PL 2022: Tottenham’s perfect day for top-4 fight

With Arsenal and Manchester United losses, it was a Premier League day that could hardly have gone any better for Tottenham in the race for a champions league spot

It was a Premier League day that could hardly have gone any better for Tottenham.

With its 4-0 win at Aston Villa — inspired by Son Heung-min’s hat trick — and losses for both Arsenal and Manchester United on Saturday, Tottenham became favorite to claim the fourth and final Champions League qualification spot.

Antonio Conte’s team is hitting form just as its rivals are imploding and now has a three-point cushion in fourth place over Arsenal, which slumped 2-1 at home to Brighton for a third loss in its last fourth games.

As for United, a 1-0 loss at an Everton team that had been in freefall constituted another low in what has turned into a desperate season. One, remarkably, that could yet end without qualification for European competition.

United is in seventh place, six points behind Tottenham and with plenty of traffic between them.

In Son, Harry Kane and Dejan Kulusevski, Tottenham has an attacking triumvirate that is proving impossible to keep down, and they scored and assisted all four goals against Villa.

Son now has six goals in his last three league games, having opened the scoring in the third minute after a shot from Kane deflected into his path at the edge of the area. His finish was unforgiving, kissing the post on its way in just like his third goal — in the 71st and off a pass from Kulusevski — which completed his first hat trick of the season.