United in control as Arsenal struggle against Blues

Alex Ferguson’s decision to leave out Wayne Rooney looked to have paid off as Javier Hernandez scored his first Barclays Premier League goal to help Manchester United on their way to a 2-0 lead against West Brom.

Hernandez was handed his second league start as Ferguson chose to leave Rooney on the bench after he openly contradicted his manager over an apparent ankle injury while on England duty in midweek.

The 24-year-old watched on as the Mexican forward pounced quickly to tap home after Scott Carson spilled Nani’s fifth minute free-kick.

A slip from Nicky Shorey then allowed Dimitar Berbatov to play in the Portugal winger, who made no mistake from 12 yards to double United’s lead.

A win for United would move them up to second in place of local rivals Manchester City, who play Blackpool tomorrow.

Chelsea, meanwhile, resume their quest to stay top of the pile in this afternoon’s late kick-off against Aston Villa at Villa Park.

Samir Nasri’s controversial penalty meant Arsenal went in 1-1 at half-time against Birmingham after Nikola Zigic had given the Blues a shock lead with his first league goal at the Emirates Stadium.

Nasri levelled the scores from the spot after Marouane Chamakh fell to the ground despite limited contact with Blues defender Scott Dann in the Birmingham box just before the break.

Arsenal had looked on course to lose their third match in a row after Zigic gave Birmingham the lead with a towering header in the 33rd minute.

Robert Green’s latest foul-up handed Wolves the lead in the bottom of the table scrap against West Ham at Molineux.

Green, who was recalled by England manager Fabio Capello last week, had shown signs of recovery from his horrendous blunder at the World Cup in the Hammers’ previous two matches, but his failure to clear a routine corner handed Matt Jarvis an easy tap-in to put Mick McCarthy’s side ahead.

A brilliant piece of trickery from in-form Rafael Van der Vaart helped Tottenham cancel out Diomansy Kamara’s opener for Fulham in the London derby at Craven Cottage.

Kamara, who was making his first start in over a year, gave the Cottagers the lead on the half-hour but Roman Pavlyuchenko equalised a minute later when he tapped into an empty net after Van der Vaart had beaten Mark Schwarzer with a nine-yard chip which had rebounded off the bar.

Charles N’Zogbia came back to haunt his former club Newcastle with two goals in two minutes to give Wigan a 2-0 lead at St James’ Park.

N’Zogbia, who joined the Latics from Newcastle last year, beat Fabricio Coloccini and James Perch in the box to head Wigan ahead in the 22nd minute before slamming a left-foot screamer past Tim Krul to make it 2-0 a minute later.

In this afternoon’s other top-flight match, Chung-Yong Lee’s 25-yard strike gave Bolton the lead over Stoke at the Reebok Stadium.