Drogba, who had failed to get the better of Sol Campbell all evening, finally managed to settle the contest in the 79th minute.

Jose Bosingwa's low cross eluded the Pompey defence and Drogba sent a curling drive into the bottom corner for the winner.

Liverpool kept up the pressure on the Blues with a 2-0 win over Sunderland at Anfield.

David Ngog scored his first league goal for the Reds before Yossi Benayoun doubled the lead to go within four points of Manchester United - although the Red Devils have two games in hand.

The Reds went ahead with a well-worked move which saw Albert Riera glide past Tal Ben-Haim on the left and put in a cross which was met by Steven Gerrard who headed the ball back across goal for Ngog to head in.

Four minutes later Liverpool got their second. Again Ngog was involved, hooking the ball back across goal for Marton Fulop to palm away only as far as Benayoun, who clinically punished the error.

Nicklas Bendtner scored twice and hit the post as Arsenal won 3-1 at West Brom.

Arsenal made a positive start and needed only four minutes to end their recent goal drought through Bendtner.

Denilson found the Dane who easily cut inside Ryan Donk before drilling a low left-footed drive across Scott Carson into the corner of the net for his 10th goal of the season.

Yet Albion needed only three minutes to draw level through Chris Brunt whose low free-kick skidded through the defensive wall and past the dive of Manuel Almunia.

After 38 minutes some dreadful defending allowed Kolo Toure to restore Arsenal's lead from Andrei Arshavin's free-kick and a minute before half-time Bendtner struck again.