Rob Harris

Chelsea keeper Henrique Hilario can only watch one of Manchester City’s four goals roll by him. (AP Photo )

City Deals Chelsea Rare Home Loss

London. Chelsea had two players sent off as Manchester City ended the English Premier League leader’s 38-match unbeaten home run by winning 4-2 on Saturday.

Julian Belletti and Michael Ballack both saw red as Chelsea missed a chance to extend its one-point lead over defending champion Manchester United with 10 matches to go.

After Frank Lampard fired Chelsea ahead, Carlos Tevez and Craig Bellamy each scored twice for City. Lampard scored another in the 90th minute from the penalty spot, but it couldn’t prevent Chelsea losing for the first time in all competitions at Stamford Bridge since going down to Arsenal in November 2008.

Third-place Arsenal closed the gap on Chelsea to three points by rallying to beat 10-man Stoke 3-1 in Saturday’s late match. However, Aaron Ramsey is set to be out for the long term after a tackle by Ryan Shawcross resulted in the Stoke defender’s dismissal and left the Arsenal midfielder possibly facing surgery.

“We know it’s a bad injury. We don’t know how long he will be out, but it’s certainly long term,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. “I’m not very happy with the tackle. We know what we are expecting, a battle everywhere. But we have now lost three players [Eduardo da Silva and Abou Diaby] on horrendous tackles.

“I don’t believe it when you are hit as many times as we are. When you see a player getting injured like that, it’s not acceptable.”

Also on Saturday, last-place Portsmouth beat Burnley 2-1, one day after being the first Premier League club to be forced to seek bankruptcy protection. Bolton climbed out of the relegation zone with a 1-0 victory over Wolverhampton, and Birmingham kept its European hopes alive by beating Wigan by the same score.

All the intrigue on Saturday was focused on the clash of the league’s two wealthiest clubs — Chelsea and Man City — and the ill-feeling between Wayne Bridge and Chelsea captain John Terry.

They came face-to-face for the first time since allegations surfaced about an affair between Terry and the mother of his former Chelsea teammate’s son. In the prematch fair-play formalities, Bridge refused to shake hands with Terry.

By completing its first league double over Chelsea since 1957 to relieve the pressure on manager Roberto Mancini, City moved to fourth, three points ahead of Tottenham.

“It was not a good day,” Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti said. “The only good thing from today is that we still have one point more than Manchester United. We have more chance to win the title than either them or Arsenal because that is what the table says.”

At the wrong end of the standings is Portsmouth, which is set to be docked nine points for entering financial administration. For now, though, Portsmouth closed the gap on 19th-place Burnley to four points by winning at Turf Moor.

Hassan Yebda scored from the penalty spot after Burnley’s Martin Paterson had equalized following Frederic Piquionne’s opener for the southcoast club. Portsmouth lost Ricardo Rocha toward the end of the match when he was shown a second yellow card.

Stoke got off to the best possible start against Arsenal with a trademark long throw-in from Rory Delap leading to Danny Pugh scoring in the eighth minute. Niklas Bendtner leveled for Arsenal in the 32nd when he headed in a cross from Cesc Fabregas.

Shawcross was sent off in the 66th, but it took Arsenal until the 90th to go ahead as Fabregas scored from the penalty spot after Pugh had handled the ball.

Thomas Vermaelen hit a third in stoppage time after Tomas Rosicky’s shot was parried and Eduardo da Silva squared for the defender to score into the empty net.

 Associated Press