Chelsea’s reboot faces Brentford’s reality
Chelsea’s new era meets Brentford’s old certainty, Tottenham stare into the void, and Brighton’s latest gem steps into the light. Across the country, managers cling to ideas, strikers chase history and champions look over their shoulders. This weekend feels like a checkpoint in a season still working out what it wants to be.
Chelsea’s reboot runs into Brentford’s reality
Chelsea have not beaten Brentford in a league game since that tight 1-0 win back in October 2021, when Ben Chilwell settled it. Every trip across west London since has ended level. The contrast now is starker than ever.
Brentford know what they are. Organised, settled, largely unchanged in style or structure. Chelsea are trying again, another reboot, this time under Xabi Alonso and his new defensive blueprint.
That back three is still learning its lines. Which is why Kevin Schade will fancy this. Fresh from two sharp finishes at Bournemouth, the forward is running hot and about to face a defence still adjusting to Alonso’s demands. History offers a warning: only one side have ever won the Premier League with a back three as their core – Chelsea themselves in 2016-17 under Antonio Conte. Alonso is trying to bend the league to that shape again.
His attack looks further along than his defence, and that heaps pressure on Jannik Schuster. The 20-year-old centre-back, in for Nathan Collins, survived a searching first Premier League start against Bournemouth’s Evanilson and emerged with credit. This will be a different kind of test: less chaos, more craft.
Up front for Chelsea, João Pedro has quietly become the numbers man – three goals and three assists already. But there is a cloud: his fitness. If he cannot start, it opens the door for Danny Welbeck’s first league start of the season. Another twist in a derby that rarely follows the script.
Spurs and Villa, both stuck in reverse
What happens when a very stoppable force meets an extremely movable object? Tottenham against Aston Villa at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium might give us the answer.
Nineteenth-placed Villa arrive in north London with one league goal between the two sides. Both are still waiting for a first Premier League win. This is not how either club pictured September.
The return of Pedro Porro is a big moment for Roberto De Zerbi. It should finally end the Archie Gray experiment at right-back, a gamble that has looked increasingly strained. The deeper issue is Spurs’ identity. No starting XI in the division feels less secure. Almost everyone looks one mistake away from the bench.
That uncertainty has bred fear. Spurs take the safe option, recycle the ball, avoid risk. The crowd can feel it. So can James Maddison. After two substitute appearances against Everton and Liverpool in the past week, the injury-hit playmaker will be desperate to start, to grab the game and drag this team out of its cautious shell. Whether the rest follow him is another matter.
Brighton’s next star and a warning for Arsenal
When Fabian Hürzeler praised Brighton’s “well structured” approach after their comeback at Old Trafford, he could have been talking about one player in particular.
Malick Yalcouyé has slipped into the No 10 role with barely a ripple, then started making waves. The 20-year-old Ivorian arrived on the south coast in 2024 after only a brief spell at IFK Gothenburg. Brighton sent him out – first to Sturm Graz, then Swansea – and waited.
The wait is over. With Jack Hinshelwood out until after the international break, Yalcouyé has seized his chance, scoring twice already in the Premier League. He is the latest example of Brighton’s production line functioning exactly as designed.
Arsenal are next, and the numbers are stark. Brighton are the division’s top scorers with 13 goals from four matches. Mikel Arteta’s champions are facing a fourth straight away game and know exactly what is coming: movement, rotations, and a fearless No 10 who has no intention of giving the shirt back.
Mykolenko steps up for stretched Everton
Vitalii Mykolenko’s form has not created many headlines. That suits some of his critics just fine. It does not change the reality.
Everton’s left-back has quietly become one of David Moyes’s most reliable performers in a period when experience matters more than ever. A new three-year contract in the summer, a visibly stronger frame, and a run of assured displays have steadied a defence that has kept four clean sheets in six games.
The problem is depth. Adam Aznou’s loan to Málaga has left left-back short of cover. Mykolenko, the more natural defender, has eased pre-season worries about that side, but he cannot do it alone.
Ipswich will try to expose any cracks. New forwards Emersonn and Zian Flemming will probe the flanks and test Everton’s resilience. If Moyes’s side sign off before the extended international break with another win, the mood around Goodison will feel very different from the one that greeted the summer.
Jaissle refuses to blink after Leeds hammering
Matthias Jaissle does not do waffle. Asked on Thursday if Newcastle might abandon their aggressive “vertical” style or switch to a back five after Monday’s 4-1 beating at Leeds and a growing injury list, he gave a one-word answer.
“No.”
The German wants his young team to trust the process. Newcastle signed eight players aged 24 and under this summer as they began life after Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon. Jaissle sees that as a long-term project, not something to be scrapped after one bad night.
“It’s a brave journey the club is going on and I’m fully committed in that,” he said. One setback does not alter the route. The response, he insists, must come without abandoning the core idea.
Hull come to Tyneside on Saturday knowing exactly what to expect: intensity, risk, and a manager who would rather take another punch than throw in the towel on his principles.
Delap finds the right home at Forest
Plenty scoffed when Nottingham Forest paid £45m for Liam Delap in the summer. Too much, too soon, too risky. Forest think differently.
They have seen this film before with Chris Wood, now injured but previously the focal point of their attack. Delap looks like the younger heir to that role – powerful, direct, unselfish enough to bring others into play.
At Villa Park on Saturday, the partnership with Morgan Gibbs-White flickered into life. The pair looked as if they had been working together for far longer than a few weeks. Now they face a Coventry side that have shipped eight goals in their last two games. It feels like an opportunity.
Off the pitch, Forest are thinking big. The City Ground’s capacity will rise from 31,000 to 52,500 after the local council approved a £790m expansion plan on Wednesday. After last season’s nerves, the club feels like it is moving forward again – on the pitch with Delap, and in the skyline with steel and concrete.
Iraola returns to Bournemouth as Liverpool’s man
Andoni Iraola watched Bournemouth’s European debut from a distance, in San Sebastián, a city he knows inside out. On Sunday, he goes back to his old club as Liverpool’s head coach.
Iraola, with assistants Tommy Elphick and Shaun Cooper – both former Bournemouth players, Elphick the captain in their first Premier League promotion in 2015 – delivered the greatest league season in the club’s history, finishing sixth and reaching the Europa League. That work earned him his move to Anfield and guarantees a warm welcome on his return.
Bournemouth under Marco Rose have started slowly, but they are no soft touch. The German coach spent a couple of hours with Iraola before officially taking over in June, absorbing ideas and trading notes. Both know what the other wants from a game.
Eddie Howe never beat Bournemouth in eight league meetings as Newcastle manager. Iraola and his staff will not take that record lightly. Sentiment will vanish once the whistle goes.
Calvert-Lewin chases history at Elland Road
Dominic Calvert-Lewin walks out at Elland Road on Saturday with a record in his sights and Crystal Palace in his way.
Leeds’ centre-forward is aiming to become the first player since Arthur Hydes in 1932 to score in six consecutive home league games. For a long time, that kind of run felt impossible. He struggled as a lone striker, isolated and frustrated.
Everything changed when Daniel Farke shifted to 3-5-2 late last November. Calvert-Lewin suddenly had company – Noah Okafor or Lukas Nmecha alongside him – and the goals returned. Leeds still tweak between 3-5-2, 3-4-3 and the occasional back four, but the principle is clear: partnerships matter.
Eight points from four games make this Leeds’ best top-flight start since David O’Leary’s 2001-02 side. Palace will try to halt the momentum, but the questions hang over the afternoon. Can Hydes’ record finally fall? And is 3-5-2 about to get a second life as the system that rescues misfiring No 9s?
City perfect so far – but pressure is coming
Manchester City have taken the maximum 12 points from their opening four games, and they have done it in several different ways. Two 1-0 wins, against Coventry and Manchester United. A tighter 2-1 over Bournemouth. Then a 4-1 dismantling of Crystal Palace.
Eight scored, two conceded. Only Arsenal, the champions, can top that defensively, with one goal against and the same eight scored in their own perfect start. It all points to Enzo Maresca’s side being serious title contenders.
Régis Le Bris wants to interrupt that storyline. He can draw on last season, when he took Sunderland to a draw against City in the FA Cup, though that came at the Stadium of Light. The reverse fixture at the Etihad ended in a comfortable 3-0 City win.
This time, the stakes are higher. City are rolling. Arsenal are matching them. The margin for error is already shrinking.
