5 chapters of Premier League madness: Manchester City soar alone as crises hit the big clubs
Chelsea stumble, Manchester United collapse and Tottenham sink!
The Premier League needed little time to show its early colours. Five rounds in, the surprises are stacking up. Manchester City have made a perfect start, Arsenal have suffered a sudden stumble, and a defensive crisis has gripped Chelsea. Manchester United, meanwhile, look nothing like the side they are trying to become, and Tottenham Hotspur are languishing at the foot of the table.
City may have swept up full marks, but some of the big clubs are already paying for their early mistakes. That leaves one question hanging over the opening month: are these five rounds just a passing phase, or do they already hint at how the fight for the title and the top places will unfold?
Manchester City: full marks and an early message
Manchester City sit top of the Premier League after taking maximum points from their opening five matches. Five games, five wins, 15 points. The latest came in a thrilling 5-3 triumph over Sunderland.
No other side in the competition can boast a perfect record so far. City also hold the longest current winning run in the division, with a 100% success rate. That start speaks to their strength and their obvious determination to reclaim the title.
This flying start is more than just a number. City have made history by winning their opening five matches of a top-flight season for the fifth time in the club's existence. They previously managed it in 1912-1913, 2015-2016, 2016-2017 and 2023-2024, and they have now repeated the trick once more.
Italian manager Enzo Maresca shares in the perfect record. He has won each of his first five Premier League matches in charge of the club.
Only five men before him had managed the feat. Maresca becomes the sixth manager in the competition's history to win his first five games with a single club, joining Carlo Ancelotti, Pep Guardiola and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who each won their first six, along with Craig Shakespeare and Maurizio Sarri, who both won their first five.
Arsenal: a slip that halted the perfect start
Arsenal entered the season as reigning champions and the leading candidates to retain their crown, having ended a 22-year trophy drought under Mikel Arteta.
Last season the side leaned on a style built around wearing opponents down and pressing them relentlessly. This time they began in stronger, more convincing fashion.
Their start was striking. Arsenal collected 12 points from the first four rounds, then ran into a surprise blow in the fifth: a 3-0 defeat to Brighton.
That loss ended the perfect start, but it arrived early enough for Arsenal to put things right quickly, especially with the title race barely underway.
Solidity without defeats: and surprises beyond expectations
Manchester City aren't alone in avoiding defeat after five rounds. Brentford, Leeds United, Liverpool and Everton have all managed the same feat.
Going unbeaten doesn't always mean a perfect start, though. Just look at Liverpool, who sit sixth on 9 points. They haven't lost in their first five matches, but three draws have already cost them a full six points.
More striking still: this is only the third time in the past 63 seasons that Liverpool have failed to win either of their first two home league matches. The gap to Manchester City is widening early, and Liverpool know that shedding more points could complicate their bid to return to the title race.
Leeds United and newly promoted Hull City tell a different story. Leeds have yet to taste defeat, while Hull City sit eighth on 8 points.
Chelsea: attack present, defence absent
Chelsea sit tenth on 7 points, beaten twice in their first five rounds.
Going forward, they've scored 10 goals, a healthy return on the face of it. The real problem lies at the back. They've shipped 12, the worst defensive record in the league so far.
More worrying still, Chelsea conceded two or more goals in each of their first four matches. That hasn't happened at the club since the 2015-2016 season.
The attacking tools are there to drive them forward. Fixing the defence, though, is urgent if they want to muscle into the race alongside Arsenal and Manchester City.
Manchester United: many attempts, few results
Manchester United are still searching for balance. One win, 5 points, twelfth place.
No side in the Premier League has fired off more shots this season, with United the only team to pass the 100 mark. Yet all those efforts have brought just 8 goals.
They have shipped exactly the same number at the other end, leaving them level on goals scored and conceded. The numbers expose a clear flaw: for all their attacking pressure and volume of shots, United cannot turn chances into goals or results.
Tottenham: starting from the bottom
Tottenham Hotspur, meanwhile, are enduring one of their toughest starts, sitting bottom with just two points and no wins.
Nobody had them down as genuine title contenders after back-to-back seventeenth-place finishes, but a better start was expected under Roberto De Zerbi, particularly with the manager handed a full pre-season to work with his squad.
Reality proved harsher. Tottenham failed to score in any of their first four league matches, a first in the club's history, before ending the drought in the fifth round with two goals in a 3-2 defeat to Aston Villa.
That left them with their worst start in Premier League history after five games: two points and a goal difference of -6. It eclipses their previous low, from the 2008-2009 season, when they gathered two points with a goal difference of -3.
What does history say?
Yet history warns against calling it too early. A blistering start guarantees nothing about how a team finishes the season.
In the Premier League era, just 9 of the 28 teams that won their opening four matches went on to lift the title, the most recent being Manchester City in 2023-2024.
Clawing back an early gap looks tougher still. Only two teams have won the title after trailing the leaders by five points or more after four rounds. Manchester United managed it five times under Sir Alex Ferguson, and Pep Guardiola's Manchester City pulled off the same trick when they overturned their deficit to be crowned champions in 2020-2021.
Five rounds in, the picture already looks clear. Manchester City are setting the pace. Arsenal have suffered their first blow, Chelsea are struggling defensively and Manchester United are hunting for solutions, while Tottenham face a start that demands a swift response before the early stumbles harden into a bigger crisis.
