Man Utd close in on title after beating Chelsea 2-1

The champagne's on ice and the bunting is bought but Manchester United cannot officially celebrate their 19th league title until they've secured one more point. Their 2-1 defeat of Chelsea at Old Trafford on Sunday took them six points clear of the Blues, while Arsenal's 3-1 humbling at the hands of Stoke was a further boon to the Red Devils.

Now only a disaster of dramatic proportions in their remaining two matches will prevent United overhauling Liverpool's long-standing record of 18 league titles. But with Blackburn and Blackpool next up for the leaders, no one's holding their breath.

Alex Ferguson certainly believes the title race has run its course. He strolled down the tunnel after a theatrical bow to the Stretford End and later could not hide his delight when he spoke to reporters. "It's fantastic to be the most successful team in the country," smiled the Scot. "The minute we won that first title in 1993 the door opened, and we've been involved in the first two [places] all throughout that period - it's a fantastic achievement... We deserve the title and hopefully we'll get that point now."

United were certainly in fantastic form from the first whistle on Sunday, determined to prove to the Blues that they weren't going to relinquish the title at the death having led the Premier League for most of the season.
 
Park Ji-sung, who played like a man possessed the entire afternoon, created United's opening goal in the first minute when he found Javier Hernandez with a wonderful ball that left Chelsea defender David Luiz clueless.

Hernandez coolly fired past Petr Cech for his 20th goal of the season and Chelsea – for whom Didier Drogba started up front instead of Fernando Torres - wore the look of a team that didn't know what had hit them.

Rooney almost doubled the United advantage a few minutes later with a rasping shot that brought the best out of Cech, and Hernandez and Park also kept the Chelsea keeper on his toes. There was little Cech could do however on 23 minutes when Ryan Giggs' cross was met by a thunderous header from Nemanja Vidic to give United a 2-0 lead.

Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti rang the changes at half-time, hauling off Luiz and John Obi Mikel and sending on Alex and Ramires, but to little effect. United claimed they should have had a penalty on 52 minutes when Frank Lampard was seen to handle Antonio Valencia's cross, but the referee wasn't interested.

It was Lampard who gave Chelsea a glimmer of hope on 68 minutes when he bundled the ball home to reduce the deficit but United simply turned the screw even tighter. Only a  goal-line clearance from Alex stopped Rooney making it three and Hernandez should have added another late on but was uncharacteristically wasteful in heading wide. Not that it mattered when the final whistle went and Old Trafford erupted in joy.  

"It's a massive step forward for us," said Ryan Giggs later. "Mathematically we have not won the title but we are nearly there. We know we are capable of playing good football and we knew we had to keep attacking as one goal is not enough against a team like Chelsea. It was a great start and it would have been easy for us to take our foot off the pedal but we didn't." ·