind City after thrashing Fulham 5-0 at Craven Cottage, although the victory was not without cost as manager Alex Ferguson explained. “The performance in the first half was as good as we have played all season, but we've got a couple of injuries,” he said “Phil Jones got an elbow to the jaw and we'll send him for an X-ray tomorrow. It doesn't look good. Rio (Ferdinand) will be back for the Blackburn game on New Year's Eve, Phil is a concern and Ashley (Young) is out for two or three weeks.” Villa's relief was short-lived though as Yossi Benayoun struck with an 87th-minute header to give Arsenal a 2-1 win, its eighth in their last 10 league matches. Villa ended the match with 10 men after defender Alan Hutton was sent off after 88 minutes for a second yellow card. The results lifted City to 44 points from 17 matches with United on 42. Uruguayan Luis Suarez, found guilty on Tuesday and banned for eight matches and fined 40,000 pounds ($62,700) for racially insulting Manchester United's Patrice Evra in October, was allowed, pending his appeal, to play for Liverpool whose Charlie Adam missed a penalty in a 0-0 draw at Wigan Athletic. In other matches Sunderland won a thriller at Loftus Road where they beat QPR 3-2, West Bromwich Albion also won a pre-Christmas cracker, triumphing 3-2 at Newcastle United and Everton beat Swansea City 1-0 at Goodison Park. Holder Schalke out Borussia Moenchengladbach ended holder Schalke 04's bid to retain the German Cup with a 3-1 win Wednesday to book its spot in the quarterfinals while fourth division club Holstein Kiel stunned Bundesliga's Mainz 05 2-0. Marco Reus struck twice and Juan Arango added another as Schalke, without coach Huub Stevens on the bench due to family reasons, ended the game with nine men after the dismissal of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar early in the second half and Jermaine Jones in stoppage time. Hertha Berlin, with assistant coach Rainer Widmayer in charge after the sacking of Markus Babbel and Michael Skibbe announcing he was taking over from Jan. 3, beat Kaiserslautern 3-1 to advance. VfB Stuttgart scored all three goals in its 2-1 win over Hamburg SV. On Tuesday Bayern Munich needed a stoppage time goal by Arjen Robben to beat VfL Bochum while 10-man Borussia Dortmund also booked its last eight ticket with a 5-4 penalty shootout win over second division leader Fortuna Duesseldorf after a goalless 120 minutes.
