Martin Jol’s time as manager of Tottenham Hotspur appears to be drawing to a close. Despite Saturday’s victory over Derby County, the Dutchman remains under severe pressure to save his job after 34 months in charge.

There was no mention of Jose Mourinho as Rafael Benitez paid a pointed tribute to Chelsea’s 64-game unbeaten home record in his programme notes yesterday but, however much he may wish otherwise, the Liverpool manager will not find it so easy to write his rival out of his pursuit of the Premiership title this season.

In the dim, distant past of English football ? almost six years ago ? when his England team scored five goals against Germany, Sven Goran Eriksson felt the unqualified gratitude of his new nation. Yesterday in Manchester, the locals gave the Swede his Munich moment all over again and he will just hope that it does not prove, once more, to be all downhill from here.

Not for the first time, Blackburn and Arsenal conspired in an X-certificate drama at Ewood Park, where the home side had their captain, Ryan Nelsen, sent off six minutes from the end of a full-blooded encounter in which any neutral observer would have sympathised with the referee.

Considering change has been the overriding theme of Newcastle United’s summer, this was a depressingly familiar evening for Tyneside. There may be new men in the boardroom and Sam Allardyce was overseeing his first competitive home game, but Newcastle’s inability to score at St James’ Park remains a stubborn reminder of times past. Not since 10 February have Newcastle scored here. With Aston Villa intelligent and committed in the mould of Martin O’Neill, Newcastle failed to break through despite using four different forwards at various stages. One of them was Michael Owen, who received a rousing ovation when he replaced Obafemi Martins after 63 minutes. But Owen’s involvement thereafter was as limited as Martins’ and Shola Ameobi’s when he, too, came on.