Manchester United cut Chelsea’s lead at the top of the Barclay’s Premier League to just one point despite being held by Aston Villa as title race heats up following the top two sides dropping points in midweek.

Aston Villa 1 Man Utd 1
The Red Devils’ 1-1 draw at Villa Park, achieved after playing the majority of the game with 10 men following the sending off of winger Nani, hacked at Chelsea’s lead after the Blues were beaten at Everton. A fine header from Villa defender Carlos Cuellar handed Martin O’Neill’s men a 19th minute lead but the champions needed just 4 minutes to draw level as James Collins deflected into his own net – United’s 10th own goal in their favour this season.

Everton 2 Chelsea 1
Meanwhile, Chelsea had a lead overturned at Goodison Park where a Louis Saha double cancelled out Florent Malouda’s opener to condemn the league-leaders to a 2-1 loss. The defeat is a major blow to boss Carlo Ancelotti, who could have seen his side move four points clear of United and nine ahead of Arsenal had they held onto their lead.

Arsenal 1 Liverpool 0
The real victors of the midweek programme, however, were Arsenal. The Gunners needed just one goal to halt a rejuvenated Liverpool side as Abou Diaby’s 72nd minute header sealed a 1-0 win at the Emirates. The win puts Arsene Wenger’s side back into contention for the title, albeit with just a glimmer of hope as they trail Chelsea by six points.

Wolves 1 Tottenham 0
Liverpool’s loss was a chance for Tottenham to leapfrog their top-four rivals back into the coveted fourth spot, but they failed after going down 1-0 at Wolves in a repeat of the scoreline when the two met at White Hart Lane earlier this season. Midfielder David Jones grabbed his second goal of the season with 27 minutes on the clock and Mick McCarthy’s relegation battlers held out to take three points off the North London club once again.

West Ham 2 Birmingham 0
At the other end of the table, meanwhile, West Ham conjured up a huge win with a 2-0 defeat over this season’s surprise package Birmingham. Alessandro Diamati’s perfectly placed free-kick gave the Londoners the lead shortly before the break while Carlton Cole’s second half header sealed a morale-boosting win for under pressure boss Gianfranco Zola.

Blackburn 1 Hull City 0
Elsewhere, Hull City were brought back down to earth following last week’s win over Man City with a 1-0 defeat to Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park. The Tigers had George Boateng harshly sent off when already a goal down to Boaz Myhill’s 16th minute own goal, which was enough to settle the contest.

Man City 2 Bolton 0
On Tuesday night, top-four contenders Man City strengthened their case for the cause with a comfortable 2-0 win over a battling Bolton side. A Carlos Tevez penalty and an Emmanuel Adebayor volley in either half sealed the win, with 5th placed City holding two games in hand over Liverpool.

Fulham 3 Burnley 0
Elsewhere, Fulham heaped more misery on struggling Burnley boss Brian Laws as goals from Danny Murphy, David Elm and Bobby Zamora ensured an emphatic 3-0 win for the Cottagers. After a bright start under the guidance of Owen Coyle, who left for Bolton in January, the Clarets have now dropped into the relegation zone with their early season confidence out the window.

Portsmouth 1 Sunderland 1
Meanwhile, there were three red cards at Fratton Park where a 94th minute strike from Aruna Dindane sealed a point for crisis club Portsmouth in a 1-1 draw with Sunderland. Darren Bent opened up the scoring from the penalty spot before Ricardo Rocha saw red first then Lee Cattermole evened up the numbers with a second bookable offence. Black Cats substitute David Meyler was on the field just two minutes before being dismissed for an elbow in a feisty encounter which will give Pompey a glimmer of hope for staging an unlikely survival bid.

Wigan 1 Stoke City 1
Finally, honours were even at the DW Stadium as well, where Wigan were held to a 1-1 draw with Stoke City. Paul Scharner’s exquisite header handed the home side the lead after just 14 minutes but a quarter of an hour before the final whistle Tuncay Sanli rescued a point for the Potters with a header of his own.

The two points dropped leave Wigan just a point above the dropzone and boss Roberto Martinez will no doubt be concerned by the constant inability to gain some consistency.

Spurs romped to victory in their third round Carling Cup match against Preston North End, thanks to a hat trick from Peter Crouch. Tottenham looked in sparkling form and were never threatened during the match as they easily progressed to the next round.

Before the game, Spurs manager, Harry Redknapp, was calling for his side to show some backbone after two heavy recent defeats against Manchester United and Chelsea. Well they showed this in abundance against Preston as the gulf in class between the two sides was huge.

Redknapp said: “It was a good hat-trick. Robbie took his goal well. It [deciding which strikers to start] is a nice problem to have. This was a game a lot of people looked at and had it down as a potential shock.”

“But I thought we were dangerous and sharp going forward. That said, this was the type of game we would have lost 12 months ago. We’ve just had two defeats and we certainly didn’t want to be facing Burnley on Saturday on the back of three defeats.”

Spurs are still very much a team in progression. It is growing more clear as each game passes that Spurs are still some way behind the top teams in particular areas. The real test is reducing the gap in consistency between performances such as this and the ones that see them lose 3-1 to a Manchester United side that play for half an hour with only ten men.

Alan Irvine, the Preston boss, added: “Tottenham were very good going forward and certainly caused us problems. They showed the difference between the Premier League and the Championship. We could have taken the lead before they scored and we could have equalised when we were 1-0 down.”

“The scoreline gives an impression we were played off the pitch but I thought there were some good points to take from the game.”

Ironically this could have been the perfect game at the perfect time for this Spurs side. They were able to go into a match as the heavy favourites and were able to give a number of their first choice players a run out in a match that they were always going to win.

The next test for them will be how they perform in their next Premier League game against Burnley, who have shown no signs at all that they are out of their depth at this level.