It is not an easy task for Ten Hag to compete with Aston Villa who are currently in their best performance and Man United is very different from last season when in the remaining matches they improved their performance with very high consistency, whereas this season Man United seems to be having difficulty competing with several teams above them.
Manchester United have bigger tradition than Aston Villa and before this season, Aston Villa were not stronger than Manchester United. Ten Hag, after about 2 seasons, shows that he is failing to improve Manchester United and worse, they are starting to fail, become weaker than average clubs like Aston Villa.
When Ten Hag was hired, Manchester United did not hire him to compete with Aston Villa but with Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal. Now, things are not improved but tend to be worse.
Spurs are currently in good condition and are even ready to defend their position so as not to be overtaken by Man United and on the one hand we don't know yet whether this international break will have any Man United players injured or not and if that happens to Man United players it will definitely happen the condition of Ten Hag team is getting worse.
Spurs in history can not compare with Manchester United and if Manchester United have to be at similar level of Spurs in comparison, it shows that their quality is no longer good.
We also have to count that Spurs recent seasons are no longer one of strongest clubs in Premier League. They failed to join top four of Premier League recent years and now they are coming closer to that area by standing above Manchester United.