Fernando Torres was back to his predatory best with two well-taken goals in the first half, inspiring Liverpool to their best performance of the season and their third successive league win.
Champions and Premier League leaders Chelsea suffered their second defeat of the season as Fernando Torres scored twice to guide resurgent Liverpool to a deserved 2-0 victory at Anfield on Sunday.
The Spaniard was back to his predatory best with two well-taken goals in the first half, inspiring Liverpool to their best performance of the season and their third successive league win. Arsenal failed to take advantage of the leaders’ slip, however, as they were beaten 1-0 at home by Newcastle United courtesy of Andy Carroll’s header at the end of the first half.
Manchester City did gain ground with Italian striker Mario Balotelli scoring both goals in a comfortable 2-0 win at West Bromwich Albion before being sent off in the second half.
The results squeezed the top of the standings with Chelsea still top on 25 points, two ahead of Manchester United, who beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 on Saturday.
Arsenal and Man City have 20 with Newcastle up to fifth on 17 points. Liverpool, in the bottom three a week ago, jumped to ninth on 15.
Earlier, Andy Carroll headed the only goal at the end of the first half to give Newcastle their third successive win. Arsenal were upset 3-2 at The Emirates by West Bromwich Albion in September and, although they had most of the possession and hit the bar twice on Sunday, they lacked the killer instinct against a team they last lost at home to nine years ago.
Defeat was a real setback for Arsenal, who had hoped to gain ground on leaders Chelsea. Arsenal, beaten by Shakhtar Donetsk in their midweek Champions League game, quickly imposed their usual dominance with some neat passing in midfield.
Cesc Fabregas hit the bar with a deflected free kick after 13 minutes while Newcastle keeper Tim Krul made a great one-handed save to keep out a Samir Nasri shot after 39.
However, Newcastle, on a high after last week’s 5-1 thrashing of Sunderland, were a very different proposition both in personnel and attitude than that on show when they were beaten 4-0 at home by Arsenal in the League Cup six weeks ago.
Arsenal goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski had been a virtual spectator but when he was called into action in the last minute of the first half he needlessly tried to punch a Kevin Nolan free kick box but was outjumped by Carroll whose header looped into the empty net. Arsenal resumed their territorial control in the second half with Theo Walcott rattling the bar again soon after the restart.
However, Newcastle worked tirelessly to keep them at long range and the home threat gradually petered out.
Arsenal’s bad day was completed when defender Laurent Koscielny was shown a straight red card for a last-man foul on substitute Nile Ranger in stoppage time.
"These are big weeks for us and what we have is a group of players who are all in this together fighting together, supporting each other and I think that showed in the performance," Newcastle manager Chris Hughton told Sky Sports.
STOPWATCH:
Arsenal 0 lost to Newcastle United 1 (Carroll 45), West Brom 0 lost to Manchester City 2 (Balotelli 20,26), Liverpool 2 (Torres 11,45) beat Chelsea 0
Saturday’s results:
EPL: Birmingham City 2 (Jerome 64, Ridgewell 73) drew with West Ham United 2 (Piquionne 48, Behrami 58), Blackburn Rovers 2 (Pedersen 58, Roberts 67) beat Wigan Athletic 1 (N’Zogbia 74), Blackpool 2 (Eardley 9, Vaughan 48) drew with Everton 2 (Cahill 13, Coleman 50) Bolton Wanderers 4 (Davies, K 31, (pen) 76, Steinsson 56, Petrov 90) beat Tottenham Hotspur (Hutton 79, Pavlyuchenko 87) 2, Fulham 1 (Hangeland 90) drew with Aston Villa 1 (Albrighton 41), Manchester United 2 (Park 45, 90) beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 1 (Ebanks-Blake 66), Sunderland 2 (Gyan 9, 86) beat Stoke City 0
La Liga: RCD Espanyol 1 (Marquez 1) beat Malaga 0, Real Sociedad 1 (Llorente 7) beat Racing Santander 0
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