Premier League winners and losers: Rule-breaking Everton, abysmal West Ham, phenomenal Frank
Everton should know better over Jack Grealish, while Thomas Frank and Brentford are both thriving. But West Ham and Ruben Amorim look utterly hopeless.
Everton
If Everton supporters had not already connected with Jack Grealish on a spiritual level after his inspirational first start, those post-match comments must have made them feel seen and heard.
“I think maybe at times in the last couple of years I’ve not fallen out of love, but didn’t enjoy football as much as I should,” he said. “I absolutely love football and I want to have that feeling again when you get up on a match day and can’t wait to get out there.”
It’s the same feeling those fans have chased for years. They needed that as much as Grealish, with the new stadium a perfect backdrop to their consummation.
One of the first rules of football is to never fall for a loan signing but Everton really are pretty much helpless here.
Thomas Frank
It would be a foolish oversimplification to state that Frank has displayed more tactical malleability in three games as Spurs coach than his predecessor managed in two years.
But it really does feel as though Frank has displayed more tactical malleability in three games as Spurs coach than his predecessor managed in two years.
Of course he hasn’t. Ange Postecoglou planned and executed these performances and results on occasion and even won at the Etihad without conceding, as the prophecy dictates any Spurs manager must.
But Frank’s flexibility in devising a gameplan not just to nullify the strengths of such diverse opponents as Paris Saint-Germain, Burnley and Manchester City but to more specifically accentuate the strengths of his own players is what a great many supporters wanted more often from the previous regime.
There should always be a certain philosophy and style at the heart of it, the same principles which run through and define whatever team the manager picks. Frank outlined his in that memorable Monday Night Football segment two years ago focusing on how he would set Brentford up to face Manchester City away.
The idea behind his appointment centred around transposing that to a higher level with better players. Curse Daniel Levy for he might have nailed it.
Brentford
What a difference a week makes. Keith Andrews said Brentford “produced a performance that was us” against Aston Villa, having lamented how the Bees were “a little nice” and “naive” in the defeat to Nottingham Forest.
Those were not adjectives which have often been associated with Brentford since their promotion, even if a sort of identity crisis was understandable after a summer of immense change.
Brentford won far more of their duels – especially in their own defensive third – and it provided a greater base from which they could build. Their goal was a beautiful and basic – a long kick from the keeper and flick-on – and they weathered the storm for over an hour to protect that deserved lead.
Even the disallowed goal lashed in by Mikkel Damsgaard from a long Michael Kayode throw which left Emi Martinez prone was stirring proof that you can raid individuals, but you cannot kill an idea so easily.
The one shot Brentford had from the 28th minute had a better xG than 13 of the 16 Villa mustered in that same time. Perhaps home comforts offered a timely reminder of what they do best.
Chelsea without Cole Palmer
Having failed to score in the three previous Premier League games Cole Palmer did not start, Chelsea needed that.
Their talisman’s durability meant that sequence stretched all the way back to December 2023 but proof of strength and variation beyond the main attacking cog in their machine was overdue with or without him on the pitch.
Enzo Maresca “didn’t want to take the risk” with Palmer and the fact he didn’t feel he had to was encouraging. This might even afford the England international the break his sustained form has long suggested he needs.
Five different scorers stepped up to assume responsibility; it was a far cry from when Mauricio Pochettino implored his squad to “show this is Chelsea Football Club, not Cole Palmer Football Club” before a 5-0 defeat to Arsenal in April 2024.
And there is a story to be told in Chelsea’s prior five-goal Premier League win, when they also recovered from the concession of an early goal to thrash Southampton away last December. The five different scorers that day were Palmer, Axel Disasi, Christopher Nkunku, Noni Madueke and Jadon Sancho.
It has come at ludicrous expense but this is a team transformed and quickly maturing.
Arsenal
The perfect riposte to the wider noise surrounding the opening weekend. Another clean sheet against a relegation-battling United was this time supplemented by a show of proper attacking force Arsenal have not exerted for what feels like an age.
It had all the hallmarks of what is likely to become their trademark brand of victories alongside scrappy 1-0s this season: set-piece goals, a penalty, some Viktor Gyokeres fun and even a couple of celebration-tempering injuries in attack.
After beating Manchester City 5-1 at the Emirates in February, Arsenal scored more than two goals in just one of their next 15 Premier League games – away at Ipswich in April. This sort of thrashing has become their calling card under Mikel Arteta and entirely justifies those 90-minute grinds.
Bournemouth
The argument with Wolves was won long ago; not a single soul still believes Bournemouth might have made a mistake over Gary O’Neil.
But the trade-up for Andoni Iraola continues to prove masterful. His coaching has safeguarded against a level of squad upheaval few can match. Only Chelsea have accrued more in transfer fees than Bournemouth this summer yet the Cherries remain a clear and established force.
The majority of those sales were made at the back, with the ageless Adam Smith accounting for more than two-thirds of the combined Premier League career appearances made by the starting defence and goalkeeper which did not struggle to keep a clean sheet.
Nottingham Forest are the only other side to pick the exact same starting line-up across the first two games, yet just Arsenal and Manchester City have used more players than Bournemouth.
Iraola spoke after the game of his improved depth and “options” for good reason; it’s a quietly excellent squad being maximised by a brilliant manager.
Scott Parker
There will need to be imminent evidence that Burnley can make this work against teams they haven’t just been promoted alongside, especially away from home.
But there is also plenty to be said for the momentum and confidence which can be extracted from that sort of victory. The moods at Burnley and Sunderland could not have been more disparate after their mirrored opening-day results and the Clarets redressed the balance in 90 accomplished minutes.
Parker has also now nudged ahead of Mick McCarthy in terms of Premier League points per game. It truly was a weekend Sunderland might never recover from.
Marco Silva
While he would quite like some new signings – and is far from alone in that regard – Silva continues to create problems for himself by perennially finding solutions.
One third of Fulham’s Premier League goals since the start of last season have been scored by substitutes. After two games they have already salvaged a couple of points with equalisers from the bench. It’s a neat trick.
Crystal Palace
Oliver Glasner did offer a much brighter outlook on Crystal Palace’s future and how “everybody is working really hard to get the right players in”. There is a strong sense that once the window closes he will be thrilled to be able to just coach without all the nonsense surrounding it.
But Palace really should spend this next week stopping him talking to either Austrian TV or Gary Cotterill. Nothing good can come of it.
Nuno Espirito Santo
Should be replaced by the man in the opposite dug-out but also retains the full and unwavering support of the fans. Much like his predecessor actually; working for Evangelos Marinakis does seem inadvisable.
Leeds
Didn’t lose 6-0.
Premier League losers
West Ham
The cycle continues. Without significant change at the highest level beyond the loss of their Premier League status, it always will.
West Ham have appointed a coach shorn of tactical identity and charisma, backed them haphazardly at best in the transfer market – it is difficult to think of a worse, more systematically self-destructive window from an established top-flight club – and reportedly given them a game-based ultimatum to figure things out.
There is no smoke without fire and the internal rejection of those stories only intensifies the feeling that this is an irrevocably broken club.
Potter is not good enough to make sense of any of it, but then it is difficult to fathom who else might. The shortlist to replace him will obviously include Rafael Benitez as it always does, a perfect illustration of a club stuck in the mid-2000s and refusing to modernise.
It is a diabolical squad put together with the conflicting ideas of about five different individuals from at least two managerial regimes, a club which generates money in spite of itself and spends it atrociously.
The Declan Rice windfall is a prime example. It should have been used to reinforce their position as a mid-table side with designs on challenging the elite. They signed Edson Alvarez (loaned out), Mohammed Kudus (sold), Konstantinos Mavropanos (an unused substitute twice this season) and James Ward-Prowse (part of the worst midfield in the league).
The 2003 West Ham vintage is still held as the archetypal forewarning of a side being Too Good To Go Down. The 2025 edition really doesn’t look close to being good enough to stay up.
Aston Villa
The PSR argument does sort of fall in on itself with results and performances like that. These first two games must prompt a great deal more introspection at Aston Villa than has been allowed to take place so far.
It was a horribly undercooked bench and even little old Brentford were able to prove the advantages of having an expensive Premier League-ready signing available; that is the sort of asset Villa in many ways cannot afford.
But there must be better in-house solutions than using John McGinn as an out-and-out winger, using Emiliano Buendia at all or persisting with a system which doesn’t appear to work.
Villa put in 27 crosses, a vaguely impressive feat considering their starting line-up was an affront to width and pace, and a figure they surpassed just three times last season. Only four of them found a teammate yet nothing fundamentally changed in Villa’s approach until Donyell Malen came on to offer some thrust in the final half an hour.
Having almost twice as many shots as Brentford but the same amount on target is ultimately as wasteful as their utterly absurd wage-to-revenue ratio.
Manchester City
Between the bungled deployment of the Pep Lijnders high line and Thomas Frank thanking “awfully clever” Jurgen Klopp for inventing the aggressive high press, it was not the first Manchester City defeat which could be traced back to Liverpool.
But that was a chastening reminder that spending more than £300m in a year does not immediately fix every problem. This is a new team with fresh coaching ideas which will take time to implement and master.
While Pep Guardiola knows he will be afforded that patience based on what he was allowed to survive and come through last season, there remains an uncertainty surrounding Manchester City which has rarely been present under his rule.
And it doesn’t feel like their continued curious pursuit of another keeper to completely undermine their initial succession plan will help decide which of the two teams we’ve seen in the opening weeks is a more accurate reflection of Guardiola’s latest expensive rebuild.
Vitor Pereira
There is sympathy for a manager trying to establish and uphold standards at the highest level.
The coach is privy to information and context that supporters and outsiders are not and if Pereira felt Andre was a necessary sacrifice to that altar based on his commitment and approach to training, with Jean-Ricner Bellegarde granted his place, then those are the choices he is paid handsomely to make.
As Pereira said, game time is not a “gift” and has to be earned.
But this is also not anything close to a squad which can afford to make such statements. It is a confused mess of profiles, nationalities, ages and positions and Andre is likely the best of them, as underlined by the Brazilian’s half-time rescue call after his replacement’s decisive mistake.
Wolves were ultimately better for his presence, even with 10 men. But they look every bit a side which has sold its best forward and defender and spent a fraction of the income speculating to accumulate precious little. You’d struggle to name most of that starting line-up even with a team sheet in front of you.
Ruben Amorim
“We prove today that we can win any game in the Premier League, especially against a great team like Arsenal,” said Amorim last week.
He must have known it had to be backed up with victories against Fulham and Burnley before the first international break at the very least, with strong performances a preferred accompaniment.
But the burden of that apparent proof is collapsing in on itself. Amorim has managed 25 Premier League games against sides currently in the division, winning just four and losing 15. It is a farcical record considering the backing he has received and the support he still benefits from.
Maybe signing the league’s two biggest xG overperformers does not fix the attack. Maybe Manchester United should derive a modicum of shame in how freely and publicly their opponents discuss their tactical shortcomings. Maybe Manchester United shouldn’t have built around a player who has no clear role and who can’t take a penalty properly after being nudged a minute beforehand.
And maybe Amorim really isn’t the one to fix this. It is worrying that Manchester United do not appear to have contemplated that possibility for one second, so many of their cracked eggs have they already placed in his basket.
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Brighton
“With our younger players a little bit older, Fabian a year in the Premier League, we are hoping for more next season,” said Tony Bloom this summer.
More of the same is not what was planned. Brighton have gamed the system and mastered the market but still cannot consistently crack the code in terms of goals.
Their top scorers last season all scored 10 each and one – their outright top scorer the campaign before – has been sold. For all their brilliance, the only player to ever score more than 10 goals in a Premier League season for Brighton remains Glenn Murray.
That seems unlikely to change this year. Brighton continue to create at as quick a rate as they waste. Danny Welbeck is a wonderful player but never the fulcrum around which an entire attack should revolve, never mind at 34.
And their defence is still unreliable: only three current Premier League clubs have conceded more goals than the Seagulls since Hurzeler’s appointment.
Bloom sanctioned the biggest spend of any top-flight club last season to improve Brighton in the present and that has trickled over into a summer of recruitment in 2025 focused more on the future.
It means £50m worth of teenage Greek strikers remain on the sidelines as Hurzeler does not deem them ready, but the coach has been given a hand his bosses feel is strong enough to be played properly now. The results he is producing suggest otherwise.
Sunderland
A necessary reality check after that euphoric opening win and fantasy summer transfer window.
The objective at Sunderland remains survival, even if some supporters should dare to dream of Europe and beyond. An injury to Dan Ballard or being forced to have more of the ball would not bring everything crashing down quite so dramatically if the foundations were sound.
These results will happen and often depend on the sort of chance Eliezer Mayenda spurned in the opening stages. Sunderland might be grateful that the one common theme from their first two games is a need not to overreact.
