Spurs and Arsenal lose as Ronaldo fires United back into fourth place race

MANCHESTER : Fourth placed Tottenham Hotspur suffered a surprise 1-0 home defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion and Arsenal lost at Southampton allowing Manchester United back into the race for a Premier League top four place.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick for United in an unconvincing 3-2 win over Norwich City as fan protests against the club's owners returned to Old Trafford.

With the title-chasing top two of Manchester City and Liverpool in FA Cup semi-final duty - with Juergen Klopp's side winning 3-2 at Wembley [L2N2WE073] - the focus in the league turned to the battle for the fourth Champions League spot behind third placed Chelsea.

The results leave Spurs in fourth, on 57 points from 32 games. Fifth-placed United are level on 54 points with Arsenal, who have a game in hand.

Antonio Conte's Spurs produced a lacklustre display and looked set for a frustrating stalemate before Leandro Trossard made things even worse with a 90th-minute winner.

Trossard cut in from the left and beat Hugo Lloris with a low angled shot with the outside of his foot to end Spurs' run of four straight wins.

Conte was disappointed but said his team needed to embrace the pressure of holding on to fourth place.

"Now there are six games to go. This race is a big opportunity for us to start to try to cope with the pressure, because when you play without targets… instead, we deserve to stay in this race and go for a place in the Champions League," he said.

Arsenal looked to be favourites for that place at the start of the month but they have now suffered three straight losses with the latest reverse coming against a Southampton side who had been winless in five.

Jan Bednarek got the decisive goal, one minute before halftime after Mohamed Elyounoussi