Manchester United 1-6 Tottenham: Mourinho’s Return to a Silent Old Trafford (2020)

The Football Documentary Channel · Published 4 October 2026

Manchester United 1-6 Tottenham: Mourinho’s Return to a Silent Old Trafford (2020)

Manchester United 1-6 Tottenham was played at Old Trafford on Sunday 4 October 2020, a Premier League fixture Jose Mourinho won on his second visit back to the club that sacked him 656 days earlier. Bruno Fernandes scored a penalty on two minutes, Anthony Martial was dismissed on 28, and the half-time score was Manchester United 1-4 Tottenham. Nobody was in the ground to see any of it, because the season was being played behind closed doors. Aston Villa beat Liverpool 7-2 later the same day, giving our On This Day series two of these on one date.

What follows is how seven minutes settled it, what the sending off cost, the second heavy defeat at Villa Park, and what became of both managers.

Jose Mourinho’s Second Return to Old Trafford

Sacked in December 2018, Back in October 2020

Manchester United sacked Jose Mourinho on Tuesday 18 December 2018. Sky Sports reported at the time that he left with a Europa League and EFL Cup double from 2016-17 behind him, 84 wins from 144 matches, and a side sixth in the table. Tottenham appointed him in November 2019, and his first return to Old Trafford arrived within weeks: RSSSF’s record of the round dated 4 December 2019 reads Manchester United 2-1 Tottenham. The second return, on 4 October 2020, went differently.

The form book gave no warning. RSSSF has Manchester United beaten 1-3 at home by Crystal Palace and then winning at Brighton, 2-3, with their opening fixture at Burnley put back to January, so they arrived having played twice. Tottenham had put five past Southampton away in September, which RSSSF renders Southampton 2-5 Tottenham.

Seven Minutes That Settled It

Manchester United led inside two minutes, Bruno Fernandes converting from twelve yards past Hugo Lloris, as Sky Sports describes it. That lead survived until the fourth minute, when Tanguy Ndombele levelled. Tottenham had paid Lyon 54 million pounds for Ndombele in 2019, and seven months before this afternoon Mourinho had pulled him off at half time at Burnley and told reporters he could not keep picking him, as ESPN reported. Three minutes after Ndombele’s equaliser, Harry Kane released Son Heung-min and Tottenham were in front.

The league’s match record logs the assists in both directions: Kane set up Son on seven minutes, Son set up Kane on 30. That pairing went on to combine for a goal fourteen times in 2020-21, which the Premier League records as a single-season competition record, beating the thirteen Alan Shearer and Chris Sutton managed for Blackburn Rovers in 1994-95. Two of those fourteen came in this one afternoon. Fox Sports puts Kane’s two goals a minute either side, at 31 and 78.

The Twenty-Eighth Minute

Then Anthony Martial walked. ESPN’s report has him slapping Erik Lamela in the penalty area after the two squared up, and Anthony Taylor sent him off. The league’s own record times the red card at 28 minutes and Lamela’s booking at 29, and Sky Sports agrees on 28, while the report Goal published that night says 27. Martial faced a three-match ban for violent conduct.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reaction came in two halves. He praised his forward for staying upright, saying “Well done to Anthony for not going down”, and then called Lamela’s fall theatrical and unacceptable. Neither half of that altered the arithmetic. Manchester United played the last 62 minutes with ten men, and four of Tottenham’s six goals came after the dismissal. Mourinho accepted the numerical advantage afterwards, while pointing out that his side had gone in front with eleven against eleven.

How the afternoon unfolded:

• 2′ Bruno Fernandes, penalty, Manchester United 1-0.
• 4′ Tanguy Ndombele equalises, 1-1.
• 7′ Son Heung-min, set up by Harry Kane, 1-2 and Tottenham ahead.
• 28′ Anthony Martial sent off.
• 30′ Harry Kane, set up by Son Heung-min, 1-3.
• 37′ Son Heung-min again, 1-4 at half time.
• 51′ Serge Aurier, set up by Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, 1-5.
• 79′ Harry Kane from the penalty spot, 1-6.

What Manchester United 1-6 Tottenham Changed, and What It Did Not

Three Hours Later, at Villa Park

Old Trafford kicked off at 16:30. Villa Park kicked off at 19:15. By the time the evening fixture finished, Aston Villa 7-2 Liverpool had gone into the record alongside it, Ollie Watkins scoring three and Mohamed Salah two, with Aston Villa 4-1 Liverpool at the interval. Villa’s own report notes that they had not scored seven in a match since 1995, and that the win gave them three league wins from three for the first time since the 1962-63 season.

The Premier League wrote the day up as record equalling. Its account records 25 goals across the six Sunday fixtures, 16 of them at those two grounds, with Manchester United and the reigning champions taking their joint heaviest defeats in the competition on the same afternoon. Manchester United and Liverpool, whose long argument runs through our Football Rivalries series, had never conceded six goals on the same day before, ESPN records.

Four Five-Goal Defeats by 2020, All of Them in October

The Premier League’s count makes the 1-6 defeat by Tottenham on 4 October 2020 the fourth time Manchester United had lost by five goals in the competition, and adds a detail nobody would have invented: all four fell in October.

The Premier League also records that United had conceded six in the competition only twice before: that 2011 derby, and Southampton 6-3 Manchester United, which RSSSF dates 26 October 1996. Sky Sports reaches back further still: no visiting side had scored four before the interval at Old Trafford since Tottenham last managed it in 1957. ESPN adds that no Manchester United side had conceded four in a first half in the Premier League before.

Second, Seventh, and a Sacking

The transfer window shut at 23:00 the following night. According to the Premier League’s deadline-day record, Manchester United announced Edinson Cavani on a one-year contract, the permanent signing of Alex Telles and the 18-year-old Facundo Pellistri from Atletico Penarol, and agreed a January move for the 18-year-old Amad Diallo from Atalanta, all on 5 October 2020. Deals of that size are not assembled overnight, but the club spent the day after conceding six announcing four players.

The season then refused to follow the afternoon. RSSSF’s final table has Manchester United second and Tottenham seventh, five places and twelve points apart in United’s favour. Mourinho was sacked by Tottenham on 19 April 2021, 197 days after Old Trafford, with the side seventh and the Carabao Cup final six days away, as Sky Sports reported at the time.

He had refused the obvious script on the night anyway. Speaking afterwards, Mourinho noted that Manchester United do not lose often and that “to lose by six is of course not every day”, then reduced the whole thing to three points that replaced ones his side had dropped at home. The flattest sentence of the day came from the man with most reason to enjoy it.

READ MORE: More afternoons that got away from clubs who should have known better, in our Football Disasters series →

Manchester United 1-6 Tottenham (2020)

A penalty on two minutes, a red card on 28, four Tottenham goals before the interval, and 16 goals shared between Old Trafford and Villa Park by the end of the night. Mourinho was gone from Tottenham 197 days later, and Manchester United finished the season twelve points above the side that beat them. Other afternoons that turned on a handful of minutes are gathered in our On This Day series.