Top News

De Zerbi appears to be gradually losing the plot at Spurs, joining Arbeloa in a sprint to the bottom. But Arsenal, Hull and Ronald Araujo come out of the weekend looking rather good.

Below are thoughts on every single Premier League team from this weekend – especially the ones unfairly biased against the club you support.

Arsenal: Martin Odegaard is purring, Set Piece FC has always been the underappreciated alter ego of AFC Remarkable At Defending But Really Good At Attacking Actually Too, and Arsenal are the only side in the country you would fully trust to close out a match.

That stat about Arsenal owning three of the four lowest xG against totals recorded by any team in a Premier League game so far captured it neatly. Their structure is absurdly strong, built by an exceptionally brilliant coach, and Ezri Konsa stepping effortlessly into William Saliba’s role only reinforced that.

Benjamin White summed it up perfectly some time ago: “Yeah, obviously we’re quite good at football.” This was a reminder – with no caveats required – of just how far above the rest the champions really are.

Hull Two points gone, and a draw in the Arsenal-Chelsea match would have suited them better. But every title race has its highs and lows, as the looming spirit of Geovanni will no doubt be telling Sergej Jakirovic.

There is definitely something admirable in Hull keeping fewer clean sheets than 20th-placed Blackburn in the Championship last season, then simply deciding not to concede in the play-offs and the Premier League. More teams should probably try that.

“In my opinion, defence wins titles and of course, our title is to stay in the league,” said a coy Jakirovic. Of course. Just as his only target last season was survival.

Ronald Araujo: Liverpool should generally be banned from loaning players – especially defenders – given their laughable record in that area. But Araujo has already gone past Steven Caulker, even without being deployed as an emergency auxiliary striker just because he is huge.

It is a strange sight watching a Liverpool defender seem to enjoy defending; seeing that at right-back is genuinely surreal. Araujo failed to complete a single accurate cross or long ball against Ipswich, but he led the game for both clearances and aerial duels won, making him the complete opposite of Trent Alexander-Arnold and his shadow-like successor Jeremie Frimpong.

While he may be not perfectly suited to a Hansi Flick high line, Araujo’s physicality in particular looks tailor-made for the Premier League – and, indeed, for a Liverpool team that has been compromised by a certain fragility for quite some time.

With Victor Munoz’s relentlessness ahead of him and Cody Gakpo’s passing impression of Jacob Murphy, Liverpool’s attack is beginning to click and flourish. As for their search for defensive stability, Araujo could be crucial – even from the right.

Luka Vuskovic produced a wonderful Football Manager-style equaliser from a corner, the sort of goal that should surely foreshadow him winning the Golden Boot with 50 goals, all bundled in at the back post with the goalkeeper under pressure.

Spurs allowing him to go in exchange for Jan Paul van Hecke at a loss may yet be remembered as one of the biggest transfer blunders of the season.

But even Brighton may have been surprised by how instantly important Vuskovic has become. As Fabian Hurzeler said: “What he has is the physicality to quickly adapt to the Premier League.”

The 19-year-old is one of only three outfield players yet to miss a single minute in the Europa Conference and Premier League, with Olivier Boscagli and Pascal Gross respectively nine and 16 years older.

Brighton brought in 11 players over the summer; the other ten have combined for well under half of Vuskovic’s minutes, with 201 compared to his 450, and none of them has even started a game yet.

Elliot Anderson: Frank Lampard might even remember him this time.

Everton Do Everton possess the finest collection of absurdly brilliant stoppage-time goals scored by defenders?

David Moyes said after the draw with Manchester United that “there would be no excuses from any of us” in terms of how atrociously the transfer window went for Everton.

It will be interesting to see whether the manager sticks to that line when results and performances inevitably dip, and when a couple of the remaining squad members stop producing outrageous moments of individual quality from nowhere.

But there is a mentality and resilience in that squad that money cannot buy. Which is fortunate, because the recruitment department would only mess it up anyway.

Crystal Palace “Today the lesson is free, because we won, but we are aware of the conditions of this victory,” is an impressively Oliver Glasner-coded way for Pierre Sage to describe his first Premier League win.

The Frenchman said he was “not happy with the way we defended”, but Crystal Palace have sold their two best centre-backs for £72m this year without ever properly replacing them, and that is painfully obvious in a side that has now conceded two goals or more in nine straight Premier League matches.

Chris Richards, Axel Disasi and Jaydee Canvot might eventually develop an understanding. Honest Ahanor and Takehiro Tomiyasu being next in line centrally does not exactly inspire unwavering confidence.

But really, when they are flanked by the most clinical left-backs in football history, it does not always matter.

Newcastle Newcastle had to wait until January last season to take any points from a losing position. And that 4-3 comeback victory over Leeds was so draining physically and mentally that they could not even salvage another draw from behind for the rest of the campaign.

Within three games, and with effectively half a new team, Matthias Jaissle has already matched that full-season tally of matches in which Newcastle have avoided defeat after trailing.

In Eddie Howe’s final weeks, he complained that his team had “become too easy to beat”. That came after losing to Bournemouth at St James’ Park. At the same ground against the same opponents, the spirit and character already instilled by Jaissle turned a huge first-half gap into parity by full-time.

Jannik Schuster Being sent on after 17 minutes for your debut to deal with Brian Brobbey may be the most intimidating Welcome To The Premier League assignment possible in 2026. But Schuster handled it, largely with his head, and cleared the danger, also largely with his head.

Noah Sadiki Mamadou Sangare is the flashy new all-action central midfielder identified and signed by an ambitious team in red-and-white stripes willing to search beyond the Premier League for untapped talent. But Sadiki forced him off at half-time and has made quite the start to the campaign for Sunderland.

Coventry “I have an incredible striker and keeper,” Pep Guardiola said last October after a 1-0 win in which Erling Haaland scored and Gianluigi Donnarumma proved decisive.

If matches are decided in both penalty areas, then Manchester City have world-class cheat codes at either end. It should forever shame Taiwo Awoniyi and Carl Rushworth – although, to be fair, he was decent at the Etihad – that they are not quite on that level.

Alvaro Arbeloa On one side of it, 25 shots is the most Fulham have managed in a Premier League game since April 2025. If Arbeloa was hired to make them more expressive, adventurous and enterprising, he can point to that as evidence the process is working.

But the extent to which this has come at the cost of competent defending is alarming. It simply will not work unless that improves quickly and dramatically.

Arbeloa would also do well not to overdo the praise for his Real Madrid imports after every match. It does seem to have alienated a few of the non-Bernabeu contingent, along with a section of the fanbase whose patience is already starting to wear thin.

Ipswich: No promoted club has ever spent more to prepare for a Premier League season. But from their £190m spree, Ipswich devoted just £30m to the defence, with around £50m reserved for midfield and nearly £100m spent on attack.

Roughly £10m of that brought in the questionable goalkeeper Kjell Scherpen and possible understudy Kayne van Oevelen, who was then promptly loaned out to Valencia.

The only defensive signing to have played at least the equivalent of half a Premier League match so far is the ever-present Issa Diop, who has rather unsurprisingly been unable to cover over a crack-ridden back line all by himself merely through his presence.

Jacob Greaves, Leif Davis and the thrice-relegated Dara O’Shea were Ipswich’s most-used defenders during their previous relegation season two years ago, when they shipped 82 goals. It does not feel ideal to be leaning on them again, especially with one of them being used out of position.

Bournemouth Andoni Iraola began with a draw and two defeats in what eventually became a nine-match winless run, so Marco Rose should not spend too long lamenting one defeat and two draws at the start of this Premier League season.

But Bournemouth have been ahead for a league-high 187 minutes this season and still have fewer points than Crystal Palace, who have led for only 13.

It genuinely feels as though a useful first step would be to stop conceding game-changing goals in the 84th minute or later.

That squad also looks a touch thin. Cook and Brooks were fairly obvious downgrades on the players they replaced when trying unsuccessfully to see the game out, while Jebbison, Gannon-Doak and Christie appeared to be substitutes for the sake of making substitutions, managing just seven touches between them after Newcastle equalised.

Emi Martinez One clean sheet – against a relegated West Ham – in 12 Premier League games. Which is actually better than the none his new club had managed in 19.

As noted in 16 Conclusions from the Emirates: ‘His mistakes will get that much more attention now he’s at Chelsea rather than Villa.’ And while proving doubters wrong has effectively fuelled a World Cup-winning career, that task may not be quite so straightforward with Wesley Fofana in front of him.

Manchester United They “haven’t started the season that bad,” with four points from three matches against two promoted sides and one team with about five players. But in the end, it still feels as though Manchester United ought to be capable of much more.

Michael Carrick wisely – though also somewhat solecistically – added that “we need to concede less goals to give us a better chance of winning games”.

That would be a decent start, considering Brighton, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth have all conceded fewer goals since his appointment, and United have still let in two goals in three of their last four wins.

Putting off the defensive rebuild until after spending one summer revamping the attack and another overhauling midfield was always a calculated gamble; so far, it is not delivering returns.

Roberto De Zerbi Why is Sandro Tonali “not in the right condition, in the best condition yet, maybe physically,” despite arriving in early July and having no World Cup to delay his build-up?

And Conor Gallagher had played three games at the City Ground in his career compared to Mateus Fernandes’ two; in what world does the inflexible De Zerbi – who had managed there only twice himself – “have experience to know enough what is this stadium” while Fernandes does not?

Fernandes won 3-0 at Nottingham Forest as an away player last August, and recorded an assist on his previous visit in January. Both those matches were more recent than Gallagher’s last trip to this supposedly difficult-to-understand venue.

Finally, why did Spurs spend such extraordinary sums specifically on players with Premier League experience if he was then going to ignore that Premier League experience at the beginning of a season that seems to have caught them by surprise, despite De Zerbi being handed the pre-season that was supposedly so essential to embedding his methods and philosophy?

‘Leeds were generally well organised at the back, but lapses repeatedly proved their undoing. Had they turned a few of those 1-1 draws into narrow victories, they could have finished much higher.’

Since then, two more 1-1 draws have left Leeds as the lowest-placed side among the unbeaten eight. It is their most common Premier League scoreline since the beginning of last season – eight times, ahead of four 3-1 wins, four 1-0 wins and four 0-0 draws – and it is holding them back.

Aston Villa Bournemouth and Coventry are the only other clubs whose three opponents so far all currently sit in the top half, which helps explain Aston Villa’s difficulty in building momentum, especially when paired with a summer of major transition.

There is also the backdrop of last season, when a five-match run without a win – and four games without scoring – still ended in Champions League qualification and Europa League glory. That leaves Unai Emery with plenty of credit in reserve.

But they probably need more than untested academy graduate George Hemmings being their second-best chance creator and the only player to register a shot on target after three matches.

Nottingham Forest at home Since the start of last season, Nottingham Forest have beaten only three teams currently in the Premier League at home. That is one more than Wolves and Burnley.

Only two clubs still in the division have a similarly poor record: Spurs and Crystal Palace. It hardly reflects well on Forest that they continue to be linked with the former, or are managed by the coach who oversaw similar issues at the latter.