Manchester United and Chelsea will need to improve when the Premier League returns from its international break, while Manchester City hopes to maintain their undefeated start to the season.
In addition, Tottenham, Liverpool, and Arsenal are performing well, with 10 points out of a potential 12. Any of these clubs has a chance to take the lead in the league if champions City falters against West Ham, who are off to a fast start, at the London Stadium.
Think about these three discussion topics before this weekend’s events:
Will Brighton exacerbate Manchester United’s issue?
Losses against Tottenham and Arsenal have already knocked Manchester United six points off the top of the rankings, shattering hopes for the team to win the Premier League for the first time since 2013.
The previous season was Brighton’s first-ever victory at Old Trafford, so it wouldn’t be astonishing if they repeated the feat.
United will take facing Roberto De Zerbi’s squad at a higher level after stumbling in home victories over Wolves and Nottingham Forest last month.
Brighton has won three of its first four games and scored more goals in the Premier League than any other side, even though it lost some of its most key players.
Erik ten Hag is upbeat. The Two recent arrivals, Rasmus Hojlund and Sofyan Amrabat, will provide United a much-needed lift.
Hojlund made a great impression on his Arsenal debut as a substitute before to the international break, but Amrabat hasn’t played in a match since signing on loan from Fiorentina on deadline day.
Money cannot be used to buy Chelsea goals.
Mauricio Pochettino’s Chelsea has only won one of his first four league games as manager, despite Chelsea spending the most money of any Premier League side during the summer transfer window.
In three transfer windows, the Blues have spent about £1 billion ($1.25 billion) on new players under the management of a consortium headed by Todd Boehly.
Still, two weeks before, in their 1-0 home defeat to Forest, they were plagued by the same lack of imagination.
Despite experiencing the worst Premier League season in decades in 2022–2023, Chelsea maintains that they are investing heavily on young players with the potential to become stars in the future and are playing the long game.
But Stamford Bridge will be worried if Bournemouth, who have lost all of their league games under Andoni Iraola, lose on Sunday.
Newcastle is off to a slow start.
After a 20-year break, Newcastle will return to the Champions League next week. But the Magpies are receiving a little reality check after their spectacular rise, which was funded by Saudi money.
After losing three of their first four games, Eddie Howe’s team’s chances of winning the title have been seriously diminished.
Howe may defend the slow start by pointing to a challenging game schedule.
He must, however, recover from consecutive defeats to City, Liverpool, and Brighton this coming weekend against Brentford in order to gather his thoughts before heading to the Champions League on Tuesday to face AC Milan.