Premier League winners and losers: Arsenal, Arbeloa, Araujo, Ipswich, Vuskovic, De Zerbi
De Zerbi seems to be slowly losing his mind at Spurs, joining Arbeloa in a race to the bottom. But Arsenal, Hull and Ronald Araujo are decent.
Thoughts on every single Premier League team – especially those biased specifically against the one you support – from this weekend are below.
Premier League winners
Arsenal
Martin Odegaard is purring, Set Piece FC was always the overlooked alter ego of AFC Remarkable At Defending But Really Good At Attacking Actually Too, and Arsenal are the only team in the country which can be trusted to see out a game.
That statistic about Arsenal having three of the four lowest xG against totals of any team in a Premier League match so far summed it up nicely. Theirs is a stupidly good structure put in place by a ridiculously brilliant coach, underlined by Ezri Konsa’s seamless steps into William Saliba’s shoes.
Benjamin White had it right a while back: “Yeah, obviously we’re quite good at football.” This was a reminder – entirely without caveats – of how much better than the rest the champions truly are.
Hull
Two points dropped, and a draw in the Arsenal-Chelsea game would have been preferable. But there are peaks and troughs in a title race, as the great spectre of Geovanni will be telling Sergej Jakirovic.
There is definitely something to be admired in Hull keeping fewer clean sheets than 20th-placed Blackburn in the Championship last season, before simply refusing to concede in the play-offs and then Premier League. More teams ought to do it.
“In my opinion, defence wins titles and of course, our title is to stay in the league,” said a coy Jakirovic. Sure, fella. Just like your only aim last season was to stay up.
Ronald Araujo
Liverpool should generally be prevented from ever loaning players – especially defenders – based on their risible track record. But Araujo has already usurped Steven Caulker, even without being used as an emergency auxiliary striker just because he’s massive.
It is a curious sight to see a Liverpool defender seemingly enjoy the art of defending; at right-back it is genuinely surreal. Araujo not providing a single accurate cross or long ball against Ipswich, but leading the game for both clearances and aerial duels won, marked him out as Trent Alexander-Arnold and his shadow of a successor Jeremie Frimpong’s antithesis.
While perhaps not perfectly suited to a Hansi Flick high line, Araujo’s physicality in particular seems ideal for the Premier League – and indeed a Liverpool side which has been undermined by a certain fragility for some time.
Between the relentlessness of Victor Munoz ahead of him, and Cody Gakpo’s passing impression of Jacob Murphy, Liverpool’s attack is starting to function and thrive. In terms of their attempts to find stability at the back, Araujo might be central – even on the right.
Luka Vuskovic
A wonderful Football Manager corner exploit of an equaliser, which ought to foreshadow Vuskovic winning the Golden Boot with 50 goals, all scored at the back post with the keeper under pressure.
Spurs swapping him for Jan Paul van Hecke at a loss might well go down as one of the season’s biggest transfer mistakes.
But even Brighton might be taken aback at how important Vuskovic has immediately 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 outfielders yet to miss a single minute in the Europa Conference and Premier League, with Olivier Boscagli and Pascal Gross nine and 16 years older respectively.
The Seagulls signed 11 players in the summer; the other ten have well under half (201) of Vuskovic’s minutes (450) combined, and have yet to even start a game between them.
Elliot Anderson
Frank Lampard might even remember him this time.
Everton
Do Everton have the best catalogue of absurdly good stoppage-time goals scored by defenders?
David Moyes said after the Manchester United draw 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 is true to his word when results and performances inevitably turn and a couple of the remaining squad members do not produce moments of ridiculous individual quality out of nowhere.
But there is an attitude and resilience in that group which cannot be bought. Which is good because the recruitment team would just f*** it up anyway.
READ MORE: Grealish gives Everton reason to feel something even before stunning late Maitland-Niles equaliser
Crystal Palace
“Today the lesson is free, because we won, but we are aware of the conditions of this victory,” is a remarkably Oliver Glasner-coded way for Pierre Sage to describe his first Premier League win.
The Frenchman was “not happy with the way we defended”, but Crystal Palace have sold their two best centre-halves for £72m this year without ever really replacing them, and it is painfully evident in a team which has conceded two goals or more in nine consecutive Premier League games.
Chris Richards, Axel Disasi and Jaydee Canvot might gel in time. Honest Ahanor and Takehiro Tomiyasu being the next cabs off the central rank does not inspire unerring confidence.
But really, when they are flanked by the most clinical left-backs in the sport’s history, it doesn’t always matter.
Newcastle
It took Newcastle until January to earn any points from a losing position last season. And the 4-3 comeback win over Leeds was so physically and mentally exhausting that they could not muster even another draw from behind for the rest of the campaign.
Within three games and with basically half a new team, Matthias Jaissle has already matched that seasonal number of games in which Newcastle have avoided having trailed.
In Eddie Howe’s final weeks he lamented that his side had “become too easy to beat”. That was after a defeat to Bournemouth at St James’ Park. At the same venue against the same opponent, the spirit and character already instilled by Jaissle turned a first-half gulf into parity by the end.
Jannik Schuster
Being thrown on after 17 minutes for your debut to face Brian Brobbey might be the most daunting Welcome To The Premier League possible in 2026. But Schuster met the challenge, largely with his head, and cleared it, largely with his head.
Noah Sadiki
Mamadou Sangare is the shiny new all-action central midfielder scouted and procured by an upwardly mobile team in red-and-white stripes willing to look beyond the Premier League for latent talent. But Sadiki forced him off at half-time and has had quite the start to the season for Sunderland.
Coventry
“I have an incredible striker and keeper,” Pep Guardiola said last October of a 1-0 win in which Erling Haaland scored and Gianluigi Donnarumma was crucial.
If games are won and lost in both boxes, Manchester City have world-class cheat codes at either end. It should eternally shame Taiwo Awoniyi and Carl Rushworth – although, to be fair, he was decent at the Etihad – that they aren’t quite as good.
Premier League losers
Alvaro Arbeloa
On the one hand, 25 shots is the most Fulham have had in a Premier League game since April 2025. If Arbeloa was appointed to make them more expressive, adventurous and enterprising, he can point to that as proof of the process.
But the sheer level to which that has come at the expense of competent defending is concerning. This will not work if that does not improve quickly and drastically.
Arbeloa might also be advised not to lay it on so thick with the praise of his Real Madrid imports after every game. It does appear to have alienated a handful of non-Bernabeuans, as well as an element of the fanbase whose patience is already wearing thin.
Ipswich
No promoted club has ever spent more in preparation for a Premier League season. But of their £190m splurge, Ipswich invested a grand total of £30m on their defence, with around £50m put aside for the midfield and almost £100m going into their attack.
Around £10m bought them the questionable keeper Kjell Scherpen and potential understudy Kayne van Oevelen, who was promptly sent to Valencia on loan.
The only defensive signing to have played at least the equivalent of a half of Premier League football thus far is ever-present Issa Diop, who has surprisingly been unable to single-handedly paper over a crack-laden backline with his mere presence.
Jacob Greaves, Leif Davis and the thrice-relegated Dara O’Shea were Ipswich’s most-used defenders during their last relegation season two years ago, in which they conceded 82 goals. It feels sub-optimal to be relying on them again, especially with one of them playing out of position.
Bournemouth
Andoni Iraola oversaw a draw and two defeats in what eventually became a nine-game winless start, so Marco Rose should not bemoan for too long a defeat and two draws out of the Premier League blocks.
But Bournemouth have led for a league-leading 187 minutes this season and still have fewer points than Crystal Palace, who have been in front for 13.
Genuinely feels like they would benefit from not conceding game-changing goals in the 84th minute or later for a start.
And that squad is a little shallow. Cook and Brooks were fairly clear downgrades for who they replaced when ineffectively trying to see out the game, while Jebbison, Gannon-Doak and Christie were substitutes for the sake of it with seven combined touches after the Newcastle equaliser.
Emi Martinez
One clean sheet (against a relegated West Ham) in 12 Premier League games. Which is actually better than his new club’s none 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 basically been the fuel for a World Cup-winning career, it might not be as easy with Wesley Fofana in front of you.
Manchester United
They “haven’t started the season that bad,” with four points from three games against two promoted sides and one team with about five players. But ultimately it does feel as though Manchester United should be capable of more.
Michael Carrick sagely – although also solecisitically – added that “we need to concede less goals to give us a better chance of winning games”.
It would be a start, considering Brighton, Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth have all conceded fewer since his appointment, and they have let in two goals in three of their last four wins.
The decision to put off a rebuild of the defence until after spending a summer each renovating the attack and midfield was always a calculated risk; it isn’t yet paying dividends.
Roberto De Zerbi
Why is Sandro Tonali “not in the right condition, in the best condition yet, maybe physically,” despite having joined in early July, with no World Cup to delay his preparations?
And Conor Gallagher had played three games at the City Ground in his career to Mateus Fernandes’ two; in what world does the inflexible De Zerbi – who had only managed two games there himself – “have experience to know enough what is this stadium” while the latter player doesn’t?
Fernandes beat Nottingham Forest as a visiting player 3-0 last August, and got an assist on his previous trip that January. Both games were more recent than Gallagher’s last journey to an apparently difficult to fathom venue.
Finally, why did Spurs spend such preposterous sums specifically on players with Premier League experience, if he was then going to disregard that Premier League experience at the start of a season which appears to have crept up on them, despite De Zerbi being given the pre-season so supposedly imperative to embedding his methods and philosophy?
Leeds
From the opening weekend:
‘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, a pair of 1-1 draws has Leeds as the lowest of the unbeaten octet. It’s their most common Premier League scoreline from the start of last season – eight times, ahead of four 3-1 and 1-0 wins and 0-0 draws apiece – and it’s holding them back.
Aston Villa
Bournemouth and Coventry are the only other clubs whose three opponents so far currently reside in the top half, which underlines Aston Villa’s struggles in building momentum when combined with a deeply transitional summer.
There is also the context of last season, when five games without a win – and four without a goal – translated to Champions League qualification and Europa League glory. That gives Unai Emery an overdraft of credit in the bank.
But they probably need more than for unseasoned academy graduate George Hemmings to be their second-best chance creator and only player with a shot on target after three matches.
Alejandro Garnacho
A boy clinically incapable of helping himself.
Nottingham Forest at home
Since the start of last season, Nottingham Forest have beaten three teams currently in the Premier League at home. That is one more than Wolves and Burnley.
Only two clubs still in the top flight have such a comparably poor record: Spurs and Crystal Palace. It does not bode well for Forest to ever be linked with the former or managed by the coach who oversaw similar problems at the latter.