Arsenal ends Reds' home run LONDON – Manchester City raced five points clear in the league with a 2-0 win over Bolton Wanderers Saturday while Chelsea's woes under Andre Villas-Boas continued after a 1-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion. City stretched its lead as an own goal from Gretar Steinsson and a Mario Balotelli effort sealed its 19th successive home league victory. Arsenal has not been in the title race all season but strengthened its claims for a top-four finish with Robin van Persie striking twice in a 2-1 triumph at Liverpool. Van Persie's stoppage-time winner was his 31st goal of the season in all competitions and helped Arsenal move three points ahead of fifth-placed Chelsea who was beaten at West Brom by a late Gareth McAuley goal. City has won all 14 home fixtures this season and is slowly edging towards its first top-flight title since 1968. Roberto Mancini's team went in front after 23 minutes against Bolton when a shot by defender Gael Clichy took a big deflection off Steinsson. Balotelli, back from a three-game suspension, then made the points safe after 69 minutes. Chelsea is 20 points behind City after losing to West Brom in the Premier League for the first time. Villas-Boas's side produced another lacklustre display which will again fuel media speculation about the Portuguese manager's future. Frank Lampard wasted a glorious late chance for the visitors after McAuley's scrappy 82nd-minute goal had put West Brom in front. Liverpool, which won the League Cup Sunday to ensure Europa League qualification, surrendered its unbeaten home league record and remains in seventh place, 10 points adrift of Arsenal with a game in hand. Bottom of the table Wigan Athletic went down 2-0 at home to Swansea City. Blackburn Rovers, one place above Bolton, drew 1-1 at home to Aston Villa while Queens Park Rangers moved up a place to 16th after a 1-1 draw with Everton. Stoke City are eighth following a 1-0 home victory over Norwich City. Ibrahimovic scores 15-minute hat trick Zlatan Ibrahimovic celebrated his return from a three-match ban by scoring a 15-minute first-half hat-trick as leader AC Milan demolished Palermo 4-0 away in Serie A Saturday. Defender Thiago Silva completed the rout when he headed the fourth from Stephan El Shaaraway's cross just before the hour. Milan moved on to 54 points from 26 games, four ahead of Juventus which has played 24 matches. Udinese and Lazio have 45 points. Malaga rallies Malaga rallied to beat Getafe 3-1 Saturday and provisionally moved fourth in the Spanish league. After Diego Castro gave Getafe the lead in the 42nd minute, Malaga's Eliseu Pereira fired into the top right corner of the goal from outside the area in the 57th. Jeremy Toulalan hit in the 82nd with another blistering blast that hit the post before finding the back of the net. Santi Cazorla added a third with a long lob in stoppage time. In other matches,Osasuna drew 1-1 at Mallorca and Rayo beat 10-man Racing Santander 4-2. Dortmund goes 7 points clear Shinji Kagawa fired the winner for Borussia Dortmund to beat Mainz 2-1 and move closer to defending its Bundesliga title following Bayern Munich's earlier loss Saturday. Dortmund is seven points ahead of Bayern with 10 rounds left to play after Sunday's games. Bayer Leverkusen beat second-placed Bayern 2-0 with two late goals from Stefan Kiessling and Karim Bellarabi to damage the visitors' title hopes. Other results: Freiburg 2, Schalke 1; Hertha Berlin 1, Werder Bremen 0; Hamburger SV 0, Stuttgart 4; Kaiserslautern 0, Wolfsburg 0; Hannover 2, Augsburg 2.
