Ranking All 20 Premier League Teams’ Performances on Matchday Three
“What you have seen in the first couple of weeks in the Premier League is that all of the teams are good,” Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard boldly claimed. Are they?
This is the first season in the 138-year history of the English top flight that as many as three sides are still awaiting their first goal of a new campaign—and that’s not even including one of the two clubs to have lost all three games thus far this term.
Despite the largest spend in the history of the sport, almost ever club still ended the transfer window pining after at least one player that got away. All the teams are good when compared to the rest of Europe—that is the benefit of having more money than anyone else—but they are all flawed compared to each other. Which is what makes every round of action so interesting.
These are not remorseless winning machines, but flawed piles of blood and flesh. Some came closer in that strive for perfection than others this weekend.
Ranking Criteria
Performance: This is the crux of the exercise: How well did each team play when considering the balance of a game divorced from the final score. If it was simply a judgment of the scoreboard you may as well go straight to the actual table.
Expectations: Not all results are equal. Teams that upset the odds with their display are rewarded.
Venue: As the behind-closed-doors season of 2020–21 proved, playing in front of your home fans is a huge advantage, so any away results are given a little extra bonus.
20. Ipswich (2–0 Loss vs. Liverpool.)
“I hate having to talk about good performances when you don’t get points because you need to maximize them,” Gary O’Neil frowned on Friday night.
It was not entirely a “good performance” that he would be forced to talk about after watching his Ipswich team fail to reliably trouble this leaky iteration of Liverpool.
19. Aston Villa (0–0 Draw vs. Hull)
The most concerning aspect of Aston Villa’s shockingly-blunt display at the MKM Stadium was Unai Emery’s insistence that the match had gone as he had planned. Presumably actually scoring a goal (or at least taking a shot on target) wasn’t part of the strategy.
18. Chelsea (2–1 Loss vs. Arsenal)
Chelsea got off to the perfect start. The last instruction Reece James received before kickoff was a whispered word from set-piece coach Austin MacPhee, who was soon leaping around maniacally to celebrate Morgan Rogers’s second-minute volley from the second phase of a dead ball.
However, the Blues were dragged into dark water by Arsenal thereafter, “suffering,” to use Xabi Alonso’s term, until Kai Havertz’s equalizer. Things were a little more even for the first 20 minutes of the first half but Chelsea never recovered from Martin Ødegaard’s deft winner five minutes after the restart.
For a side that has thrived when ceding possession to their opponents and springing forward in transition, it felt telling that Chelsea created almost nothing in the second half while having 49% possession.
17. Hull (0–0 Draw vs. Aston Villa)
When quizzed on Hull’s riotous form after amassing seven points from their first three games, manager Sergej Jakirović joked: “Maybe expect to fight for a Champions League place?” Given their ease at containing an Aston Villa side actually competing in Europe’s premier club competition, perhaps it wasn’t such a wild comment.
16. Tottenham (0–0 Draw vs. Nottingham Forest)
In the excellent dark comedy “In Bruges”, the two lead characters are drawn into a discussion about people being divided into heaven and hell while looking at Hieronymus Bosch’s painting of the Last Judgment. “And what’s that other place?” Colin Farrell’s memorably asks himself. “Purgatory,” he remembers, “the in-betweeny one.”
“You weren’t really s---, but you weren’t all that great either,” he added. “Like Tottenham.”
Almost 20 years later, Spurs are still fitting that stereotype. It may have taken another 20 for Roberto De Zerbi’s side to score in a goalless draw befitting the nether region between heaven and hell.
15. Coventry (1–0 Loss vs. Man City)
Not many teams limit a Manchester City side with Erling Haaland in it to just four shots on target at the Etihad Stadium. In fact, no team has done that since the first weekend of January. Had Coventry City been able to aim a few more shots on target of their own, they could perhaps have even come away with some points.
14. Crystal Palace (3–2 Win vs. Fulham)
Pierre Sage had a simple simile for Crystal Palace’s first win of the new season. “It’s like with a car,” he smiled, “You put some petrol inside and you can drive.” The Eagles were running on fumes for large swathes of a chaotic trip across the capital, giving up a frankly ridiculous amount of territory: Fulham had 64 touches inside Palace’s box. For every nine passes the Cottagers completed, they found a way into the opposition’s penalty area.
Yet, thanks to Dean Henderson and a healthy dose of good fortune, Sage’s car got rolling.
13. Fulham (3–2 Loss vs. Crystal Palace)
Not many beaten teams offer so much promise that they receive the pity of the rival manager. “I’m disappointed for the other team and the coach, too,” Pierre Sage admitted after his Crystal Palace side came out on top of a topsy-turvy contest.
For all Sage’s sympathy, and Álvaro Arbeloa’s insistence that his side would have won the match had they taken their ample chances, Fulham gave up a hatful of opportunities with a wild press that left them so exposed thatstriker Gonzalo García was forced to track back into his own box. No system made him air-kick his clearances, however.
12. Brighton (1–1 Draw vs. Leeds)
Not for the first time this season, Brighton “woke up too late,” to borrow the phrase used by Luka Vušković, whose second-half equalizer bailed out the dozy Seagulls.
11. Nottingham Forest (0–0 Draw vs. Tottenham)
Neither Oliver Glasner nor Neco Williams could look beyond the controversial nature of Nottingham Forest’s disallowed goal. Williams was effectively punished for protecting his face from Sandro Tonali’s boot with his arms, which brushed against the ball before it trundled over the line.
However, there must be some internal questions about how Forest only got the ball over the line with that illegal bundle against this soft-centered iteration of Tottenham.
10. Brentford (1–1 Draw vs. Sunderland)
It took a triple half-time substitution from Keith Andrews, including the sacrifice of everybody’s favorite summer signing, Mamadou Sangaré, but Brentford eventually spluttered into life to do just about enough to earn a point.
9. Leeds (1–1 Draw vs. Brighton)
Rarely has there been a contest which perfectly fits the cliché of “a game of two halves.” After dominating the xG count 1.90–0.06 in the first 45 minutes, Leeds found themselves facing 17 shots from Brighton in the second half while amassing just four of their own. All in all, Daniel Farke was satisfied with “a good point.”
8. Sunderland (1–1 Draw vs. Brentford)
When Enzo Le Fée stepped up to take a penalty against Brentford at the Gtech Community Stadium with Sunderland trailing 1–0 in January, a pitiful Panenka attempt was caught by Caoimhin Kelleher. Sunderland lost 3–0.
Eight months later, when presented with the same goalkeeper from the same spot with the same score against the same opponents, Le Fée leathered an equalizer into the bottom corner to secure a just share of the spoils in west London.
7. Man Utd (2–2 Draw vs. Everton)
Anyone can get undone by a wonder goal—that is the fickle beauty of this sport. However, Manchester United had not pulled themselves so far clear of Everton to remove themselves from the threat of becoming a hostage to fortune.
A resoundingly toothless first half display turned this into a 45-minute shootout and United never got to grips with the one avenue of threat for which Everton don’t even need a striker: set pieces.
6. Bournemouth (2–2 Draw vs. Newcastle)
Even Marco Rose had to admit that Bournemouth’s habit of dropping points through late goals is becoming a “real problem.” The Cherries have taken the lead in every game this season and are still winless. Bournemouth were 2–0 up at St. James’s Park after bullying Newcastle into submission only to be held to a draw thanks to Jacob Ramsey’s 88th-minute equalizer.
Rose’s solution was for his team to “put the finger in the Wunde [not bunda, as many people misheard],” meaning to look their demons straight in the eye by putting their finger in the wound.
5. Everton (2–2 Draw vs. Man Utd)
Everton had to wait for Ainsley Maitland-Niles to score an outrageous 96th-minute screamer to secure a point, but the Toffees were well worth their share of the spoils in a performance which saw them register more xG, shots, shots on target and touches in the opposition box than their lofty opponents.
4. Newcastle (2–2 Draw vs. Bournemouth)
Matthias Jaissle rightly described Newcastle’s defending as “slapstick,” which was an accurate adjective and one made all the more impressive given the German plucked it out of his second language.
3. Man City (1–0 Win vs. Coventry)
This was a war of attrition. “These kind of games, nine [times] out of 10, you finish with a bad feeling,” Enzo Maresca warned. When faced with Coventry’s stubborn low block, City could only tease apart the tight stitching once—fortunately Erling Haaland was on hand to head in.
There was little cut and thrust aside from a very well-worked goal and a nervy conclusion to proceedings left Maresca fretting over the improbable nature of the result.
2. Liverpool (2–0 Win vs. Ipswich)
This was much more like it. As Andoni Iraola admitted: “We needed this one.”
After playing with the naivety of schoolkids, Liverpool finally put together a performance befitting of actual adults in calming dismantling Ipswich Town. Alexander Isak scored his first brace for the club, Cody Gakpo continued to enjoy a new lease of life and Virgil van Dijk strolled around with the authority of old.
The tame opposition may have helped, but it was still an encouraging display. “We are starting to get to the way we want to play,” Isak warned.
1. Arsenal (2–1 Win vs. Chelsea)
There was an odd mix of brilliant balmy weather and the sense this could have major consequences on the Premier League title race. These type of fixtures feel as though they should be saved for winter chill, permutations discussed through a fog of hot air rather than chatting transfers over an iced drink.
Yet, the way that Arsenal soft-pedalled to victory against a side upheld as one of their closest challengers can only be seen as a statement. Despite tumbling behind to a disappointing set piece, Arsenal had by far the better of the remainder of the game, bombarding Emiliano Martínez’s goal while limiting this free-flowing iteration of Chelsea to just 0.35 xG.
