Tottenham ended Pep Guardiola's perfect Premier league start with Manchester City with an impressive 2-0 victory on Sunday that left the london club as the only unbeaten side.
Far from suffering a hangover after last season's title-challenge collapse, Spurs are enjoying their best-ever start to a top-flight campaign. City trailed for the first time in the league this season in calamitous circumstances when Aleksandar Kolarov diverted the ball into his own goal in the ninth minute.
Tottenham extended its lead as its energetic, pressing game proved too slick to handle for City. Dele Alli combined with Heung-Min Son before sweeping a shot past Claudio Bravo in the 37th minute.
Bravo did save Erik lamela's second-half penalty but City could not avoid slumping to its first loss under Guardiola and its second setback of the week after being held by Celtic in the Champions league.
City and Tottenham complete the seventh round as they started in first and second place. Tottenham is only a point behind now, though, after Mauricio Pochettino sealed his first victory over Guardiola since the opening spell of his managerial career in 2009 when Espanyol conquered Barcelona.
A relatively kind fixture list at the start of his City career meant this was Guardiola's first big test. He flunked it.
Although City has already won a Manchester derby against Jose Mourinho's United, that was against a side still rebuilding from last season's fifth-place finish. The other victories have all come against teams in the bottom half of the table.
Tottenham posed City questions that lethargic City could not answer. The visitors were out-pressed by the hosts, whose mastery of the high-energy passing game is straight from the Guardiola playbook.
While the early-season narratives have focused on the collision of managerial titans Guardiola and Mourinho in Manchester, the steady but impressive progress Tottenham has made under Pochettino since 2014 is often understated.
last season, Tottenham was champion leicester's closest challenger until a late implosion dropped it to third place, which was still its highest in the Premier leaguer era. If it keeps up this term's impressive form, Tottenham's sights will be set even higher, with the north london club longing for a first championship success since 1961.
Man United held 1-1
MANCHESTER: Manchester United's stumbles in the Premier league continued Sunday with a 1-1 home draw against struggling Stoke, which left Old Trafford without losing for the first time in 36 years.
United, which has won just one of its last four league games, took the lead in the 69th minute through Anthony Martial's curling strike - two minutes after he came on as a substitute.
Joe Allen grabbed an 82nd-minute equalizer for Stoke following a rare mistake by David de Gea, who fumbled a long-range shot to allow Jon Walters to scoop a cross against the bar before Allen smashed home from close range.
United failed to beat an opponent that started the day in last place, still hasn't won in seven games in the league this season, and had lost on its last 13 visits to Old Trafford dating back to 1980.
Jose Mourinho's team created plenty of chances but faded in the second half, less than three days after a similar lineup played in the Europa league.
"Best United performance all season," said Mourinho, whose side beat leicester 4-1 last weekend. "It could have been 3-0 or 4-0 at halftime and 6-0 or 7-0 at fulltime. The result is 1-1. That is football."
Stoke was also thankful for a superb display by 33-year-old goalkeeper lee Grant, making only his second appearance in the Premier league. Among his best saves were reflex stops from Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the second minute and again in the latter stages.
"To go a goal behind against a team like that and come back is a great ask," said Allen.
Grant had no chance with Martial's goal, the France winger pouncing on a loose ball after fellow substitute Wayne Rooney was dispossessed and whipping a shot into the top corner from an angle. Grant was also beaten when Paul Pogba leapt for a right-wing cross and connected with the ball with his shoulder, only for the ball to rebound off the crossbar.
United won its first three league games of the season but has slipped off the pace since losing the Manchester derby in early September. Rooney, the club captain, started on the bench for the second straight league game.
leicester 0-0 Southampton
lEICESTER: leicester failed to reproduce its Champions league form in drawing 0-0 at home to Southampton in another disappointing result in its title defense Sunday. The champions have won just two of their opening seven league games, having won both of their matches so far in the club's first-ever Champions league campaign.