Leeds United Dominate Newcastle; Brighton's Statement Win
Welcome to week four of a Premier League table that cares only about how you play, not what the official standings say. Ten games, ten performances, and a ranking that resets every week. Some sides soared, some staggered, and one grand old club produced what Alan Shearer called “an absolute s*** show”.
At the top? A Leeds side that ran Newcastle into the ground. At the bottom? Newcastle, fittingly.
1. Leeds United (last week: 3rd)
Leeds United 4-1 Newcastle United
Elland Road shook. Daniel Farke’s voice probably did too.
“My boys were brilliant,” he said, and for once the post-match cliché felt like an understatement. Leeds didn’t just beat Newcastle; they hounded them, harassed them and, for an hour, humiliated them.
The first half was a barrage. Leeds poured forward in waves, Newcastle begging for the whistle. Jayden Bogle seemed to appear everywhere at once, even unwittingly getting himself on the scoresheet by blocking Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s header on its way in. It summed up the chaos.
Calvert-Lewin was monstrous. He bullied Sven Botman and Malick Thiaw from first minute to last, a classic centre-forward display of raw power and smart movement. A goal and an assist felt like the bare minimum he deserved. Noah Okafor drifted in from the left, stitched attacks together and got his goal too.
Behind them, Leeds’ midfield three – Anton Stach, Ethan Ampadu and Ao Tanaka – simply ran over Newcastle. First to everything, snapping into duels, suffocating any attempt at control. Farke called it “a top-class performance”. He was right.
Only the late consolation goal denied them the perfect night.
2. Brighton (last week: 17th)
Coventry City 0-5 Brighton
Two words set the tone: Lewis Dunk.
The Brighton captain, 34 years old and supposedly in the territory where centre-backs don’t shoot from 30 yards, stepped up and sent a leisurely, outrageous strike into the top corner. Goal-of-the-season territory. The kind of moment that turns a routine win into a statement.
Brighton didn’t need the narrative help. They dismantled Coventry with a ruthless edge that made a mockery of their injury list. Yankuba Minteh, Kaoru Mitoma and Georginio Rutter have barely kicked a ball in the league this season, yet Fabian Hurzeler’s side are the division’s most prolific attack, scoring at a rate north of three per game.
Here, they punished every Coventry mistake. Malick Yalcouye, increasingly influential, seized on slack defending to score. Charalampos Kostoulas juggled the ball through traffic for a brilliant solo effort. Dunk added that thunderbolt. Pascal Gross and Yasin Ayari, the other scorers, ran the midfield with a calm authority and clever rotation that made Coventry look a step behind in every phase.
This wasn’t just a big win. It was Brighton flexing without three of their main weapons.
3. Nottingham Forest (last week: 13th)
Aston Villa 1-2 Nottingham Forest
Oliver Glasner called the second half “really amazing to watch”. It was.
Forest came out after the interval like a side insulted by their own first half. They hunted everything. Every loose ball, every second contact, every mistake. Aston Villa couldn’t live with the intensity.
Liam Delap, the best player on the pitch, set the tone. Within a minute of the restart he thundered in a long-range strike, then went close twice more – one effort into the side-netting, another ruled out. He gave Forest a focal point Villa never found.
Xaver Schlager and James McAtee ran midfield. Schlager sprayed diagonals, arrived in the box and nearly scored with a header from a Daniel Munoz cross. McAtee’s challenge on Ian Maatsen, which led to the full-back’s injury and a red-card debate, might have been ugly, but his influence on the ball was clear.
Munoz, freed down the right especially after Maatsen limped off and Villa went down to 10, tore into the space. It felt inevitable that Forest’s winner would come from that flank. Morgan Gibbs-White added the flourish with a clever flick in the build-up.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, Neco Williams plucked a ball out of the sky as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
4. Manchester City (last week: 7th)
Manchester United 0-1 Manchester City
Strip away the VAR circus. What remained was a tactical clinic.
Phil Foden’s 23rd-minute red card should have turned the derby on its head. Instead, Enzo Maresca turned it into an advantage. He ripped up the script, sacrificed Rayan Cherki at half-time and sent on Iliman Ndiaye – a bold call, and the right one.
“They are a team that loves transitions (and) space in behind. With 10 players, we just drop waiting for them,” Maresca explained. United never found the space they crave.
Ndiaye was perfect for the job. He carried the ball, relieved pressure and gave City an outlet. Erling Haaland, not prone to overpraise, said: “When he came in, he looked a little bit like Neymar a few times there. He was amazing.”
Elliot Anderson ran himself into the ground, as he does every week now. City, down a man, controlled the game better than United did with 11. The goal came with controversy, but the performance didn’t need defending.
5. Arsenal (last week: 1st)
Sunderland 0-2 Arsenal
Champions have to win pretty. They also have to win ugly. This was the latter.
At the Stadium of Light, Arsenal didn’t dazzle as they did against Chelsea. Sunderland wouldn’t allow it. They pressed, they fought, they turned it into a scrap. Arsenal accepted the invitation.
Mikel Arteta’s side rolled up their sleeves. They dug in, relished the physical battle and waited for their moments. Christos Tzolis, roughed up at Villa Park a week earlier, responded by sprinting half the pitch to make a sliding tackle after a decision went against him. Lesson learned.
The turning point came in a brutal two-minute swing. Enzo Le Fee’s penalty was saved superbly by David Raya – the best goalkeeper in the league on current form – and almost immediately Bruno Guimaraes came off the bench and ripped one into the net from distance.
Sunderland kept coming. Brian Brobbey kept battering away at the Arsenal back line. But those days when Arsenal folded under pressure? They belong somewhere else now.
6. Hull City (last week: 16th)
Chelsea 2-2 Hull City
Relegation fodder, they said. Hull are making a mockery of that.
Eight points from four games, the third-best start by a promoted side in Premier League history, and at Stamford Bridge they weren’t clinging on for dear life in the final minutes. They were trying to win it.
Sergej Jakirovic’s team sat in their usual narrow 5-4-1 without the ball, compact and disciplined. But when they broke, they broke with intent. Mohamed Belloumi, all craft and guile, was at the heart of it again, scoring twice and tormenting Chelsea’s fragile defence.
The late chance summed them up. Deep into stoppage time, with Chelsea throwing on every attacker they could find, Regan Slater was still pressing in the 92nd minute, robbing Valentin Barco. Hull don’t stop running. They don’t stop believing they belong here, either.
Had Mohamed-Ali Cho made a cleaner connection with a superb Ryan Giles cross, they’d have left with three points and another round of “we told you so” for the doubters.
7. Fulham (last week: 20th)
Liverpool 0-0 Fulham
Alvaro Arbeloa finally got the version of Fulham he’s been demanding.
After a brutal start to the season and some stinging words from their own coach, Fulham walked into Anfield and walked out with more than a point. They left with a performance.
David Affengruber, on his Premier League debut, slotted in at centre-back. Alex Iwobi, freed to play higher on the left, drifted into what Arbeloa called the “inside winger in the pocket” role, dovetailing with Antonee Robinson. Liverpool barely laid a glove on them.
Josh King did what Josh King does: ran in behind, twisted Dominik Szoboszlai inside out with a sharp chop, stretched the game and reminded everyone that Fulham fans should savour him while they can.
The only thing missing was a goal. Gonzalo Garcia thought he’d found it, only for Jeremy Jacquet to clear off the line. Fulham left with a clean sheet and, crucially, a blueprint.
8. Bournemouth (last week: 5th)
Bournemouth 2-2 Brentford
Bournemouth must be sick of compliments.
Marco Rose’s side keep playing eye-catching football and keep failing to win. Against Brentford, it happened again. The patterns were sharp, the movement clever, the intent obvious. The finishing? Not at the same level.
One second-half move summed them up: Ryan Christie, Alex Scott, Tyler Adams and Marcus Tavernier carved Brentford open from inside their own half. It was beautiful. Then Rayan arrived on the end of it and dragged his shot. Story of their season.
Scott impressed again in everything but his finishing. Antonio Silva, Rayan and Scott all missed big chances. Evanilson, leading the line, knitted play together with intelligent hold-up work and runs in behind, repeatedly found by Silva’s passing from deep. Brentford’s coach Keith Andrews called him “a tricky customer”.
The problem is familiar: Bournemouth led, again, and couldn’t hold on, again. Four games, four leads surrendered. Individual mistakes continue to cost them what their football deserves.
9. Ipswich Town (last week: 19th)
Crystal Palace 2-3 Ipswich Town
Chaos, quality and a lot of questions for Crystal Palace. Ipswich, though, walked away with justification for Gary O’Neil’s belief that his team deserved the win.
The numbers back him. More shots, more on target, more touches in the box, an xG at least double Palace’s. With Axel Disasi sent off before half-time, Ipswich had a man advantage for nearly an hour. It didn’t always show. At 2-2, Palace piled on the pressure and Anan Khalaili somehow missed a free header at the back post.
O’Neil pointed instead to the chances Ipswich wasted just after the break. He also reserved special praise for Leif Davis, who delivered one of the performances of the weekend from left-back. Davis whipped in a superb cross for the first goal, scored the second himself, and then climbed to head against the bar for the third to be bundled in.
Three goals, three decisive involvements from the same flank. Not bad for a defender.
10. Sunderland (last week: 2nd)
Sunderland 0-2 Arsenal
If you want a masterclass in back-to-goal centre-forward play, you start with Brian Brobbey against Arsenal.
By the 94th minute, Nordi Mukiele zipped a pass into his feet. For the ninth time in the game, Brobbey pinned Ezri Konsa, shielded the ball and laid it off to a Sunderland teammate. Old-fashioned note-taking, not analytics, caught it. The impression was clear: he was almost unplayable.
Sunderland played to his strengths. Direct, high-tempo, physical. Within seconds of kick-off, Granit Xhaka robbed Myles Lewis-Skelly. Inside two minutes, Brobbey had barged Konsa to the turf. Arsenal got the message early.
The match hinged on that brutal two-minute spell: Enzo Le Fee’s penalty saved by David Raya, then Bruno Guimaraes thundering in at the other end. Sunderland never stopped coming, never stopped believing they could rattle the champions.
They lost the game. They won plenty of admirers.
11. Chelsea (last week: 8th)
Chelsea 2-2 Hull City
Chelsea score. Chelsea concede. Repeat.
That’s 20 straight Premier League games without a clean sheet, and the latest instalment at Stamford Bridge was as predictable as it was entertaining. Cole Palmer, Joao Pedro and Morgan Rogers combined slickly for an early opener. It looked rehearsed. The defending that followed looked like a blooper reel.
“Don’t let the ball bounce” is defending 101. Chelsea let it bounce twice in the build-up to Hull’s equaliser. Malo Gusto, Jorrel Hato and Wesley Fofana all played their part in the mess.
“If you are soft or if you are not prepared, you will get punished and we have been punished in that way,” Xabi Alonso said. He could have been talking about the broader issues too: the gaping holes in midfield without Moises Caicedo, the vulnerability in transition, the fragility that surfaces whenever opponents turn up the press.
And yet, in the final minutes, Chelsea had Palmer, Rogers, Joao Pedro, Estevao and Danny Welbeck all on the pitch, swarming forward. At the other end, Hull were still snapping at their heels, Valentin Barco getting mugged by Regan Slater in stoppage time.
Chelsea are box office. Just not in the way Alonso would like.
12. Everton (last week: 9th)
Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Everton
David Moyes left north London with a question hanging over his team: was that a point earned or a chance wasted?
Spurs started fast, almost blowing Everton away in the opening 15 minutes. Then they faded. Jordan Pickford’s first save, from Matheus Fernandes just after half-time, was a tame effort. His second, in the 89th minute, came only because of his own poor pass moments earlier.
Everton had to dig in. Jarrad Branthwaite was immense, throwing himself in front of shots, twice blocking Fernandes and Sandro Tonali. James Garner patrolled in front of him, snapping into tackles and then sparking Everton’s best attacking move, combining with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to set up Brennan Johnson.
Dewsbury-Hall later had a chance himself after Antonin Kinsky played “the most dangerous pass in football” – the straight ball into midfield under pressure – at precisely the wrong time, just as Alisson did for Liverpool against Fulham.
Everton were organised, competitive, hard to beat. But with Spurs short on belief, could they have been braver?
13. Tottenham Hotspur (last week: 14th)
Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Everton
Spurs are stuck on repeat.
For a quarter of an hour, they looked like a team trying to remember how to be themselves: bright, energetic, front-foot. The problem? Even during that spell, they didn’t really look like scoring.
Matheus Fernandes, teed up by Savio in the sixth minute, had to shoot. Instead, he rolled his foot over the ball, delayed, and the chance disappeared. That moment felt symbolic.
Once the early fizz faded, Spurs retreated into their shell. Safe passes, slow tempo, sideways and backwards. One sequence in the 38th minute summed up the mood: Micky van de Ven won the ball, Sandro Tonali played a six-yard pass to Fernandes, got it back, moved it to Rodrigo Bentancur, who returned it. Nothing gained. Everything laboured.
Late on, Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Bergvall exchanged a pointless bounce pass that visibly irritated Roberto De Zerbi on the touchline. The fans shared the feeling.
Two shots on target. One greeted with ironic cheers. A team drained of confidence, and it shows.
14. Brentford (last week: 18th)
Bournemouth 2-2 Brentford
This was not the Brentford that tore through Spurs and dominated Leeds for a half at Elland Road.
They escaped with a point, and Kevin Schade, scorer of both goals, admitted as much, calling his team “lucky” to leave with anything. His brace accounted for Brentford’s only two shots on target. One of them was a gift from Bournemouth goalkeeper Djordje Petrovic.
Brentford never found their rhythm, even when ahead. Bournemouth’s wastefulness, not Brentford’s control, kept them in the game. Mamadou Sangare, so influential in the opening weeks, was quieter, involved in the build-up to the first goal but short of his earlier levels.
The bigger issue is up front. Igor Thiago is still waiting for his first Premier League goal and offered little here. Right now, Brentford’s attacking threat feels alarmingly dependent on Schade’s finishing and not much else.
15. Liverpool (last week: 4th)
Liverpool 0-0 Fulham
Andoni Iraola put it simply: “It’s the kind of game that you need to win sometimes with a set play or a moment of brilliance.”
Liverpool produced neither.
They had their dead-ball moments – a Victor Munoz header saved by Bernd Leno, a late half-chance for Alexander Isak – but nothing that felt inevitable. From open play, they were flat. Bradley Barcola looked short of sharpness. Florian Wirtz never got going, save for one clever flick that released Barcola, whose cutback failed to find Isak.
After back-to-back wins over Ipswich and Atletico Madrid, Liverpool looked leggy and short on ideas. Fulham, on paper, were there to be put away. In reality, Liverpool lacked both the energy and the quality to break them down.
It was a reminder: this is still a work in progress, not a finished machine.
16. Aston Villa (last week: 15th)
Aston Villa 1-2 Nottingham Forest
Unai Emery didn’t sugarcoat it.
“How we played today, we didn’t deserve more,” he said. He had complaints about James McAtee’s challenge on Ian Maatsen, which forced Villa to play the final stages with 10 men, but none about the scoreline. “It’s not an excuse in the second half — we played so, so poor.”
Forest had 22 shots to Villa’s seven. Emery emptied his bench by the 63rd minute trying to change the flow, only to see Maatsen limp off and leave them short.
Midfield was the biggest problem. Within a minute of the restart, Ross Barkley and Boubacar Kamara both coughed up possession in dangerous areas. Kamara’s error led directly to Liam Delap’s opener. Up front, Nicolas Jackson was supposed to provide a focal point, but after a first-half booking Emery hauled him off, worried about a second yellow. Tammy Abraham replaced him and barely featured.
The afternoon ended with Johan Manzambi volleying his first touch for the club straight out of play. It felt about right.
17. Manchester United (last week: 10th)
Manchester United 0-1 Manchester City
Forget the scoreline. Forget the VAR decision that let Erling Haaland’s goal stand. On performance alone, this was grim for Manchester United.
Phil Foden’s red card, bizarrely, seemed to harm United more than City. With a man advantage, United slowed everything down, passed without conviction and created almost nothing. Their best efforts came from range – Marcus Rashford and Kobbie Mainoo both struck the post – and they didn’t register a shot on target after the dismissal until the 70th minute.
Bruno Fernandes drifted through the game, strangely subdued. Michael Carrick’s changes raised eyebrows too. Benjamin Sesko, an out-and-out striker, stayed on the bench far too long against a side down to 10 men.
It was a chastening reminder of the gulf between the squads, and of how far United still are from the standards they claim to be chasing.
18. Crystal Palace (last week: 11th)
Crystal Palace 2-3 Ipswich Town
Pierre Sage didn’t dodge it. “We have to prevent the crosses and be more aggressive in the box,” he said. He could have gone on all night.
Palace’s defending was chaotic again, and this time there was no escape. Axel Disasi’s red card made life harder, but it didn’t explain the basics going missing.
Emersonn, Ipswich’s striker, found himself with a free header between Disasi – appealing for offside instead of marking – and Honest Ahanor, stranded in no man’s land. For the second goal, Daichi Kamada backed off, leaving Tyrick Mitchell exposed two-against-one. Anan Khalaili and Chris Richards lost their men. For the third, Will Hughes and Ahanor failed to stop Julio Enciso’s cross, and seconds later Khalaili allowed Leif Davis to win yet another header in the box.
Then came the moment that will haunt Palace: Khalaili, unmarked at the back post with the score at 2-2, somehow missed. Questions mount for Sage. Answers, at the moment, are in short supply.
19. Coventry City (last week: 6th)
Coventry City 0-5 Brighton
Frank Lampard tried to cling to the positives. “I thought we did some good stuff but then the game became very difficult for us,” he said. The problem was how quickly the “good stuff” vanished.
Coventry’s fragility was exposed again. They had already conceded a poor second goal – Aurele Amenda simply had to get to the ball before Malick Yalcouye and didn’t – when Taiwo Awoniyi was sent off early in the second half. At 10 men, chasing Brighton, the contest was effectively over.
Defensively, the same themes keep returning. Against Hull in their previous home game, the cracks were obvious. Here, Brighton were just sharper. Kostoulas beat Bobby Thomas to the ball by a split-second to win the penalty for the third goal, a moment that summed up the afternoon: Brighton a step ahead everywhere.
Coventry did carve out chances, especially in a lively spell around the half-hour mark, but even with Bart Verbruggen in inspired form, the lack of conviction in front of goal is becoming a worrying habit.
20. Newcastle United (last week: 12th)
Leeds United 4-1 Newcastle United
Alan Shearer didn’t hold back on X, calling it “an absolute s*** show from the Toon” at half-time. He was being kind.
By then, Newcastle were 3-0 down. It got worse before it got marginally better. For the first hour, this was an embarrassment.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin bullied Botman and Thiaw mercilessly. Every high ball felt like a problem. In midfield, the loss of Nico Gonzalez to concussion in the 19th minute forced Eddie Howe into a change he didn’t want: 18-year-old Sean Steur alongside 20-year-old Lewis Miley. It was too much to ask against Stach, Ampadu and Tanaka, who swarmed all over them.
Steur’s loose pass led directly to Leeds’ second – officially credited to Jayden Bogle, but spiritually belonging to Calvert-Lewin, who soared above both centre-backs to win the initial header.
Newcastle were overrun in the middle, brittle at the back and toothless up front until a raft of substitutions finally sparked some life. Six of their seven shots came after the changes. By then, the damage was long done.
From top of this table to rock bottom in one gameweek. The performance rankings don’t care about reputation. Newcastle just found that out the hard way.
