Chelsea held to draw at Hull

Wolverhampton, Wigan knocked out of FA Cup

Chelsea missed the chance to go four points clear at the top of the English Premier League with a 1-1 draw at Hull on Tuesday.

Defender Steven Mouyokolo gave Hull a surprise lead in the 30th minute and, although Didier Drogba equalized 12 minutes later with his 20th goal of the season, Chelsea was unable to convert concerted pressure into more goals.

The draw left Chelsea on 55 points, three clear of defending champion Manchester United. Both teams have played 24 games, the same as third-place Arsenal, which was another four points back and at Chelsea on Sunday.

Chelsea had already missed a couple of chances when Mouyokolo got his first goal for Hull. The central defender outjumped a cluster of Chelsea defenders including John Terry to head in a 29th-minute corner by Stephen Hunt.

Terry was jeered throughout by Hull fans. In late January, there were newspaper allegations that Terry had an affair with an England teammate's former partner.

But Chelsea continued to press and Drogba, playing his first Chelsea game in a month following his stint at the African Cup of Nations with Ivory Coast, scored direct from a free kick just outside the area.

Jozy Altidore missed with a headed chance for Hull and teammate Amr Zaki troubled the visiting defence, but Drogba missed at the other end as the home team held on for a valuable point in its fight against relegation.

Hull was still in the relegation zone but was level on 21 points with the three teams immediately above it.

Wolverhampton, Wigan out of FA Cup

Also on Tuesday, Premier League strugglers Wolverhampton Wanderers and Wigan were both knocked out of the FA Cup after losing fourth-round replays to lower-league sides.

Crystal Palace defender Danny Butterfield scored a hat trick in seven second-half minutes to give the League Championship side a 3-1 win over Wolves, while Wigan was humiliated 2-0 by visiting Notts County of the fourth tier.

Spurs a harder tie than Old Trafford, says Leeds manager Simon Grayson

 Cup not a distraction to promotion push
 Spurs will be targeting 'chance to win silverware'

• Harry Polkey
• guardian.co.uk
• Simon Grayson, the manager of Leeds United, who travel to White Hart Lane in the FA Cup fourth round. Photograph: Christopher Thomond
  
  
  
  Simon Grayson believes tomorrow's trip to White Hart Lane will prove a far more difficult challenge for Leeds United than their FA Cup tie at Manchester United. Jermaine Beckford humbled Sir Alex Ferguson's side in the third round at Old Trafford but Grayson is anticipating thatTottenham Hotspur will be far more focused on getting a result.
  
  "The expectancy level is obviously slightly higher, but Tottenham are one of the group of teams who, as well as aiming to qualify for the Champions League, will be targeting this competition as a major opportunity to win silverware," said the Leeds manager. "They played earlier this week and again next Tuesday, so I expect they'll make some changes, but probably not as many as Manchester United made. They'll be close to their strongest."
  
  Grayson appeared genuinely amused when it was put to him that given Leeds, who are leading League One, have failed to win any of the three games they have played since the victory at Old Trafford, an ideal outcome in the fourth round match might be defeat with honour. "You try telling that to the chairman. Tell the [4,500] fans we'll be taking to White Hart Lane, or the 9,000 we took to Old Trafford, that the Cup is a distraction.
  
  "If we lose but come off with no regrets about the way we played, then so be it, sometimes you have to say they had that extra quality – but winning would be better."
  
  Having missed out on promotion in the play-off semi-finals last season, plenty of Leeds supporters would swap progress in the Cup for a league win, but Grayson insists performances have not fallen off. "Results have suggested we have not totally focused, but I'm more than happy with how we have played. We've conceded a couple of sloppy goals, which we've not been doing in the early part of the season, but we've created good chances and just haven't had the breaks.
  
  "You go through patches when you get results you possibly don't deserve, which was sometimes the case in the first part of the season, and over the past three games we probably deserve better results than we've actually had. You have to live with that."
  
  Leeds will approach the game in the same relaxed but determined way they approached the tie at Old Trafford, he said. The former Leeds players Robbie Keane and Danny Rose could feature against their old club, though Aaron Lennon's groin injury means a third misses out.
  
  "We'd love for the likes of Keane and Lennon to still be in our team, but that's football," said Grayson, a little wistfully. "We went through that episode of selling our best players just to survive, and other clubs benefited, but we have to move on. Other players are coming through who will take the club forward, and this is another chance for them to show what they're all about."