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For the first time in a while, the Premier League reverted to its norms: Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City all won, a Nuno Espirito Santo team was resilient and determined and Manchester United dropped points.
As you were at the top, then, but there was the fourth managerial change of the season within the bottom three clubs as Vitor Pereira paid the price for a pathetic start. Wolverhampton Wanderers are winless and woeful.
Here is one piece of analysis on each of the top flight clubs who played this weekend (in reverse table order)…
This weekend’s results
Brighton 3-0 Leeds
Burnley 0-2 Arsenal
Crystal Palace 2-0 Brentford
Fulham 3-0 Wolves
Nott’m Forest 2-2 Man Utd
Tottenham 0-1 Chelsea
Liverpool 2-0 Aston Villa
West Ham 3-1 Newcastle
Man City 3-1 Bournemouth
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Wolves fans are at the point of no return
The least surprising news of all on Sunday morning, when Pereira left yet another job after less than a year in charge. He may have saved Wolves from relegation last season but was quickly taking them to the Championship in 2025-26.
Questions deserve to be directed higher up the food chain, too. Wolves sold their best players in the summer, replaced them with lesser quality and less invention and supporters are at the point of no return when it comes to executive chairman Jeff Shi and those around him. It’s no exaggeration to say that their next decision will decide Wolves’ next era.
The problem? This team is short on belief and awful. The latest run of games – two promoted clubs and struggling Fulham – have produced three defeats, eight goals conceded and further proof that the squad is not fit for purpose. Is January soon enough to rectify that damage?
Forest’s set-piece struggles continue
This was much better in Sean Dyche’s first home league game in charge, particularly given that Forest didn’t collapse after falling behind (as had become the norm). Callum Hudson-Odoi was dangerous when drifting centrally, Morgan Gibbs-White was excellent in the second half and Nicolo Savona might just have found his feet in a red shirt. Ryan Yates was also transformative in central midfield.
But the set-piece issues will drag Forest down like a brick tied around the ankle. The first United goal shouldn’t have been a corner but that’s no excuse for giving Casemiro so much space eight yards out. Amad Diallo’s finish for the second was majestic, but Hudson-Odoi shouldn’t have turned his back on the shot and made himself smaller.
These are issues Dyche will – and must – look to solve if Forest are to ever move up the table. You can’t do anything when you’re conceding one or two goals a game. Forest haven’t kept a clean sheet in the league since 1 April.
West Ham finally win a home game
All it took were in-ground protests against the owners, the suggestion from some supporters that Nuno should be under pressure already for lamentable team selection and a tacit acceptance of relegation as a probability for West Ham to turn up.
Sunday was so much better. Jarrod Bowen started right but often drove down the middle. Aaron Wan-Bissaka and El Hadji Malick Diouf provided fine curled crosses on the overlap, the midfield combination made sense and no central defender committed a brainfart. Nuno finally picked a shape that made sense and players in the right roles – Callum Wilson up front as the perfect example.
This must be the standard now – this shape, roughly this team and this intensity. It’s not until a team actually performs coherently that you rediscover the quality within it.
Burnley’s best chance of survival
During Burnley’s last Premier League season, their goalkeeper situation became a bone of contention and heavily contributed to a pitiful relegation. Now, their goalkeeper may be their best chance of staying up.
No goalkeeper has conceded more goals, but none have faced more shots on target nor made more saves. Martin Dubravka is the busiest man in the Premier League and every defeat, including Saturday’s against Arsenal, would have been worse were it not for his excellence.
Now Scott Parker must try to find a way to protect him more effectively. He has “saved” Burnley three goals in 10 games according to the xG faced.
Leeds have a problem in open play
Leeds have a strategy under Daniel Farke: keep games tight, reduce xG for both teams and look to make the most of set-piece situations. In their defence, Arsenal are roughly doing the same thing at the top. The bad news: Leeds have worse defenders and are chronically bad at creating chances in open play.
There is a measure for that: open-play goal-creating actions (and you can have more than one “live pass” for each goal). So far this season, Leeds have four goal-creating actions from live passes. Not only is that half the number of the next lowest figure in the division, all of Leeds’ four live pass goal actions came in one game against Wolves. They are 0-9 in their other games.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that Leeds are bang in trouble, but it does certainly mean that – unlike against Brighton this weekend – there is huge pressure on them to defend well in open play. Next weekend’s game against Forest – not least because it comes directly before Aston Villa, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City – is absolutely massive.
Everton
Play Sunderland on Monday night.
Crisis averted at Fulham
Wolves were absolutely wretched and sacked their manager the morning after the game; we have to include that context. But Fulham blew away cobwebs and moved back towards mid-table because they were able to thoroughly punish their opponents.
That’s been far too rare here. Between December 2023 and March 2024, Fulham won four Premier League matches by three goals or more in the space of four months – 5-0, 5-0, 3-0, 3-0. Remarkably, before Saturday that was the last time they had won a league game by a margin of more than two goals. All 21 league wins were earned by a one or two-goal gap.
These wins are important because they provide what I’d call “ole minutes”, when your supporters get to enjoy the team free of any angst. These are the specific times when fans gain real comfort; they are doubly effective at distracting from any ongoing concerns about the league table or the future of the manager.
Newcastle’s away day woes continue
Sunday might just have been the worst performance of the Eddie Howe tenure at Newcastle United. His team got away with conceding and took a lead against an opponent desperately low on belief and then allowed themselves to be overpowered. At the very least we usually expect midfield energy and combatism; Newcastle even lacked that.
This is becoming a critical problem away from home, at least if Newcastle want to challenge for a Champions League place again this season. Not only are they winless in eight away league games, but they have won two on the road against current Premier League opponents in 2025.
Howe’s team either look toothless if they aim for solidity or open if they try to stretch the game.
Brentford have a hurdle to cross
Keith Andrews has taken to Premier League life with more comfort than almost everyone predicted, but one of the hardest aspects of elite management is knowing how – and when – to alter the course of matches in-game. Andrews’ substitutions and tweaks when Brentford have been leading have been pretty good.
The same is not true in the opposite situation. Brentford have fallen behind six times in the league this season and only gained a point from those matches. They have conceded first three times – Palace, Forest and Manchester City – and in the first two were unable to gain a foothold in the match.
On Saturday evening, some complaints from Brentford supporters about the timing and nature of Andrews’ substitutions. That’s probably his last point to prove to them and us.
Aston Villa’s biggest concern
Several weeks ago, I wrote a piece in which I identified six ways in which Aston Villa needed to improve. Unai Emery has pretty much solved all of those, although Emiliano Martinez’s mistakes are becoming a problem.
But in that piece, I noted that Ollie Watkins’s influence was decreasing: fewer shots, fewer percentage of Villa’s shots and fewer touches in the penalty area. And all those numbers are still down.
Maybe this is simply Watkins having to adjust his style to the new needs of the team and a new phase of his career (he turns 30 next month), but that’s not helping right now. He’s managed a total xG of 1.7 despite starting nine league games, has scored once and the movement to create his own chances appears to be lacking.
Gomez offers Brighton something different
It is extremely Brighton in 2025 to be calling for Diego Gomez to get more starts based upon his experience: he’s 22 and this is his first season in European football.
But Gomez has also played 140 senior games. Look at the age of Brighton’s used substitutes on Saturday: 18, 18, 19, 19, 20.
Not only is Gomez very direct – and in a different way to Yankuba Minteh – but he has also become a lucky charm for Brighton. They have won four and drawn one of the five league games he has started (including beating Chelsea, Newcastle and Manchester City) and he scored five goals in three Carabao Cup games. It’s time for him to get a proper run as a non-negotiable starter.
Should Crystal Palace have a Plan B?
This has been a bugbear of mine for a while: Jean-Philippe Mateta should score more headers because a) he’s massive and b) he’s really good at heading. The loop over Caoimhin Kelleher on Saturday was magnificent.
Since joining Crystal Palace in 2022, Mateta has only scored five headers in all competitions; he scored four for Mainz in 2018-19 alone. That is largely a question of service: during that Mainz season he attempted 30 headed shots and his highest total in a Premier League season is 14.
Oliver Glasner largely likes to keep the ball on the floor, using direct attacking midfielders to dribble and play the ball into feet (which Mateta is also very good at working with). But I do wonder whether using aerial crosses, rather than simply having Mateta challenging for the ball in the air outside the box, might be a very useful Plan B?
Man Utd’s ‘glue player’
During the worst of Ruben Amorim’s tenure, Casemiro looked finished as an elite-level midfielder. He was isolated, he was slow and he was forced into making rash tackles because there was little cohesion behind him and little support around him.
All that has changed and reports of Casemiro’s demise may have been exaggerated. He’s making tackles, he’s dictating the tempo, he’s playing passes from deep (three created chances on Saturday) and he’s generally making a midfield tick purely because the defence and goalkeeper behind him aren’t consumed by chaos created by their own incompetence. There is a platform in place again.
Sunderland
Play Everton on Monday night.
All hail Chelsea’s midfield king
Given his role in Chelsea’s winning goal, robbing Micky van de Ven on the edge of his own penalty area before passing to Joao Pedro, it’s worth reflecting on just how impressive Moises Caicedo’s start to the season has been.
In the Premier League, he has made more tackles and interceptions than any other player in the division. In Europe’s top five leagues, he has made more interceptions than any other player.
Caicedo’s energy and ability to read the game when out of possession is a cheat code for Chelsea and it’s making them an effective team without the creativity of Cole Palmer.
Tottenham are close to mutiny
This is really complicated. There was always going to be a necessary adjustment when Thomas Frank took over because he needed to completely overhaul Tottenham Hotspur’s defensive shape, organisation and attitude following the departure of Ange Postecoglou. Frank needed to build the foundations – Spurs are fourth in the Premier League at the time of writing and have the second best goal difference.
But you can’t ignore the warning signs. Saturday was the lowest xG that Spurs have managed in the Premier League since that data was collected (2012-13) and that is added to a pile of home performances during which Spurs have become desperately poor at creating chances and even developing attacking patterns.
For the first time this weekend, there were comparisons drawn with Nuno’s start at Tottenham. Proof that you really can take a team from 17th to fourth, have 10 league games and have your future called into question.
Bournemouth’s tactical misstep
Andoni Iraola has got most things right this season, but I don’t really understand what he was thinking with his defensive line at the Etihad. There were several occasions when the deepest Bournemouth defender was 10 yards inside the City half.
Presumably the point was to make the pitch as small as possible to aid a press that could contain City and force high turnovers, but the obvious risk lies in Erling Haaland getting clear with a single pass if that press didn’t work. Cue the first City goal and at least one other moment of self-inflicted danger.
Liverpool go back to the future
It was only one game and it was only one comfortable league win, but what I like about Liverpool’s performance on Saturday night was that it had all the hallmarks of 2024-25 Liverpool: an early goal from Mo Salah, control throughout and a game that seemed to pass at 1.5x speed because of that control.
Another point: the midfield three is so crucial. Liverpool have lost games with Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Dominik Szoboszlai all starting this season, but on each of those occasions at least one of three had been withdrawn when the opposition scored the winning goal.
If the energy levels are there, Arne Slot has to keep all three on the pitch and in central midfield. That was the successful formula last season; it must be again.
Cherki gives Man City the missing edge
In one way, this was an entirely predictable City win in that Haaland scored twice and they are ludicrously dependent upon his goals and him getting free from defenders regularly. There aren’t many off days.
Which is why I like the unpredictability of Rayan Cherki in this team. Too often, City can get a little tied down in their predictable patterns of attacking play – effectively what did for Jack Grealish. They need a player who drops into pockets of space, tries to take on a player and occasionally does something nobody is expecting.
Cherki has seven goals or assists in seven City starts. He’s not entirely polished and that might just be his best attribute in a City shirt this season.
Arsenal’s superb record against promoted clubs
Has there ever been an easier Premier League game to predict, both in terms of result and style?
Arsenal win and keep a clean sheet, they don’t face a shot on target or a shot of any kind until the 71st minute, they score from a corner and Viktor Gyokeres scored against a weaker league opponent. His four goals have come against Leeds, Forest and Burnley.
The simple nature of the assignment was defined by Arsenal’s superb record against promoted clubs over the last few years. Of their last 25 matches against those opponents, Arsenal have won 24 and lost one (the 1-0 defeat at Forest in May 2023). They have won their last 14. Lesser sides are now arriving to face Arsenal having been beaten psychologically before they start.