While Patrice Evra and Javier Hernandez continued United’s unbeaten start with a goal each in a 2-0 win over Wigan, Chelsea conceded a 17th-minute goal to Lee Bowyer to lose consecutive league matches for the first time since the end of the 2005-06 season.
Arsenal threw away a two-goal lead and a chance to take sole possession of top spot when they lost 3-2 to Tottenham, 17 years after they last lost at home to their fierce north London rival.
Gareth Bale, Rafael van der Vaart and Younes Kaboul ended Spurs’ embarrassing 68-match run without an away win against the established powers of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool.
Arsenal dropped to third place but Tottenham remained outside the Champions League qualifying berths in sixth. Bolton took fourth on goal difference from Manchester City and Spurs with a 5-1 hammering of Newcastle.
“If you had said at the start of the day, ‘would you take being joint top of the league,’ I would have said ‘yes,”’ United manager Alex Ferguson said. “We know that come the second half of the season we will definitely get better and now we are joint top with Chelsea.”
United could easily have trailed at Old Trafford before Evra headed in a 45th-minute cross by Park Ji-sung past goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi for his first goal in three-and-a-half years.
Wayne Rooney’s appearance as a 57th-minute substitute lifted United and the match swung further toward his team when Antolin Alcaraz and Hugo Rodallega were sent off within three minutes of each other – the Wigan captain for a second yellow card and Rodallega for a two-footed foul on Rafael da Silva.
Hernandez came on in the 65th and scored his seventh goal of the season with a diving header from Rafael’s 77th-minute cross.
Rooney was greeted mostly by cheers in his first appearance since limping out of an Oct. 16 match against Bolton with an ankle injury, although a few fans jeered the England striker following last month’s quickly retracted threat to quit United.
Chelsea looked on course to bounce back from last week’s 3-0 home defeat to Sunderland when Salomon Kalou and Didier Drogba had early chances.
But Bowyer scored from Cameron Jerome’s knock down of a right-wing cross before goalkeeper Ben Foster and the frame of the goal kept Chelsea out for the rest of the match.
Foster followed his early save against Drogba with a string of stops, thwarting Ashley Cole, Drogba, Kalou and Branislav Ivanovic.
Drogba almost equalised in the 38th but headed Florent Malouda’s cross against the bar.
United and Chelsea have 28 points from 14 matches, two more than an Arsenal side that lost a game it led through goals by Samir Nasri and Marouane Chamakh.
Bale got Tottenham’s first goal, and his ninth of the season, in the 50th. The winger raced from left to right to collect a pass by Van der Vaart and shoot low past Lukasz Fabianski.
Luka Modric then drew an unnecessary foul from Alex Song for a free kick by Van der Vaart, which Cesc Fabregas needlessly blocked with his forearm to concede a penalty. Van der Vaart scored the 67th-minute kick for his eighth goal of the season and first away from White Hart Lane.
With five minutes left, Laurent Koscielny brought down the charging Bale on the right with a foul 40 metres from goal. The free kick sailed into the area and Kaboul leaped to head past Fabianski and hand Arsenal a third home defeat – one more than in the whole of last season.
“Three home defeats are three too many,” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said. “What is worrying for me is that we had an opportunity to go top of the league and when you have to deliver, we can’t.”
Tottenham are now just four points behind Arsenal but Bolton have a superior goal difference after another two goals by Johan Elmander, two penalties by Kevin Davies and an effort by South Korea midfielder Lee Chung-yong.
Elmander shares the lead in the Premier League scoring charts with eight goals, the same as Andy Carroll – the scorer of Newcastle’s lone strike.
“His performance was outstanding,” Bolton manager Owen Coyle said. “We’re enjoying the wins but the only league table I’ve ever looked at is the one after the season is finished.”
Also Saturday, Glen Johnson, Dirk Kuyt and Maxi Rodriguez scored to give Liverpool a 3-0 win over West Ham that kept the Hammers bottom of the standings. Wigan and 19th-place Wolverhampton Wanderers, which lost 2-1 at Blackpool, are the other teams in the relegation zone.
Stoke won 3-0 in the day’s other game to move level on 19 points with seventh-place Sunderland, who host Everton on Monday.
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