Manchester United march on

Updated 19.35 Sat Mar 31 2007

Keywords: West Ham, Charlton, Blackburn, Manchester united, Chelsea

Manchester United survived a first-half scare to continue their challenge for the Premiership in emphatic style against Blackburn.

United had trailed 1-0 at the break to Rovers, but a half-time team talk by Sir Alex Ferguson paid dividends and the team responded with four goals in the second half.

United had trailed 1-0 at the break to Rovers, but a half-time team talk by Sir Alex Ferguson paid dividends with the team responding with four goals

Matt Derbyshire opened the scoring for Blackburn after 29 minutes, but goals by Paul Scholes (61 minutes), Michael Carrick (73), Ji-Sung Park (83) and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (90) kept Manchester United on track for the title.

Second-placed Chelsea also won. Jose Mourinho's men beat bottom side Watford 1-0 at Vicarage Road to ensure that the gap between themselves and United remained at six points.

But the Blues left it late - with the winner coming in the 92nd minute from Salomon Kalou.

United move on to 78 points, with Chelsea on 72 points.

At the bottom of the table both West Ham and Charlton gave themselves a lifeline with vital wins. The Hammers beat Middlebrough 2-0 at Upton Park while Charlton beat Wigan 1-0 at the Valley.

For Charlton, the win puts them just a point behind Sheffield United who lost 1-0 at Bolton.

Elsewhere in the Premiership, Fulham drew with Portsmouth 1-1 and Newcastle lost at home 1-0 to Manchester City.

In the lunchtime kick-off Liverpool beat Arsenal 4-1 at Anfield.