LONDON — Chelsea overpowered London rival Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 in the Capital One League Cup final at a rain-swept Wembley Sunday to lift the first silverware of the English season. Spurs dominated the early stages but John Terry put Chelsea ahead just before halftime, firing the ball home from close range after Tottenham had failed to deal with a free kick. The Premier League leader doubled its lead after 56 minutes when Diego Costa's fierce cross shot took a big deflection off defender Kyle Walker and flew past helpless goalkeeper Hugo Lloris. A decade after Jose Mourinho started his Chelsea managerial career by lifting the League Cup, the competition gave him the first title of his second spell in charge. The Portuguese, who returned in 2013, remains in contention for the Champions League and Chelsea tops the Premier League. Liverpool dents City hopes Liverpool's Philippe Coutinho produced a moment of Brazilian magic to dent Manchester City's Premier League title aspirations in a 2-1 home win Sunday as Arsenal moved up to third with a 2-0 victory against Everton. Coutinho found the corner with a stunning curling effort to extend Liverpool's unbeaten run to 11 league games after Henderson's excellent first-half strike had been cancelled out by City's Edin Dzeko. It was a serious blow to City manager Manuel Pellegrini and his second-placed team's hopes of retaining its title as it missed the chance to close the five-point gap on leader Chelsea. Arsenal got over Wednesday's 3-1 home defeat by AS Monaco in the Champions League when France striker Olivier Giroud, who missed a glut of chances in that loss, swept in a corner after 39 minutes in a tight game against Everton at the Emirates Stadium. Substitute Tomas Rosicky added a late second with a long-range strike to make sure of the win for the north London side. Victory meant Arsene Wenger's team leapfrogged Manchester United in the table and moved to 51 points, four behind second-placed City. Liverpool nudged ahead of Southampton into fifth, a further three points adrift. Lazio blanks Sassuolo Lazio kept up the pressure on third-placed Napoli with a comfortable 3-0 win at Sassuolo in Serie A Sunday as the race for the final Champions League spot gathered pace. Goals from Felipe Anderson, Miroslav Klose and Marco Parolo helped Lazio record its third successive win and move two points behind Napoli. Sampdoria remained four points behind Lazio after coming from behind to win 2-1 at Atalanta. In the lunchtime kickoff Cagliari lost a relegation battle 2-1 at home to Hellas Verona. Elsewhere, Palermo drew 0-0 at Empoli, while Cesena beat Udinese 1-0. All matches started 15 minutes late in a show of solidarity with crisis-hit Parma. — Agencies
