Football writer Alex Keble highlights the hot topics and tactical lessons of the season so far.
We are 11 weeks into the Premier League season, with almost the first third of the campaign now completed.
As the final international break of 2025 begins, we're taking stock of what we’ve learnt from 2025/26 so far.
Set-pieces, long throws and direct football are back in fashion
The headline feature of this Premier League season is a sudden return to what might be called a more conservative or old-school way of playing the game.
Last year felt like a new peak of clubs sticking to a philosophy of playing the ball on the ground in all situations. However, the division now seems to have bounced back towards longer goal-kicks and a greater sense of pragmatism across the league table.
The most noticeable component of this has been the return of the long throw-in, an attribute that more or less disappeared for over a decade before it came back for 2025/26. Out of nowhere, almost every single Premier League team is taking their time to launch throw-ins into the penalty area.
The 2025/26 campaign so far has featured 11 goals from long throws, only just short of the 14 in the whole of last season, while set-piece goals are also up significantly: 80 so far, compared with 64 at this stage last year.
Premier League leaders Arsenal are the poster boys of the new/old approach to playing English football, yet their example has proved infectious.
What we appear to be seeing is that football tactics are entering a new era in which fashion dictates over innovation. Where once new ideas could grow, there is now little left to discover, and instead an edge is to be found in returning to principles that fell out of fashion.
One side effect of long throws and set-pieces coming back into fashion appears to be that the ball is spending less time in play, although this is part of a Europe-wide trend.
The ball has been in play 54.7 per cent of the time in the Premier League this season, down from 57.1 per cent in 2024/25 and 57.3 per cent in 2023/24, calculated at the same point (Matchweek 11) of the campaign.
We are seeing the same trend in all of the "big five leagues" and in the UEFA Champions League.
Percentage of match time with ball in play, 24/25 v 25/26
Competition 2024/25 2025/26 Premier League 57.14% 54.66% Ligue 1 57.37% 56.25% Bundesliga 57.59% 56.25% Serie A 56.55% 54.28% LaLiga 55.57% 55.40% Champions League 60.38% 57.67%
Why, then, has the ball-in-play time gone down? Perhaps players are more tired due to the congested schedule, leading to longer breaks before set-pieces.
Exhaustion might also explain the increase in late drama.
Not only has there been an increase in the overall number of late goals - scored in the 90th minute or later - after Matchweek 11 compared with the last two seasons, they now account for a larger percentage of the total goals scored (13.3 per cent).
Late goals scored in first 110 Premier League matches, last three seasons
Overachievers are showing that fast attacking football is still the future
That being said, it’s important not to overstate what’s happening.
Long throws and set-piece routines are a big shift, but those who argue the Premier League is returning to the kind of "direct" football preached by Tony Pulis or Sam Allardyce are wide of the mark.
The future is still in hard pressing, fast transitions, and the kind of electric straight-lined football we have seen from AFC Bournemouth at their best.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has been talking about this shift away from positional possession football for a while now. This season, we see it in the exhilarating football of high-flying Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove Albion and Crystal Palace in particular.
It is a million miles from the long hoofs and target men of Pulis or Big Sam.
Set-pieces aside, the Premier League is not slower or less attacking than it was.
There have been 301 goals this season, an average of 2.74 per game, which is down only ever so slightly from last year’s 2.93.
Watch the best goals of Matchweek 11
Arsenal are under pressure now to take their chance
One thing we have learnt since the last international break, with Arsenal calmly dispatching three Premier League opponents without conceding before they dropped points at Sunderland, is that Mikel Arteta’s side are now expected to go the distance.
There is a general feeling this is their title to win; that the only potential obstacle is their own mental strength.
That brings its own kind of pressure, and it is up to Arsenal to keep their heads and take it one game at a time.
This is arguably the first season under Arteta that the Gunners are favourites, that they are not seen as having a valid excuse for coming second.
Handling pressure, or buckling under it, will determine whether Arsenal end their 21-year wait for the title.
Man City are the likeliest to challenge Arsenal – but others can catch up
Suggestions that Arsenal will run away with the title have been proved wrong by Man City’s emphatic 3-0 win over Liverpool, which cut the lead at the top to just four points.
Chelsea, too, have put a set of wins together that leaves them within touching distance. Enzo Maresca's side have won four of their last five in the Premier League, reducing the gap to six points.
Also, with Liam Delap and Cole Palmer yet to make an impact this season, Chelsea might get better and better. Joao Pedro has been hugely influential in the final third and Estevao Willian is a real find.
If Maresca can stabilise Chelsea’s defence then they might just be ready to apply pressure to Arsenal.
Even Liverpool – despite being eight points behind – seem likely to get a lot better once their reported £400million of new signings settle. There is enough experience in the core of the team - Alisson Becker, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah – to find a rhythm again.
The champions are big outsiders right now, but they will take heart from Arsenal’s relative inexperience.
It is looking likely we will have at least a two-horse race this season after all.
A huge number of new signings have hit the ground running
The wealth and power of the Premier League these days means every summer brings the arrival of new superstars, but 2025 is starting to feel like a particularly golden year, especially when it comes to players who arrived without such a big name.
Estevao has lit up Stamford Bridge; Bournemouth’s Adrien Truffert and Newcastle United pair Nick Woltemade and Malick Thiaw have all been breakout stars. Brentford’s Igor Thiago, who joined last summer but largely missed the campaign due to a knee injury, is the division's second-top goalscorer with eight goals.
Top PL goalscorers this season
Player Total Haaland (MCI) 14 Igor Thiago (BRE) 8 Welbeck (BHA), Semenyo (BOU), Mateta (CRY) 6 Mbeumo (MUN) 5
Some more familiar names have also hit the ground running. Jack Grealish looks back to his best at Everton, while Granit Xhaka has a case for EA SPORTS Player of the Season, as the driving force of fourth-placed Sunderland.
Also, Man City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, Manchester United forward Bryan Mbeumo, and Brentford midfielder Jordan Henderson have been leading players in their respective teams.
Promoted clubs are stronger - but their case was slightly overstated
It wasn’t long ago that pundits were declaring with confidence that, after consecutive seasons in which all three promoted clubs went straight back down, this year all three would stay up.
But the fast starts made by Burnley and Leeds United are beginning to wear off, while manager changes at the bottom have seen under-achievers begin to climb again.
Since the opening weekend Leeds, just a point above the dotted line, have only beaten Wolverhampton Wanderers (A) and West Ham United (H), two of the three teams in the relegation zone.
It's a similar story for Burnley who, after losing to West Ham last time out, are only outside the bottom three on goal difference. Scott Parker's side have only beaten Sunderland, Leeds and Wolves this season.
Leeds and Burnley haven’t been especially competitive when it comes to facing teams in the top 15.
Sunderland, on the other hand, are fourth in the table and show no sign of slowing down. Regis Le Bris is doing a fantastic job and his team are riding the crest of a wave.
We are virtually guaranteed to have at least one promoted club survive. But it might only be one.
Early manager changes for clubs near the bottom
There were six manager dismissals during the whole of the 2024/25 campaign. It’s early November and we have already seen four managers depart.
That increase is directly related to the strength of the promoted clubs, because last season the obvious weakness of Ipswich Town, Southampton and Leicester City meant clubs floundering in the bottom half were in no danger and had no reason to panic.
The same cannot be said for 2025/26, and it is telling that all three clubs in the relegation zone – West Ham, Nottingham Forest, and Wolves – have already parted company with at least one manager.
Nuno Espirito Santo, Ange Postecoglou, Vitor Pereira, and Graham Potter have all lost their jobs before winter. The lurking threat of relegation has changed the equation.
Champions League race looks more open than ever before
Twelve Premier League clubs – or 60 per cent of the table – currently sit within three points of the top four, with almost a third of the campaign gone. That only three points separate fourth place from 12th is highly unusual.
It means that clubs like Brentford and Brighton believe they can pip one of the big teams, and clubs who started poorly – like Aston Villa – are now back in with a shot.
Inevitably the gaps will get larger at some point, but for now it is hugely motivating for over half of the Premier League table and ensures that all matches through November and December will be loaded with potential storylines.
Even Newcastle, one of the biggest under-performers in the league this season, still have time to recover, despite currently sitting closer to the bottom three (two points) than the top four (seven points).
The 'big six' are fighting back after a difficult 2024/25
A more pessimistic reading of the situation, for Newcastle and the likes of Bournemouth or Palace, is that over the next couple of months we will see the traditional "big six" begin to pull away.
These six clubs are already positioned inside the top eight places.
Chelsea were clinging on to their Champions League spot last season but appear to be much more assured now, if anything hoping to take part in a battle for the title.
Meanwhile, there is no doubt Man Utd and Tottenham Hotspur have dramatically improved, their strong transfer windows over the summer reasserting their power.
Of course, there is plenty of time for the "big six" to slump and others to usurp them. Villa, for example, were seven points behind Spurs just six games ago but are now only below them on goal difference as Thomas Frank’s side continue to struggle in their home matches, failing to win any since beating Burnley in August.
Haaland can break every record going, including his own single-season goals tally
Erling Haaland’s incredible start to the season isn’t even his best ever. He scored 17 goals in his first 11 Premier League matches in his debut campaign of 2022/23, making this season's 14 goals only his second-best return at this stage of the competition.
Still, there was an inevitable slowdown in that debut season as opponents began to work him out. This time, Haaland looks fitter and sharper than ever before.
He is currently on track to score 58 Premier League goals, obliterating his own record of 36 set in 2022/23.
If he only plays in 33 games, in line with his average for a season in a Man City shirt, then Haaland will still – at current pace - break his record, ending with 51 goals.
In all competitions, Haaland currently has 19 goals in 15 games. This puts Lionel Messi’s record of 73 goals for Barcelona in 2011/12 in his sights.
If Haaland can reach those record numbers, it would seem highly likely that Man City will emerge as Premier League champions.