LONDON -- Alan Shearer scored a hat trick and Chris Sutton added another as Blackburn beat the Queens Park Rangers 4-0 to go to the top of the English premier league.


Blackburn moved a point ahead of defending champion Manchester United, whose week ended on a disappointing note Saturday as it slipped to second place after drawing 0-0 at Arsenal.


United, which had Paul Ince sent off when it was beaten 3-1 by IFK Gotenborg in the European Champions League on Wednesday, ended with 10 men for the second successive match,with Mark Hughes sent off after 88 minutes at Highbury for a second bookable offense.


Third place Newcastle needed an 86th-minute goal from Andy Cole, back after injury, to break the resistance of bottom-placed Ipswich, but the visitors equalized in the last minute through Claus Thomsen.


Fourth-place Liverpool drew 1-1 at home with Tottenham, showing signs of defensive improvement under new manager Gerry Francis, while fifth-place Nottingham Forest was beaten 1-0 at Leeds, whose winner came from Noel Whelan after an hour.


Italian First Division


Marco Branca's spectacular overhead kick earned 10-man Parma a 1-1 draw with Inter Milan on Sunday night to keep the first division's early season pacemakers one point clear at the top of the table. Uruguay's Ruben Sosa had fired Inter in front from the penalty spot in the 23rd minute after central defender Luigi Apolloni deliberately handled in his own six-yard box, before Branca struck his acrobatic equalizer in the 61st minute.


But Parma, reduced to 10 men after Apolloni was shown the red card in the 88th minute, were indebted to goalkeeper Luca Bucci for an injury-time save from Pierluigi Orlandini's freekick.


Earlier, Juventus briefly drew level with Parma, after a late goal from unsung striker Fabrizio Ravanelli gave the Turin side a 2-1 win at Padova.


But Juventus lived dangerously for much of the second half after Michel Kreek's 68th-minute strike wiped out Roberto Baggio's 20-meter free kick.


Parma now leads the first division with 24 points from 11 matches, one ahead of Juventus, which has played a game less, and two clear of Fiorentina, held to a 2-2 draw by Ruud Gullit's 86th-minute equalizer for Sampdoria.


At least there was consolation for Fiorentina's striker Gabriel Batistuta, who broke a 32-year scoring record.


Batistuta's 56th-minute penalty, which matched a first-half penalty converted by England captain David Platt, meant the prolific striker had found the net in all of Fiorentina's first 11 games.


The goal beat the record set by Bologna winger Ezio Pascutti, who struck in each of the first 10 games of the 1962-63 season.


Fiorentina's double celebration was short-lived, as Gullit struck his late goal, his first since rejoining Sampdoria from Milan, to give the visitors a point.


Roma's South American duo, Abel Balbo and Daniel Fonseca, inspired their side to a stunning 3-0 triumph over archrival Lazio in a heated derby .


Roma, which had struggled over the last month after topping the table, took the lead as early as the third minute after Balbo raced between three Lazio defenders to head a Fonseca cross into the bottom corner past Marchegiani.


Massimiliano Cappioli put Roma two up in the 25th minute, before Fonseca canceled hopes of a second-half Lazio revival soon after the break with a far post header for his side's third goal.


The stunning result reawakens Roma's title challenge and, most importantly, dashed their local enemy's hopes.


German Bundesliga


Swiss striker Stephane Chapuisat landed his ninth and 10th goals of the season for Borussia Dortmund,but the Bundesliga leaders only narrowly held on to the top spot with a 3-3 draw.


Michael Zorc scored Dortmund's first goal after ten minutes, followed eight minutes later by an equalizer from Heiko Herrlich.


Chapuisat then hit the back of the net twice before the break, in the 20th and 45th minutes, in a rain-drenched match that saw the hosts repeatedly stalled by Dortmund defenders.


But after a string of predictable drives, Moenchengladbach clawed their way back to level terms through an 83rd minute goal by Swedish striker Martin Dahlin and another from Holger Fach in the final minute.