Richarlison, Kudus have Spurs dreaming, flying start for Sunderland, you fear for Hammers – it’s the 3pm Blackout

There might not be quite so much 3pm action these days in the Premier League, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still deliver enough to make a few snap judgements about Spurs, Burnley, Sunderland and, most compellingly, West Ham. Because they were real sh*t.

Tottenham 3-0 Burnley: Richarlison sets early goal of the season benchmark as Frank makes winning start
Caveats first. It’s not that there will be tougher tests for Thomas Frank this season, it’s that there will be no easier ones.

On the other hand Tottenham away, no matter the trials and tribulations of the Premier League’s silliest club, was always likely to provide an awkward examination of Burnley’s tried-and-tested approach from last season’s Championship campaign.

Spurs surely won’t be quite as daft in the league this year, and thus this will not be the kind of fixture upon which Burnley’s season will stand or fall. And there was enough in the period between Tottenham’s opening goal and half-time to suggest they will have sufficient defensive fortitude and – perhaps more significantly – enough attacking intent to make some kind of impact.

But not here, with Richarlison’s second goal on the hour taking him halfway to his Premier League goal tally from last season (or, if you prefer, doubling that from his first Spurs season) and setting a dazzlingly high bar for goal of the season at this early stage. With last season’s top-scorer Brennan Johnson getting his season up and running minutes later, there was no time for any hangover from their last 2-0 lead to kick in. And – hot take alert – Scott Parker’s Burnley may be many things but what they are not is Luis Enrique’s PSG.

If the performance of Richarlison – on the back of a fine showing against the European champions in midweek – provokes cautious optimism about his renewed usefulness this season, then there will be no such caution from Spurs fans around Mohammed Kudus. It was his excellence that created both the chances Richarlison converted, one smartly and one spectacularly, and in a team currently operating without an obvious creative force through the middle the efforts of the former West Ham man were integral to Spurs getting what was, in truth, the only acceptable outcome here.

We don’t expect to see Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall deployed together too often in more testing times this season, but midfield is less of a concern than it was last season for Spurs with Joao Palhinha on hand on more challenging days than this one to offer a destructive protective shield that what still looks a fun and exciting and talented but deeply vulnerable back five so sorely lacked throughout last season.

Pape Sarr’s enforced shift into the No. 10 role didn’t go as well as has it times in pre-season, and that remains an area Spurs must surely improve before the window closes.

But this was a day when a new manager could enjoy the sight of a new signing and a like a new signing getting the season off to a good start. We learned a lot of good things about Spurs in midweek, and a few more today. The tactical flexibility shown in countering the differing challenges posed by PSG and Burnley shouldn’t be so striking, but at Spurs it really is. The true potential of Frank’s quiet revolution here will likely be clearer still after next weekend’s trip to Manchester City.

Brighton 1-1 Fulham: Muniz strikes late for unlikely point in battle of Premier League’s aspiring middle class
Maybe it had to end all square, this the first direct clash between two of the teams who made the biggest impact among what appears to be a new ‘middle class’ of Premier League teams who’ve been around long enough and sensibly enough to make the most of the financial rewards – and disparity with all those coming up behind them.

There seems little reason to imagine either of these teams face seasons vastly different to last season’s, which would broadly satisfy both clubs. But Brighton will be kicking themselves here, having largely controlled the game in the first half and then more thoroughly after taking the lead from the penalty spot 10 minutes into the second.

They looked as comfortable as a team leading 1-0 can, right up until they didn’t, and the story looked set to be James Milner coming off the bench at 39 years old to begin his 24th Premier League season, right up until it didn’t.

Sunderland 3-0 West Ham: Dreamland for new boys, but West Ham in full ‘you fear for them’ territory already
It always looked like an opening day rich with possibility for Sunderland against a West Ham side that has damn near wasted the summer. They were rotten for most of last season, but the mitigation for Graham Potter was always that he could only be reasonably judged after a proper pre-season.

West Ham’s lack of urgency in the transfer market has denied him the full potential of that opportunity, and a man who was riding so high so recently at Brighton risks seeing his career take another nosedive here from which it may never recover.

You fear for West Ham, you really do. They already look one Jarrod Bowen injury away from a tortuous battle against relegation. They may well be in one anyway.

Here they combined the worst of all possible worlds. Uninspiring going forward, uncertain at the back. Unconvincing as a whole, error-prone as individuals. Mads Hermansen will not have enjoyed his day.

Yet while the long-term impact of this game may be more significant for West Ham than the victors, this was Sunderland’s day. To incorporate so many new (and, with the obvious Granit Xhaka exceptions, young) signings so impressively on their return to the highest level is an achievement that should not be cheapened by pointing out the visitors’ myriad ridiculous and obvious flaws.

History tells you a good start is vital as a promoted side, to get a few results in before the bubbles of promotion optimism burst, but that’s increasingly hard to do when teams are now also required to purchase and bed-in pretty much entire new teams, such is the gulf between the second tier and the Premier League.

Sunderland’s start to the season feels of even greater significance than most, given they face Burnley and Brentford before the international break. Right now it really does feel like there’s no reason they can’t be a quarter of the way to a possible survival-achieving total after those games.

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