It was a topsy-turvy weekend in the Premier League where a couple of the teams that have been terrible thus far turned in awesome performances, while a couple who have been good finally got great results. And then two of the terribles continued to be terrible, but Spurs haven’t even played yet.

Let’s get into it.

A dominant performance for the Blues. 18 shots and nearly 1.5 expected goals away to an Everton team that have been pretty good this season. Has something clicked tactically so that Chelsea can now match its talent? Was it Caicedo’s absence causing the problems all along? (No, probably not.)

The goals for Chelsea were easy ones for Pedro Neto, where he was simply in the right place at the right time. One came off a breakout down the left where a low cross from Cole Palmer made its way through two Everton defenders to find Neto open on the far side of the goal.

The second goal was off a direct free kick that deflected to his feet and he put the ball in the corner to finish. I think the goals actually underplayed how good the performance was here — this was maybe the first time this season Chelsea looked coherent and went out and spanked a team.

I am pretty sure that the Iwobi goal in this game was headed outside the post before deflecting off a Hull player and past the goalkeeper, which would make it an Own Goal. But I haven’t seen a correction yet, and apparently the Premier League now only wants to do live corrections or none at all for betting and fantasy PL reasons, so Wobes it is.

Much like the Chelsea match, do not let the deflected own goal in reality distract from what was a dominant performance from Fulham. They limited Hull to 5 shots and 0.14 expected goals, which is impressive against anyone in the Premier League and especially against the mighty Hull City Tigers.

Is this a sign of things to come for Fulham — who desperately needed this performance — or more a case of right opponent, right time? I have no idea, that’s what makes this job so fun.

Fact number 1: Man City are steamrolling through this season from a results perspective.
Fact number 2: Their defense is porous.

They are currently giving up 0.40 expected goals more than Arsenal while only having faced one team in the top half of the table (which was Liverpool, where they scored three goals after the Gravenberch red card).

The attack is good, but the results are not sustainable. And I am likely to lose a lot of money betting against them if they are.

For Ipswich, that defense is pretty ropey and disjointed, but the attack is good. Strap in, it could be a wild ride this season for the Tractor Boys and their fans.

The good news is that Liverpool played fairly well, and Isak remains on fire. The bad news is that the Reds probably don’t get this result without a very dumb red card from Yarmoliuk. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb. So much dumb.

But Liverpool walked away with a result few teams in the Premier League get these days and they played fairly well, so take it with a smile and keep working hard on the next opponent, right? Which is Villarreal in the Champions League on Tuesday.

There are two teams in the Premier League whose management should be at panic stations right now, and neither of them is Aston Villa. One of them is Newcastle, and the other one played Brighton this weekend.

We here at TTF are on record as having loved Johan Manzambi before the World Cup started. Two months in the Premier League have not made us change our opinion on the young Swiss player one bit. In fact, we might even love him more now. He scored the lone goal in this one off a zero pressure inside cross and an open header, a play in which Newcastle looked very amateur and below the standard of the league.

I don’t think Newcastle are a bad squad, but they do seem just a little bit dumb pretty much all of the time. That’s usually the result of something not clicking in the coaching space, and Jaissle is about as unproven as Premier League head coaches come. Liefering and Salzburg barely count as coaching experience these days (especially since Rangnick left), and Al-Ahli counts not at all.

As for Villa, the ship is official stable and moving forward. This is what Emery does, and we should be used to it by now. I do genuinely love their attack, and I’m curious where they’ll end up by season’s end.

Then again, it’s an Emery team, so temper any and all explosive output expectations round down to the ground.

Are Manchester United bad? No, I do not think they are bad. Nor do I think they are very good. They are basically playing to the ability of their squad plus a general tactical inability to stomp on teams and not let up.

We sounded LOUD alarm bells about the defense trending at the end of last season, but that was glossed over by jubilance at being back in the Champions League. Judging by the public outbursts, things are not so jubilant at Old Trafford right now.

Leeds were not bad last season. Now they are kinda-sorta-almost-but-not-quite-good? Think Brentford Mark 2.0 and you’re definitely in the right neighbourhood.

DCL’s goal in this was worth your time, as the technical difficulty of touches was very high. I’ve always liked him — he just needed to stay healthy. Maybe we’ll get to see more fashion shoots if his body holds up, which I know will get Patrick excited.

As noted above, Palace are terrible. Palace also have seven points, so their table position looks better than the performances so far. Ironically, the early part of this match saw Brighton score two goals from almost nothing. The first goal was the result of an own goal header on a free kick that had basically zero pressure on the defender. It was a fabulous flick-on, assuming Palace weren’t defending their goal.

The second goal was an unbelievable strike from the halfway line that sailed over the goalkeeper and into the back of the net. Credit to Diego Gomez, because no one even attempts that these days and his had to be perfectly struck with zip and swerve to make it to the goal.

The third Brighton goal came before ten minutes were up on a comparatively pedestrian counterattack from Kostoulas into a pullback and strike at the top of the box from Ayari, and the match was officially dead and gone.

Goal four fell for Kostoulas this time in a bit of penalty box pinball, and the fifth came from a rebound off a corner that fell neatly to Jack Hinshelwood just outside the goal.

It was a very bad day at the office for Palace, but it doesn’t take that many of those to start the season to sink a head coach. I figure Sage has probably another three games to help solve the “Are they bad or just bad luck?” conundrum before the noise gets too loud to ignore. The positive is Palace don’t like spending money, period, and certainly not on head coach replacements.

As for Brighton, they have definitely benefitted from the good side of the Premier League rub so far, but they are also really good and have already played Arsenal, Chelsea, Villa, and Leeds. This might be the year where our predictions of Brighton and CL football finally come true.

Speaking of very bad days at the office… Sunderland gave up a high press into counterattack goal in the fifth minute and earned a red card in the 17th to make this a non-contest. Just the casual 29 shots and 4.1 expected goals for the Cherries, who had deserved better results throughout the campaign thus far and finally got them.

Sunderland were already better than their underlying numbers and the schedule they have faced has been a monster, so we’ll excuse the shitshow here and assume things will go well for them at some point.

Right?

Forest are hard to beat and take at least a point away from this in 73% of the simulations for this match. But it was the champions who walked out with three points and One-Nil to the Arsenal.

If feels like Glasner may have the defense dialed a little too tight at home, as Forest have three 0-1 losses and a 0-0 draw in Nottingham so far. But it’s also usually defense that is the most important element to future performance, so presumably they will walk away feeling this is a positive against Arsenal?

Arsenal fans have been underwhelmed by the performances this season, but the Gunners are on a 98-point pace and have a weird away skew to the first 15 matches of their season. They and Liverpool (!) are the only two of the top teams with a super competent defense so far, so I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

—TK

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