Soccer | Manchester City fires manager, Man U is shut out

Soccer

Manchester City fires manager, Manchester United loses at Fulham: Manchester City fired manager Mark Hughes; Fulham defeated Manchester United 3-0 and last-place Portsmouth beat Liverpool 2-0 on a day of surprises Saturday in the English Premier League.

Manchester City downed Sunderland 4-3 to climb to sixth place in the 20-team league and announced less than two hours after the match that Hughes had been dismissed.

Hughes will be replaced by Roberto Mancini, a former manager for Inter Milan of Italy.

"A return of two wins in 11 Premier League games is clearly not in line with the targets that were agreed and set," Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak said in a statement.

City, which lost 3-0 at Tottenham on Wednesday, has 29 points from 17 matches. First-place Chelsea has 40 points and visits West Ham today.

Danny Murphy, Bobby Zamora and Damien Duff scored to punish second-place United's defense at Fulham. United will be six points off the pace if Chelsea wins today.

Bayer Leverkusen leads: Bayer Leverkusen beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 3-2 and will spend the winter break at the top of the Bundesliga, Germany's top league.

Barcelona prevails: Barcelona of Spain won the Club World Cup in Abu Dhabi, beating Estudiantes of Argentina 2-1 on Lionel Messi's goal in extra time.

NHL

Minnesota is ill-equipped to play in Ottawa: Minnesota Wild defenseman Nick Schultz put on shoulder pads he bought for $200 at a local store. Goaltender Niklas Backstrom wore a catching glove with burn marks across it.

A day after a small fire in the back of a van destroyed most of its equipment, the Wild was back at work for a pregame skate. Minnesota played the host Ottawa Senators at night and lost 4-1.

Swimming

Adrian excels: Nathan Adrian of Bremerton won the 50-meter freestyle and helped the U.S. 400 free relay team set a short-course world record on the final day of the Duel in the Pool in Manchester, England.

The U.S. team beat Europe 185-78 in the last major competition before the Jan. 1 ban on high-tech polyurethane suits.

Adrian took the 50 free in 20.71 seconds. Michael Phelps, who has won 14 Olympic gold medals and has been competing lately in an old-style textile suit, swam the anchor leg for the 400 free relay team that won in 3:03.80. A day earlier, Adrian, Phelps, Nick Thoman and Mark Gangloff set a 400 medley relay world record of 3:20.71.

Americans were 1-2-3 in the women's 200 IM, won by Julia Smit in a world-record 2:04.60. Ariana Kukors of Auburn finished second in 2:07.87 and Katie Hoff was third.

Horse racing

Lookin At Lucky triumphs: Lookin At Lucky, partly owned by former Mount Vernon resident Mike Pegram, beat Noble's Promise by three-quarters of a length to win the $750,000 CashCall Futurity for 2-year-olds at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, Calif.

Lookin At Lucky, trained by Bob Baffert and ridden by Garrett Gomez, ran 1-1/16 miles in 1 minute, 43.30 seconds. The colt paid $2.60 to win in the Grade I race.

College volleyball

Penn State wins: Penn State became the first team to win three NCAA women's titles in a row, beating Texas 22-25, 20-25, 25-23, 25-21, 15-13 in the final in Tampa, Fla.

Boxing

Pavlik stops Espino: Kelly Pavlik, fighting in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, stopped Miguel Espino of North Hollywood, Calif., in the fifth round to retain his WBC and WBO middleweight titles.

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