LONDON (AP):

LUCAS NEILL scored an own-goal yesterday to hand Aston Villa a 1-0 victory at West Ham and move the team over idle Man-chester United and into third place in the Premier League.

Neill deflected a cross from Villa winger James Milner over the head of Hammers goalkeeper Robert Green in the 78th minute at Upton Park. Villa goalkeeper Brad Friedel made sure of the points with quality saves from Craig Bellamy, Carlton Cole and Calum Davenport and also tipping a deflection from teammate Curtis Davies over the bar.

Third in a row

The win was Villa's third in the league in a row, giving the team 34 points from 18 games, two more than defending champions United, who have two games in hand.

"I'm delighted and at the moment it's nice and it would be lovely to just hang in there," said Villa manager Martin O'Neill, whose team is trying to break into the top four traditionally made up of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal. "I'm glad Brad Friedel had a magnificent game for us.

"But we have got a distance to go. We have got an awful lot of work to do. I believe the major top-four sides are quite capable of winning five, six, seven games on the trot. We're finding it hard work."

Benni McCarthy scored two goals in manager Sam Allardyce's first match trying to save Blackburn from relegation with a 3-0 victory over Stoke.

Strike partner Jason Roberts scored the other goal at Ewood Park as Blackburn ended their slump of 11 games without victory under Paul Ince with an emphatic victory over promoted Stoke. Although Blackburn remained in next-to-last place, Allardyce saw his team move within two points of Manchester City, who host last-place West Bromwich Albion today.

Made contribution

The former Bolton and Newcastle manager has been out of a job for 11 months and landed the Blackburn role a day after Ince was fired on Tuesday.

"I have made a small contribution today, but the big contribution came from the players with their commitment to compete against a Stoke City side that plays a certain way," Allardyce said in reference to Stoke's system of playing high balls to the strikers. "We had to withstand quite a bombardment in the beginning, but we needed some quality and it counted today."

McCarthy gave Rovers a ninth-minute lead from the penalty spot after he had been brought down by Ibrahima Sonko. Roberts made it 2-0 in the 18th when Brett Emerton's cross came off a defender and landed at the striker's feet in front of goal.

McCarthy added the third in the 27th after Roberts' initial shot had been blocked by goalkeeper Steve Simonsen, who was a late replacement just before kickoff for the injured Thomas Sorensen.

Sunderland, who were in relegation trouble when Roy Keane quit two weeks ago, moved up to 12th after their second high-scoring victory, a 4-1 triumph at Hull. The triumph, which came after a 4-0 win over West Brom, will add to speculation that Ricky Sbragia, who was one of the coaches under Keane, might be given the manager's job full time instead of on a temporary basis.

Captured points

Steed Malbranque gave Sunder-land an early lead at Hull, who levelled through Nicky Barmby in the 19th minute.

Sunderland scored three times in the last 12 minutes to capture three more vital points.

Kieran Richardson's shot was deflected into his own net by Kamil Zayatte in the 78th minute before Hull were reduced to 10 men when Samuel Ricketts was sent off after second yellow card. Kenwyn Jones headed home from Malbranque's cross in the 84th and Djibril Cisse added the fourth. While Sunderland climbed to 12th, Hull stayed sixth despite the defeat.

Bolton scored twice in the first three minutes before edging Portsmouth 2-1.

Matthew Taylor scored in the first minute with a close-range shot and then set up the second for Ricardo Gardner in the third. Pompey replied with Peter Crouch's 20th-minute header for his sixth goal in seven starts.

Fulham cruised to a 3-0 victory over Middlesbrough with goals by Jimmy Bullard in the 41st, Danny Murphy's 54th-minute penalty and Clint Dempsey in the 59th.

Stars inactive

The traditional top four were not in action yesterday.

Manchester United are involved in the Club World Cup in Japan and face Liga de Quito in today's final (see story B7).

Arsenal host Liverpool today and Chelsea go to Everton tomorrow. Today's other Premier League games is Newcastle vs Tottenham.