Tottenham rallies to beat Wolves, Everton winless

Spurs fell behind on the stroke of halftime through Steven Fletcher’s goal, but Rafael van der Vaart equalized from the penalty spot in the 75^th and Roman Pavlyuchenko and Alan Hutton completed the comeback.

West Ham, which had lost four straight matches, was held 1-1 by Stoke, while Everton was beaten 1-0 by Newcastle.

Clint Dempsey rescued a 1-1 draw for Fulham at Blackburn, Aston Villa was held at home by Bolton by the same score, and West Bromwich beat local rival Birmingham 3-1.

In Saturday’s late match, Arsenal was at Sunderland.

Tottenham looked to be experiencing a European hangover when Fletcher slammed in Kevin Foley’s low cross from close range for Wolves.

Three days after Spurs made their Champions League debut, they struggled to break through the Wolves defence until Alan Hutton’s run into the penalty area was halted by Stephen Ward’s mistimed diving challenge. Van der Vaart, the deadline-day signing from Real Madrid last month, scored from the penalty spot.

Van der Vaart was replaced for the final four minutes by Aaron Lennon, who set up Tottenham’s second.

Lennon’s cross was only partially cleared and played back to Tom Huddlestone, whose shot was blocked straight to Pavyluchenko for the simplest of finishes.

A mix-up between defender Richard Stearman and American goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann allowed Hutton to pounce and force the ball in for Spurs’ third goal.

West Brom also came from a goal down to beat Birmingham, which announced before the match that manager Alex McLeish had signed a new three-year contract which keeps him at the club until 2013.

Birmingham took the lead when Cameron Jerome scored his first goal of the season in the 15^th with a close-range header set up by Scott Dann.

But promoted West Brom dominated after the interval, drawing level in the 51^st when Dann scored an own goal while under pressure from striker Peter Odemwingie as Jerome Thomas’ cross came in.

Odemwingie exploited a mistake from Lee Bowyer to put West Brom ahead in the 59^th and Jonas Olsson headed in Chris Brunt’s inswinging corner 10 minutes later.

At Stoke, Scott Parker’s close-range finish put bottom-place West Ham ahead after 32 minutes, but Kenwyne Jones headed in the equalizer at the start of the second half.

‘We can take huge positives out of today,’ Parker said. ‘They put us under immense pressure and we defended really well.

‘We came here today low in confidence and we can leave high in confidence.’

New Aston Villa manager Gerard Houllier watched from the stands as Villa was held by Bolton.

England winger Ashley Young gave Villa the lead with a free kick after 13 minutes on Saturday, but Bolton equalized 10 minutes before halftime with a close-range goal from striker Kevin Davies.

Fulham remain unbeaten in the Premier League after Clint Dempsey headed in Carlos Salcido’s cross in the 56^th to cancel out Christopher Samba’s first-half goal for Blackburn, which took advantage of sloppy defending.

Hatem Ben Arfa marked his full debut for Newcastle by scoring the winner against Everton to seal his new club’s first away win of the season.

Ben Arfa sent a hard shot into the top corner from 25 yards (meters) just before half time as Everton’s poor start to the season continued.

‘They are good players and a good team but they now need to stand up and be counted,’ Everton manager David Moyes said. ‘We didn’t start the game well and Newcastle deserved the victory, I’ve got no qualms about that.’