What we learned in the Premier League this weekend: Man United not up to the challenge, Havertz can lead Arsenal charge and more

Man United not up for the fight in mauling by Tigers

Manchester United legend and Match of the Day pundit Wayne Rooney criticised his former side for being “too passive” in their shock 2-0 defeat to newly promoted Hull.

Head coach Michael Carrick contested his old teammate’s assessment, but the numbers paint a picture of a team concerningly lacking intensity.

United, who had not lost any of their previous 12 opening-day games against Premier League newcomers, fell well short in the physical battle, losing 63% of their first-half duels as Hull made them pay with two well-worked set-piece goals.

While Harry Maguire, as you’d expect, won almost all his aerial duels (3/4), centre-back partner Ayden Heaven was outfought in that respect, winning only two out of six.

With Matthijs De Ligt still out of the picture after being sidelined since November, United have an issue to address there – at least in the short term.

“It was never going to be perfect,” Carrick told TNT Sports as he reflected on a disastrous afternoon at the MKM Stadium, and he’s not wrong – but the ease with which Nobel Mendy was able to head home Hull’s second goal must have set alarm bells ringing for the United boss.

The Tigers’ record signing, on his debut, had ample room to find the corner from Regan Slater’s wicked free-kick as Luke Shaw and especially Bryan Mbeumo showed little willingness attack the ball.

United captain Bruno Fernandes acknowledged his side’s performance had fallen short from a physical perspective.

“We needed to press more, be more aggressive, and then again we need to work on set-plays and not concede these types of goals,” he said after the match.

United were by no means the worst Premier League team at defending set-pieces last season, but they did give up 13.3 Expected Goals (xG) from dead-ball situations – the seventh-most in the division.

They certainly needed to improve on that front – and on the evidence of Matchweek 1, when only three sides (Tottenham, Bournemouth and Newcastle) allowed more set-piece xG, there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Havertz hits his stride as he gets the nod over Gyokeres

Kai Havertz asserted his claim to being Arsenal’s first-choice No9 by picking up where he left off at the end of the Gunners’ title-winning 2025/26 campaign.

Opening the scoring in the champions’ slick, dominant 3-0 winners at home to Coventry – the visitors playing their first Premier League game for 25 years – inside 15 minutes, Havertz made it four goals in four Arsenal starts in all competitions – his best run since arriving in English football with Chelsea six years ago.

Having also struck three times for Germany at the World Cup, the 27-year-old is in peak form at what should be the peak period of his career.

Since returning from a serious knee injury in January, Havertz has struck nine times in all competitions at an average of once every 126 minutes.

Add in his five assists and the former Bayer Leverkusen man averages a goal contribution every 81 minutes this calendar year.

His competitor for Arsenal’s centre-forward role, Viktor Gyokeres, pushed on after a slow start to life with the Gunners, notching 14 goals (one around every 143 minutes) and 17 overall goal contributions (one around every 118 minutes) in all competitions between the turn of the year and the end of last term – but what could be a deciding factor for Mikel Arteta is which of his two frontline strikers tends to produce with the goods when it matters most.

Havertz vs Gyokeres in 2026 (all competitions)

Havertz has a proven track record of coming up clutch: he bagged the decisive goal against Burnley to put Arsenal on the cusp of the title and opened the scoring in the Champions League final, as well as netting the winner against Sporting CP in the quarter-finals of the latter competition.

Gary Neville, commentating for Sky Sports, highlighted Havertz’s “mentality, movement and finishing in crucial moments” – and that might just give him the edge over Gyokeres.

Gyokeres did score some important goals in 2025/26 – including breaking the deadlock late on in March’s tense 2-0 win over Everton – and there will be a place for his more direct style, but he’s yet to show he matches Havertz for consistently making the difference in the biggest moments.

Spurs’ big spending fails to herald new era

There are still 37 games to go, so we shouldn’t get carried away, but Tottenham’s feeble 3-0 loss away to Brentford was on a par with their worst moments of last season’s near-relegation campaign.

It’s almost two years since Spurs won a Premier League game after going behind – and three years since they did so on the road.

Tottenham have spent more than £200m this summer in a bid to steer well clear of a relegation scrap this time around; so far, all they have to show for it is their joint heaviest defeat since being thrashed 5-1 at Liverpool in April 2025.

This latest humiliation points to a profound mentality problem that’s persisted under successive managers, of whom Roberto De Zerbi is the fourth in as many years.

Spurs conceded the first goal 20 times in the Premier League last term; they lost 13 of those matches, including five by two goals or more.

Saturday’s result wasn’t some kind of freak occurrence; Tottenham were toothless throughout, their 0.57 xG the second-lowest on the opening weekend with the exception of Aston Villa (who played with 10 men for the best part of an hour at Brighton).

De Zerbi’s side also mustered just three touches in the opposition box during the first half – the fewest of any team across Matchweek 1 bar Villa – and only 17 overall to Brentford's 39.

Spurs did a little more to take the game to Brentford in the second half – but they were 2-0 down at the break 3-0 down within four minutes of the restart, so it was immaterial.

Unless they can draw some resilience from somewhere – and, ideally, stop going behind in the first place – Tottenham could be in for another long campaign, no matter who they sign.

Chelsea might have the Premier League’s best front three

Xabi Alonso will have preferred a less chaotic start to his Chelsea reign, but he was pleased on the whole as the Blues saw off West London rivals Fulham 3-2 at Craven Cottage, telling Match of the Day: “I think it was a professional performance…To win away in the Premier League is normally tough…Happy with the performance. It is a good first day.”

Alonso’s front three fired exactly as he’d have wanted them to – and together, man-of-the-match Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers and Joao Pedro might just be the most dangerous attacking trifecta in the Premier League.

All three were on the scoresheet – the latter after barely 30 seconds – with Palmer and Pedro also assisting each other; all three looked telepathically in tune.

Chelsea, as expected given their latest change in the dugout, are still a work in progress – defensively, they were invitingly open at times, and goalkeeper Robert Sanchez will fall come under further scrutiny for a shaky performance in which he was at fault for Fulham’s first goal – but Palmer, Rogers and Pedro are only just getting started and could blow plenty of teams away between now and May.

Guehi holds it together as Maresca channels Guardiola

Manchester City left it late to pull off a less than convincing 2-1 home win over Bournemouth, but new manager Enzo Maresca showed one of the reasons he was picked to succeed Pep Guardiola.

In a curveball akin to those so frequently thrown by the tactical genius he once worked under, Maresca deployed Marc Guehi not at centre-back but in a holding midfield role.

And the England international well and truly stepped up, impressive out of position and scoring Man City’s equaliser.

Aside from heading his side level from game-changing substitute Rayan Cherki’s corner (Cherki’s first of two assists), Guehi took the game by the scruff of the neck in midfield as City, despite struggling to get things going in the final third – not helped by that rarest of occurrences: an Erling Haaland off-day – inevitably dominated possession.

The 26-year-old completed 95% of his passes (the second-most in the match behind teammate Abdukodir Khusanov at centre-back) and won almost three-quarters of his duels, looking unfazed in his unfamiliar role.

“It’s a solution,” Maresca said post-match of his decision to shift Guehi into midfield. “I don’t know if it can be for the next game [and City have agreed a deal for highly rated Lille and Morocco midfielder Ayyoub Boaddi], but it’s a solution. We need different solutions.”