PA Media/dpa
London
Bruno Fernandes saw red as Tottenham Hotspur cruised past misfiring Manchester United 3-0 on Sunday and increased the heat on manager Erik ten Hag.
Sunday’s Old Trafford encounter was a chance for these top-four hopefuls to kickstart campaigns that had begun in similarly topsy-turvy fashion.
But a month that started for United with a 3-0 home defeat to Liverpool ended in another Old Trafford loss by the same scoreline as Brennan Johnson, Dejan Kulusevski and Dominic Solanke struck for Spurs.
Skipper Fernandes’ sending off for a challenge on James Maddison at the end of a one-sided first half compounded matters, ruling him out of next weekend’s trip to Aston Villa and two further matches.
Kobbie Mainoo and Mason Mount also went off injured on a nightmare afternoon for Ten Hag, who is under the spotlight as United head to Porto and Villa Park before the international break.
As for Ange Postecoglou, they impressed without injured star Son Heung-min and won consecutive Premier League matches for the first time since March.
Ipswich deny Villa top spot
Manager Unai Emery acknowledged Aston Villa’s 2-2 draw at Ipswich was a fair result, but had hoped they would end Sunday joint-top of the Premier League.
Villa looked set to warm up for Wednesday’s visit of Bayern Munich in the Champions League with another comeback victory after first-half efforts by Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins cancelled out Liam Delap’s opener.
Kieran McKenna’s newly-promoted team had other ideas with Delap’s superb 72nd-minute solo effort enough to ensure the spoils were shared at Portman Road.
It denied Villa the chance to go level on points with Liverpool at the summit, but Emery gave his team some leeway.
He said: "I think the result was fair and even we could lose the match at the end.
"I am not accepting the result, the point in my idea how I want to raise our level and our demands, but I accept it in our process.
"Overall we have 13 points, but we were optimistic about the possibility to be with Liverpool with 15 points.
Premier League Sunday Results: Ipswich Town 2 Aston Villa 2
Tottenham 3 Man United 0