England defender Joleon Lescott preserved Manchester City's two-point lead in the Premier League by scoring a second-half winner in a 1-0 victory at Aston Villa Sunday. Lescott hooked in a far-post nod-down by Gareth Barry in the 63rd minute to settle a match City dominated at Villa Park. Villa missed two great chances to equalize in a late rally, however, with an unmarked Carlos Cuellar heading over from six yards and Darren Bent's close-range effort drawing a fine reaction save from City goalkeeper Joe Hart. With 13 matches remaining, City maintains its narrow advantage over Manchester United, with Tottenham five points further back in third. “The guys played fantastic football. We had a lot of chances to score in the first and second half but the other team defended very well,” said City manager Roberto Mancini. City dominated first-half possession but only Adam Johnson's 25 yard strike gave Shay Given anything to worry about against his former club as it thundered against his left-hand post to leave the match level at the break. A fast start to the second half saw Lescott make the breakthrough after Barry headed down a corner, before Given saved well from Sergio Aguero to prevent City moving out of sight. Mancini's men then had a penalty shout when Aleksandar Kolorov's cross hit Alan Hutton's arm but referee Michael Oliver waved away City's protests. An eventful last few minutes saw Cuellar head over from eight yards in Villa's best chance of the game, before Hart kept out Bent from point-blank range. In the day's other match, Wolverhampton Wanderers dropped into the relegation zone by losing 5-1 at home to West Bromwich Albion. Nigeria striker Peter Odemwingie scored a hat trick for the visitors, who climbed above Villa into 14th place — eight points clear of the bottom three. Inter loses to Novara Inter Milan's woes deepened Sunday as it slipped to a 1-0 loss at home to bottom-place Novara in Serie A, despite having a man advantage for the final 10 minutes. On-loan Genoa striker Andrea Caracciolo scored the only goal of the game in the 56th minute to inflict more misery on Inter, which lost 4-0 at Roma last weekend. Novara midfielder Ivan Radovanovic was dismissed for a second booking and although Inter went closer in the dying stages, with Wesley Sneijder hitting the crossbar, it could not find the equalizer and the team left the pitch to jeers and whistles from its fans. It is Inter's fifth successive game without victory in all competitions. Novara is now level on points with Cesena and four points off safety — albeit having played two games more than Siena. Elsewhere, Catania beat Genoa 4-0 and Lecce drew 0-0 at Atalanta. On Saturday, AC Milan new signing Maxi Lopez scored his first goal for the Serie A champion to help it come from behind to beat Udinese 2-1 and take over top spot in the Italian league. With Juventus' game at Bologna postponed, Milan ended the weekend two points clear of the Turin side, which has two games in hand. Udinese had not lost a home game all season.
