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Manchester United’s nightmare winless run reached nine games when they lost 2-0 at Chelsea, and Manchester City also suffered a harrowing Halloween as the Premier League leaders went down 1-0 at home to Brighton & Hove Albion on Saturday.
United were the better team before halftime at Stamford Bridge but paid heavily for not taking chances as a solo effort by Morgan Rogers and a Cole Palmer penalty after the break heaped more pressure on the visitors’ manager Michael Carrick.
A horror start to the second half for United was compounded by a needless red card for defender Lisandro Martinez in conceding the 63rd-minute penalty that Palmer tucked away.
United were spared dropping into the relegation zone only by virtue of Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace both losing 2-0 at Brentford and Tottenham Hotspur respectively.
City’s 100% Premier League record was ended last week by Aston Villa, and their hopes of bouncing back quickly were undone by third-placed Brighton, who avenged their midweek League Cup loss to City thanks to Yasin Ayari’s early goal.
Champions Arsenal will replace City as leaders if they avoid defeat at Liverpool on Sunday. City have 21 points from nine games, with Arsenal also on 21 from eight, Brighton on 19 and Chelsea in fourth place on 16.
Coventry City moved out of the relegation zone as Tatsuhiro Sakamoto, Taiwo Awoniyi and Jack Rudoni were on target in a 3-1 home win over Sunderland, who are bottom.
Bournemouth beat Leeds United 2-0 to move seventh, with Evanilson netting for the fourth successive league game while Forest remain in the bottom three as their poor form under new manager Oliver Glasner continued, with defeat at Brentford making it five league games without a win.
The battle between two of the promoted sides ended in a draw as Hull City drew 2-2 at home to Ipswich Town, and in the late game Aston Villa drew 1-1 at home with Fulham after their keeper Zion Suzuki fumbled a corner into his own net.
Carrick has now overseen United’s longest winless run since 1988, and a fourth successive Premier League defeat means they have just seven points from their opening nine games.
Despite the stark statistics, Carrick was warmly applauded by the travelling fans after the final whistle.
Bruno Fernandes returned to the starting line-up as captain after being benched for last week’s defeat at Bournemouth for his critical comments about the team, and United were rejuvenated as they enjoyed the better of the first half.
Things could have been so different had Matheus Cunha’s goal been allowed to stand or a host of opportunities been taken, including Amad firing over when looking odds on to score.
United’s good work unravelled after the break, however, with defender Martinez, who also criticised the club’s hierarchy, most culpable. After Rogers strolled through unopposed to dink in Chelsea’s opener, Martinez received two yellow cards in three minutes, the second for inexplicably pushing his arm into the face of Wesley Fofana at a corner, to concede the penalty.
“I think I take away a lot of the positives from the first half,” Carrick said.
“But the game unravelled and got away from us. It’s happened too often really so we’ve got to learn from that, and we’ve got to do something about it pretty quickly.”
City had done an impressive job of ignoring the dark clouds hanging over the club after an independent commission found them guilty of 114 out of 115 financial charges, but after winning their opening seven Premier League games, Enzo Maresca’s side have hit the buffers.
They fell behind in the 11th minute when a miscue clearance by Matheus Nunes fell for Ayari, who converted from close range.
City poured on the pressure in search of an equaliser but Brighton, who had led twice against City in the League Cup, produced a textbook away display to hang on to the points.
The hosts had 21 goal attempts but failed to score for the first time in 25 Premier League matches.
Fabian Hurzeler’s Brighton side have now beaten Arsenal and City this season, and while they have been free-scoring, they showed another side on Saturday.
“There’s an old phrase — defence wins you battles and wins you championships. Of course, we’re not speaking about the championship, but especially today we needed to have this defensive mindset. It’s always togetherness when you defend as we did,” Hurzeler said.
Resurgent Tottenham made it three wins on the bounce to move eighth, although they were given a helping hand as Palace’s Jean-Philippe Mateta was red-carded in the 13th minute for a lunging tackle on Micky van de Ven.
Archie Grey headed Spurs in front after 25 minutes, and Jan Paul van Hecke wrapped it up with a header from a prone position after his initial effort hit the bar.
-Reuters
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