Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday, The Athletic discusses three of the biggest questions posed by the weekend’s Premier League action.
This was the round when Wolverhampton Wanderers were the only team in the bottom six to earn any points with a well-deserved win over Aston Villa, Brentford and video assistant referee Paul Tierney made Burnley boss Scott Parker “more sad than frustrated”, Liverpool recorded the least convincing 5-2 victory in memory, Everton won at Newcastle United, Brighton & Hove Albion beat Nottingham Forest, and Sunderland were robbed of an obvious penalty in an otherwise decent 1-1 draw with Bournemouth.
But here we will discuss the latest chapter in the title race, the shortening of Tottenham Hotspur’s relegation odds and the very real possibility that Manchester United might be… back?
Are nervy Arsenal still title favourites?
Three set-piece goals, a Chelsea player getting sent off for something daft, a goal disallowed for offside and Arsenal winning — just. If you had to pick one game to sum up the 2025-26 season, you could do a lot worse than Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Chelsea on Sunday.
It wasn’t a bad game — lots happened, I suppose — it just won’t live that long in the memory. In fact, it has only just finished and I have already forgotten most of the first half apart from Arsenal’s opener from a corner and Chelsea’s very similar equaliser, an own goal from Piero Hincapie.
The second half was better — Chelsea started to play a bit, only for Arsenal to draw on their set-piece playbook again and score their third goal from a corner in one game, this time in the right goal. Jurrien Timber nodded this one in.
One minute later, Pedro Neto was yellow-carded for moaning. Three minutes later, he received a second booking for an agricultural lunge at Gabriel Martinelli and was sent off. Game not quite over but the now customary mood of impending doom at the Emirates Stadium lifted and Arsenal regained the control that they have exerted for most of this season.
So, having seen Manchester City survive their own stern examination under the lights at Leeds United on Saturday, Arsenal regained their five-point cushion at the top of the table. Phew. Twenty-nine down, nine to go.
Unlike our American colleagues, we do not go in for anything as subjective as “power rankings”, as we tend to believe that is what the league table is for. But if we did, I wonder who we would have in top spot this week?
Would Arsenal’s response — back-to-back wins over their two biggest local rivals — to those draws at Brentford and Wolves be enough to keep them at the top of our pops, or would we be all over the Momentum-chester City narrative? After all, they have won six straight in all competitions and handled Leeds well enough without Erling Haaland.
For what it is worth, I would be voting for Arsenal. Yes, I know they have not won one a league title for 22 years, Manchester City have won lots and they, unlike Arsenal, got appreciably better in the January transfer window, but I am going to refer to that league table thing again (the one in England and the one UEFA runs) and note that Arsenal have been a little bit better than City this season and they just need to keep doing that for about two more months.
Just think how many corners they will have in that time.
Are Tottenham really as bad as they look?
When Tottenham finished last season in 17th place, the consensus was that injuries, Ange Postecoglou’s tactics and prioritising their best shot at silverware for years had conspired to make them look worse than they really were. After all, they ended up 13 clear of the drop zone, had finished in fifth the season before, and beat Manchester United to win their first trophy for 17 years, the Europa League.
How is that consensus looking now?
OK, Spurs are still struggling with injuries and they are doing well in Europe again. You could also point out that they are 16th, so they have improved. Crisis, what crisis, right?
Or you could stop kidding yourself. Spurs are rubbish and have been rubbish for over a year. And they are absolutely not too big to go down.
The 2-1 defeat to Fulham on Sunday was not especially dreadful but it was predictable and deserved. It was also their 10th Premier League game without a win, which ties their previous worst-ever run under Ossie Ardiles in 1994. They finished 15th that season, so this is hardly uncharted territory.
Fulham, who completed their first double over their London rivals since 2004, were 2-0 up after 34 minutes and cruising. Spurs did get better in the second half and Richarlison reemerged from the treatment room to pull one back just after the hour mark. But that was Tottenham’s only effort on goal all game.
But perhaps most worrying for Spurs is that their luck — or even a fair share of it — has disappeared. A week after one video assistant referee declined to get involved when Randal Kolo Muani’s potential equaliser against Arsenal was disallowed for pushing Gabriel/Gabriel’s Oscar-worthy flop (delete to suit your agenda), another VAR decided Raul Jimenez’s sneaky shove of Radu Dragusin/bog-standard collision (ditto) was fine. Harry Wilson’s volleyed opener followed two seconds later.
New boss Igor Tudor has been at the club for two games, both defeats, but he gets it. Speaking to Sky Sports after the game, the Croatian, whose only trophy during a 14-year managerial career is the 2013 Croatian Cup with Hajduk Split, said Spurs “lacked everything”. In a rant that reads like the famous Australian “can’t bat, can’t bowl, can’t field” assessment of England cricket teams in the 1980s, Tudor claimed Spurs “were not good attacking and defending”.
But later, when talking to the written media, he reserved his strongest criticism for the officials.
“It’s so obvious,” he said of the Jimenez shove/nothingburger.
“You need to cancel this… it’s ridiculous to not give the foul because the consequence is too big. It’s not a small foul in the middle of the pitch, it’s a goal.”
As for Jimenez, don’t get Igor started.
“He was not thinking about the ball; he was thinking about how to cheat. So he cheated, the player pushing, and they scored the goal. It’s logic. It’s cheating and a foul.”
Hey, maybe blaming Jimenez and Craig Pawson’s VAR team for Tottenham’s predicament is the way to go, and everything will look much rosier after Thursday’s home game against Crystal Palace.
Or perhaps Tottenham’s return of four points from their last 10 games is a fairer assessment of the team they are — and the hole they are in — than a couple of 50/50 referee decisions?
Are Manchester United really… back?
There have been plenty of Mondays over the last year or so when everything I have just written about Spurs could also have been written about Manchester United. To be honest, I think I have done so the last couple of times I have helmed the good ship Monday Briefing. What is it they say… hated, adored, never ignored?
Well, colour me guilty. And having buried United, I am now going to praise them.
They are now third, THIRD, in the league, after winning six and drawing one of their last seven league games. Sunday’s victory over Crystal Palace was not as stirring as the wins over Manchester City and Arsenal that kickstarted the second coming of Michael Carrick — and they definitely won the VAR lottery in this game — but a win is a win and they played some decent stuff towards the end, albeit with a man advantage.
Bruno Fernandes continued to prove that even really good players play best in their favourite positions and Benjamin Sesko showed that less can be more by scoring his sixth goal in 2026 after a first-half display that totalled seven touches.
With Aston Villa and Chelsea losing, this was another good weekend for United, who have not been this high in the table for nearly three years. With fifth practically guaranteed to be good enough for Champions League football next season, Carrick & Co have a six-point advantage over sixth-placed Chelsea, with 10 games to play.
There is still plenty of football to come, though, not least hosting Aston Villa, a trip to Chelsea in April and high-stakes home games against Leeds and Liverpool.
But for the first time in a long time, Manchester United will go into all of those fixtures looking more like their old selves, with good players in good form, a pragmatist picking the team and plenty of rest. So, I am not quite ready to say they are “back” back yet — let us see how next season’s Champions League campaign goes first — but they have at least left the banter-club ward.
Coming up this week