Manchester United's 4-3 victory over Newcastle United opened a seven-point gap at the top of the English Premier League table, but the news was not all positive for Alex Ferguson and his team.
The veteran manager revealed after Wednesday's game that Wayne Rooney will be sidelined for up to three weeks with a knee ligament injury, having already ruled him out of an amazing match in which Newcastle took the lead three times, only to lose to Javier Hernandez's 90th-minute winning goal.
Ferguson, too, might yet suffer repercussions after marching onto the field before the second half kicked off and remonstrating with referee Mike Dean, assistant Jake Collin and fourth official Neil Swarbrick for awarding the visitors a second goal after 28 minutes.
Dean overruled Collin, who had initially flagged to disallow the goal because Newcastle forward Papiss Cisse was in an offside position when Danny Simpson crossed for Jonny Evans to put through his own goal.
"I think it was a bad decision," said Ferguson. "He (Dean) has not got the benefit of a replay, which I had, and could see it was a mistake. Mike Dean said it was an own goal so it didn't matter that the player was offside but, when you see the video replay, he (Cisse) is certainly interfering with the play.
United fell behind in the fourth minute when James Perch tapped in after David de Gea saved from Demba Ba, but Jonny Evans equalised in the 25th minute.
Patrice Evra drew the hosts level just before the hour, driving in from the edge, only for Cisse to restore Newcastle's advantage by slamming home from 12 yards.
Robin van Persie equalised in the 71st minute and, after Sammy Ameobi had hit the post for Newcastle, Hernandez ghosted into the visitors' area to sweep home Michael Carrick's pass and secure the victory.
Second-placed Manchester City's 1-0 loss at Sunderland was only their second defeat of the season.
The home side claimed the game's only goal eight minutes into the second half with Adam Johnson embarrassing former City teammate Joe Hart with a low shot from wide on the right that squeezed inside the near post.
"We missed five or six chances in the first half, and we need to score first in games sometimes. We can't recover all the time," said City manager Roberto Mancini.
Chelsea were also beneficiaries of City's slip-up, prevailing 1-0 at Norwich City through a 20-yard Juan Mata strike to close to within four points of Mancini's men with a game in hand.
Tottenham Hotspur broke into the top four by winning 4-0 at Aston Villa, with Gareth Bale running in his first Premier League hat-trick after Jermain Defoe had opened the scoring in the 57th minute.
Spurs' win bumped Everton down to fifth on goals scored, despite David Moyes' side beating Wigan Athletic 2-1.
Queens Park Rangers sank back to the foot of the table after losing 2-1 at home to West Bromwich Albion.
QPR's defeat allowed Reading to climb off the bottom after they drew 0-0 at home to Swansea City.
Rickie Lambert's late penalty cancelled out Dimitar Berbatov's early opener to earn Southampton a 1-1 draw at Fulham.
Stoke City moved into eighth place with a 3-1 win over Liverpool who are down in 10th.
The match between Arsenal and West Ham was postponed due to a strike on the London Underground.
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