Arsenal suffered its fourth loss of the season at Tottenham while Frank Lampard’s hat trick helped Chelsea rout Bolton on Sunday.
Rafael van der Vaart and Kyle Walker secured Tottenham’s 2-1 derby victory over Arsenal, which is just two points above the relegation zone after seven matches.
Chelsea is third in the standings after Lampard led the Blues to a 5-1 victory at bottom-place Bolton.
There was also a hat trick at Fulham for Andy Johnson as Queens Park Rangers was thrashed 6-0, while Swansea beat Stoke 2-0 in Sunday’s other game.
When does it become a crisis at Arsenal? And after seven games, Arsenal is already 12 points behind both Man United and Man City and are just two points above the relegation zone.
Spurs took the lead in the North London derby five minutes before half time when Van der Vaart controlled the ball on his arm/shoulder before sliding into the bottom corner.
Aaron Ramsey leveled for Arsenal six minutes after the break, but Walker unleashed a swerving, dipping shot with 17 minutes left that deceived Gunners goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny.
Tottenham’s fourth straight win after starting the season with losses to the Manchester clubs puts Harry Redknapp’s sixth-place side seven points behind the leaders with a game in hand.
Chelsea is just three points behind the pacesetters in third.
Daniel Sturridge set the tone for Chelsea’s emphatic win at Bolton by heading in a second-minute opener before setting up Lampard to score his first.
Two errors in quick succession by Bolton goalkeeper Adam Bogdan allowed Lampard and Sturridge to each score again.
The Hungarian let Sturridge’s shot from the edge of the box loop in off him when he should have saved it. Lampard buried his second after David Luiz’s strike was parried straight to the midfielder.
Dedryck Boyata had given bottom-place Bolton a faint hope of a comeback at 4-0 with a 46th-minute headed goal, but Didier Drogba set up Lampard’s third.
At Craven Cottage, Fulham moved two points clear of the drop zone thanks to Andy Johnson hat-trick, Fulham’s first in the Premier League.
Johnson scored within two minutes of the opening whistle, and followed that up by winning a penalty that was converted by Danny Murphy, before turning home a cross from Bobby Zamora before half time and bringing up his hat trick just before the hour mark.
Zamora then set up Clint Dempsey, who returned the favor for his strike partner to score the sixth.
In south Wales, Scott Sinclair put Swansea ahead from the penalty spot after Stoke captain Ryan Shawcross’ rash challenge on Wayne Routledge.
And Danny Graham fired home his first goal for Swansea since moving from Watford for a club-record 3.5 million pounds this summer.
