LONDON (AP):

Liverpool stunned Man-chester United 4-1 at Old Trafford yesterday to open up the Premier League title race and Andriy Arshavin's first goals for Arsenal helped the Gunners up to fourth place in a 4-0 victory over Blackburn.

Although Cristiano Ronaldo fired United ahead from the penalty spot in the 23rd minute, his defenders handed Liverpool the three points with some awful errors as the visitors cut the defending champion's lead to four points.

Nemanja Vidic hesitated in dealing with a ball over his head and Fernando Torres dispossessed him before running unchallenged into the area and rolling it past Edwin van Sar for the first league goal the Dutch keeper has conceded at Old Trafford since the Red Devils beat Hull 4-3 November 1.

Steven Gerrard put Liverpool ahead in the 43rd minute from the penalty spot after he had been brought down by Patrice Evra just inside the area.

Vidic was sent off in the 75th minute for bringing down Gerrard just outside the area and Fabio Aurelio curled the free kick past Van der Sar for the third. Andrea Dossena added the fourth in injury time.

"It's a hard one to take, particularly because I thought we were the better team," said United manager Alex Ferguson, whose team is chasing five titles this season and has already won the Club World Cup and the domestic League Cup. "We have to accept it was a bad day in terms of the goals we lost, but I couldn't fault the display that much."

Gerrard said he hoped the result might encourage other teams to put pressure on United even at Old Trafford.

"The important thing is that we have made the gap smaller. We realise that Manchester United are a fantastic team and there's still a lot of work to do," the Liverpool captain said.

we'll need luck

"We'll need a little bit of luck along the way but hopefully that gives teams that are going to play against Manchester United a bit of belief that they can be beaten. And hopefully it will give us a lot of confidence to go on and win as many games as we can."

The result also gave Chelsea renewed hope of winning the title. The Blues, who are seven points behind United, host Manchester City today. United have 65 points from 28 games, Liverpool 61 from 29 and Chelsea 58 from 28.