The Premier League’s Dramatic Opening Act

Welcome to The Debrief, Box Score’s freewheeling conversation about the sports we love.

Neil Squires
Author and journalist, former chief sportswriter for the Express.

Neil McLeman
Broadcaster and journalist covering the Premier League, golf and tennis, former sportswriter for the Mirror.

Paul Mahoney
Award-winning journalist, former sportswriter for the Independent and Esquire.

After just five matches, Manchester City and Arsenal look like they may have separated from the pack. Is the Premier League title already a two-horse race?

Paul Mahoney: We all thought it was until Saturday, didn’t we? Brighton turning Arsenal over is fantastic. Like we said at the beginning of the season, this race is wide open. Even Manchester City on Sunday were basically playing pingpong with Sunderland. No one is making a statement that they’re hard to beat. I think that this season the league could be won with 80 points. You’re not going to need 95 points to win it this year.

Neil Squires: I don’t think it is a two-horse race. Over the course of the season, you’ve got to look at the heavyweights with the big squads that can last the pace. You’ve still got Liverpool in there, who are unbeaten. They haven’t looked fantastic, but they haven’t lost yet. Liverpool is just one win behind Arsenal, so it’s not all closed up.

Personally, I think Arsenal still look like the best side. But City have had a great start to the season. They’ve done everything that could be asked of them. Haaland’s banging the goals in, so they’re at the top. I still think Arsenal will win it, but I don’t see it as a two-horse race.

Neil McLeman: Put it this way—if you have to pick the two most likely teams to win it on the evidence of the first five games, you’d have to say Arsenal and Manchester City. I think it was good that Arsenal lost Saturday, because the way they played at the start of the season was worryingly good for everyone else. City as well—I think that was a huge win for them in the Manchester derby the previous weekend, for so many reasons. But I do think those two are the teams to beat this season.

I thought Chelsea would be there, too, but they’ve been pretty terrible. I still think they’ll come back. With a new manager, they’ve got improvement to make. But if you offered me a bet on the two teams to win the title, I’d definitely take Manchester City and Arsenal.

Who are the biggest surprises this season and which teams have the most reason to worry?

Neil McLeman: It’s been a really interesting start to the season. It’s been unpredictable, and I think that’s a good thing. Last season, in the top eight, we had Sunderland, Bournemouth and Brighton—they all qualified for Europe. Now the top eight after five games include Brighton, Brentford, Leeds, Hull and Everton. So it’s really been quite varied. Hull lost to Newcastle on Saturday, but for a promoted team to start so well, they’d be the big surprise so far this season, along with Leeds, who I’m glad to say have been doing really well.

The big worry for me is Manchester United. I watched the game Sunday and I thought they were pretty awful. I just don’t think they’ve kicked on from last season, and I think that’s a big issue. They were pedestrian, so lacking in imagination, so lacking in effort, that I think that’s a real worry for Manchester United.

Neil Squires: To echo Neil, Hull City have had an incredible start to the season—everyone had them down as nailed-on for relegation, but eighth place is an incredible start for them. Ipswich, another promoted team, is in 11th, so that’s pretty good, too.

But, for me, Leeds United have had a really strong start—they’ve only conceded three goals and they’ve built really strongly from the back. You can see real incremental improvement from last season, when they stayed up quite comfortably after being promoted. I don’t think they’ve necessarily got the squad to challenge for the title, but they could stick around this season. They look like a really solid team—hard to beat away from Elland Road as well as at home, where it’s a total fortress.

In terms of teams to worry about, Bournemouth haven’t won a game yet, and they’ve got European games to fit into the schedule this year. They haven’t got the biggest squad. Manager Marco Rosa is still settling in there, and he might be looking over his shoulder a little bit. If you’re on the sack-race watch in the Premier League, I think the Bournemouth situation looks a little bit uncomfortable.

Paul Mahoney: I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Brighton. If you had to guess who has the best goal difference so far, you’d think it would be Manchester City, but Brighton have got a better goal difference than them. They’ve had three clean sheets, and Pascal Groß has scored three goals already. That’s caught everyone unawares—I don’t think anyone saw Brighton doing that in the first five games. They look like a really solid team working together.

The team that’s surprising in a bad way, as Neil McLeman just mentioned, is Manchester United—they’re looking like they’re doing the same thing with manager Michael Carrick that they did with Ole Gunnar Solskjær. This afternoon, Gary Neville said that they played the worst 15 minutes in the second half that he’s seen Manchester United play since he was 5 years old. He’s obviously raving mad about the poor performances this season. He called them mannequins, and that’s what they look like—just walking around. So you wonder whether it’s [club co-owner] Jim Ratcliffe—he’s been saying some mad things about wanting to leave the UK because it’s not working very well, and the whole thing translates to Manchester United. He doesn’t seem to care about solving problems. Ratliffe is a high-profile shareholder in United. If he’s speaking like that, what does that tell you about what’s going on in the boardroom? That’s clearly translating into the changing room and onto the pitch, because United look an absolute mess.

Also worth mentioning—a quote resurfaced this week from David Moyes, who took over after Alex Ferguson. Back in 2013, Moyes said Manchester United must improve in a number of areas, including “passing, creating chances and defending.” Thirteen years later, the same stuff still applies. United are in a lot of trouble.

Neil McLeman: I agree that Brighton are the closest challengers to those top two. They’ve been outstanding with two results they've had in this last week: winning at Manchester United and beating Arsenal. Paul mentioned Pascal Groß—he is probably the best player in the Premier League so far. The way they’re coached, and the way they pressed Arsenal to death Saturday, it was an absolutely outstanding team display. From start to finish, they squeezed the life out of clearly the best team in England over the last 12 months. It will be really interesting to see how long they can keep this up physically. Brighton are a selling club. They sell players every year, yet they maintain this high standard

With all their talent, Chelsea should be a team that is competing for the title, but the results so far tell a different story. What’s holding Chelsea back?

Neil Squires: They’ve conceded 12 goals, the most in the Premier League this season. Xabi Alonso has come in with a really interesting attacking doctrine, and the Morgan Rogers-Cole Palmer partnership is working nicely, but the balance of the whole operation is clearly not right. They’re just so vulnerable. They’re in 10th place at the moment, which is where they finished last year, and last year was a disaster. Personally, I think they’ll pick up, but Alonso has to recalibrate that side from where they are at the moment because they’re just so leaky.

Paul Mahoney: With Chelsea, it’s the defense. Alonso loves this back three with two wing-backs, and that might have worked in Europe, but it clearly isn’t working in the Premier League. To add to Neil’s stat of 12 goals conceded, which is the worst in the league, they’ve also conceded six set-piece goals, also the worst in the league. And they’ve faced 32 shots on target, also the worst in the league. So there’s some reshuffling of Alonso’s defensive philosophy that needs working on. I think the three-week international break is absolutely right on time for him to have a rethink about what they’re doing going forward.

Neil McLeman: Absolutely agree. It’s the defense, and what’s interesting is that at the start of the season, they thought they needed to bring in a goalkeeper, so they brought in Emmy Martínez, a World Cup winner, and he hasn’t looked great either. Meanwhile, Aston Villa’s replacement for Martinez, Zion Suzuki, looked like a world-beater on Saturday against Spurs.

Chelsea will get better. Xabi Alonso is a great coach, and he’ll have time to sort them out, especially since Chelsea is not playing in Europe, which is going to be an advantage domestically. It’s been a pretty shocking start, and I thought they’d be really good this season. There’s time for them—they’re not going to stay in 10th place, but they’re not going to win the title either.

Neil Squires: Do you think it will help or hinder Chelsea that Todd Boehly has disappeared from ownership and it’s just Clearlake Capital now—a bit less complicated ownership? 

Neil McLeman: I always question how much off-the-field stuff really affects these players. I doubt it, basically. The squad isn’t balanced—the midfield isn’t right, and the way the team is set up at the moment isn’t right. I’d say that’s a bigger factor for me than anything off the field.

Tottenham spent more than £300 million on transfers to improve a roster that barely stayed up last season. Spurs now sit 20th in the table. Is this the Curse of Harry Kane? What’s the real problem for Spurs and how can they solve it?

Neil McLeman: I just think it’s extraordinary. Appointing Roberto De Zerbi right at the end of March was a risk, because he changed the style—he’s got a very particular way of playing—but it worked. He kept them up, and they looked good in the last seven games. They only lost two, one of them being the first game. And you thought, this summer they brought in some good players, spent a lot of money, this is the relaunch. And instead it’s déjà vu all over again, just like the last two seasons. It’s remarkable.

De Zerbi is obviously not happy about the attitude and work rate of the players. Ange Postecoglou is gone, Thomas Frank is gone, and now we’ve got De Zerbi facing the same questions. When we talk about the fascinating things to watch this season, how Spurs and De Zerbi go from here is going to be a great watch.

Neil Squires: They’ve got to find a way of scoring goals—they’ve only scored two so far this season in the league, and those came in a desperate losing cause against Aston Villa. It didn’t get them anywhere. It is remarkable, with the talent that appears to be in that squad, how disjointed it remains. You could see De Zerbi blowing up at some point with frustration about what he’s getting out of them at the moment. This international break is good for them, just to reassess what’s happening. When they come back and play Man United on Oct. 10, that’s going to be a fascinating game. But they’ve got to get better, otherwise he might even walk—De Zerbi is an emotional guy, and I wouldn’t think he can take this for much longer.

Paul Mahoney: I saw De Zerbi being interviewed yesterday, and I think he looks completely lost. I thought he looked like a beaten man. If he gets to January and Spurs are still at the bottom, he could be the first manager to get sacked this season. But Spurs are a strange beast. They’ve got an enormous stadium, and it doesn’t take long in a stadium that big, full of your own home supporters, to make a bad situation even worse. The players have got such low confidence, and they’ve got an enormous home support getting on them all the time. It’s self-perpetuating. But it’s great fun to watch. You don’t expect to see a club, with the money they’ve spent, going into this first international break bottom of the table. It’s great.

Neil McLeman: Just to pick up on the lack of goals—I think they need more from Dominic Solanke, their £65 million striker. They’re so reliant on him, and he hasn’t scored this season. They need him to get going and start leading the line. They brought in Mykhailo Mudryk on loan, and they bought Omar Marmoush on loan from Man City, and Savio as well—but they need someone to fill that role. It’s funny that the question mentions Harry Kane, because you do think there’s a lack of on-field leadership. I just think a lot of the players who’ve been there a while, like captain Mickey van de Ven, and the ones who’ve been brought in really need to step up.

VAR controversies continue to persist in the open stretch of the season, with the Manchester Derby alone producing multiple VAR arguments last weekend. What, if anything, can be done to fix video-assisted replay?

Paul Mahoney: I have a big bee in my bonnet with VAR. It’s like VAR have invented an industry for themselves. There was a time, not too distant, where referees used to officiate the games, and now they’re part of the show. I find it gets in the way of the football. I’ve got some West Ham fans who are mates of mine. They were despondent about getting relegated, but they’re loving the season this year down in the Championship, which doesn’t use VAR, because they say the joy of scoring goals has been returned to them. It’s a story I hear from lots of friends at other clubs in the lower divisions—they can’t get over how interfering VAR is in the Premier League.

I think football as an industry rather enjoys the controversy and sees it as a USP [unique selling proposition] because you never hear this conversation with cricket, tennis or the NFL, which all have similar video-assisted officiating systems. It’s just football that seems to get it wrong all the time. Take the Manchester derby—they’re sending out apologies afterward. “Sorry about that.” These things can win or lose you titles and cost clubs hundreds of millions of pounds by the end of the season. Sending out apologies for making mistakes just doesn’t cut it. There was an incident with Declan Rice again Saturday, deliberately tripping up a player, and there are no consequences—they describe it as a “petulant kick.” They’re inventing their own language to decide what they do or don’t do.

Neil Squires: Personally, I think VAR should be there as the antidote to a Maradona-Hand-of-God-in-86-type howler.

Paul Mahoney: Get over it! [laughs]

Neil Squires: The problem with VAR, oddly, is human error. In other sports, it works because there isn’t human input in the same way, but, in football, the decisions causing the problems are still ones where a person in the VAR booth misses something like Enzo Fernández interfering with play, offside, in the Manchester derby. Arsenal had a penalty earlier in the season that should have been given against Aston Villa. These are the problems.

But for these tiny margins, I think there should be a time limit. If they can’t see a difference definitively within 90 seconds, without hunting for different angles, then the referee’s on-field decision stays. That’s my improvement for VAR.

Neil McLeman: In tennis, when you do line calling, it’s either in or out, a pretty clear call. The trouble with VAR in football is that all these calls are pretty subjective, to say the least. So even if you rewatch it, we could disagree among ourselves—we’re never going to solve it.

VAR has opened a Pandora’s box in the sense of what a "clear and obvious error" actually is. It’s like being pregnant—either it’s an error or it isn’t. I think a time limit is a good idea, but there’s got to be some way to bring things back. VAR should be a safety net, but they shouldn’t be re-refereeing the game.

That Manchester derby, where some numpty in the booth clearly didn’t know the rules, I was watching it and thought I was questioning my own sanity. I’ve watched football for 40 years, he’s offside, of course he’s interfering with play, what’s going on? You’ve got a FIFA referee, Michael Oliver, in the middle of the action, getting overruled by someone in a box somewhere who clearly doesn’t get it. I think the way forward is to bring the power back to the on-field officials and let them have more control, and just save VAR for the really, really egregious errors—difficult as that is to define.

What teams, players or storylines will you be following most closely in the months ahead?

Neil Squires: I’m going to be keeping a close eye on Brentford, who are one of the teams unbeaten at the top. They consistently outperform what’s expected of them season after season, and this season they’ve gotten even better. They have a very underrated manager in Keith Andrews. It will be interesting to see whether they can keep it up over the course of the season.

For individual players, I’ll be keeping a close eye on Carlos Baleba once he actually pulls a Manchester United shirt on. He should be pulling on a Superman cape to try and save that team when he arrives. They need a lot of energy in midfield, and he might be the man to bring it. They say he might be ready for the first game after the international break, so can he make a difference?

Neil McLeman: I’m also watching Manchester United. The soap opera is whether Michael Carrick is going to go the same way as Ole Gunnar Solskjær and the others. They’ve had this history at Manchester United over the last few years of making appointments that seem popular, or seem to make sense, and then just not backing their man, and things getting worse and worse. That performance today was the first time I’ve watched the Man United team under Carrick and thought maybe he isn’t the man. We’ll see how that goes over the next few months.

Also, the Champions League qualification picture—who’s going to join? Brighton are third at the moment. Man City, Arsenal, and, I would say, Liverpool are in those top spots, but I think the other Champions League qualification places are really up for grabs.

Paul Mahoney: As a Liverpool member at Anfield, I go to quite a few home games, so I’ll be keeping a close eye on how Liverpool are doing. I think Sunday’s away win at Bournemouth was perfectly timed going into the international break, with Alexander Isak scoring again and Liverpool still unbeaten. It was an ugly dog of a game, but sometimes you just need those horrible 1–0 away wins to kick you forward into the season. Manager Andoni Iraola has been there a while now, and I think the players are starting to understand what he wants. After the three-week break, the first game back is Manchester City at home, so that will be a great litmus test to see how both sides are actually going forward. I’m feeling more confident about the way Liverpool are looking now.

As for the soap opera, I’ll be watching Manchester United, Liverpool’s biggest rivals. I thought the Carabao Cup defeat in midweek was amazing. That’s the first time United have lost from a two-goal lead in 50 years, so they’re making history in the wrong way. As they came off at the end having lost, the United crowd were chanting, “What the f***ing hell was that?” That’s an extraordinary place to be after five games of the season, with the crowd already not with you. Coming back after three weeks, Carrick will be walking the plank—there’s not much time for him to start turning things around. So Liverpool and United are the big stories, as ever, up here in the northwest of England.

Neil McLeman: I just think it’s been a really good start to the season. I don’t think Spurs will go down, but it’s really entertaining to see their story. The promoted clubs are doing well. There’s nobody running away with the league title. I just think there’s a lot to look forward to this season.

Paul Mahoney: If you go back to our Premier League preview, we all said this season was going to be wide open and refreshing. We’re five games in and it’s wide open, and it’s great. There’s loads of stuff going on. ⚽

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