Our weekly Premier League knee-jerk reactions are here to tell you who’s doomed, who’s flying, and why it’ll all probably change next week. We analyse the biggest storylines from Matchday 5.
Every week the Premier League delivers drama, chaos and storylines that beg for snap judgements. Some harsh, some hopeful. All backed (loosely) by the numbers.
With Matchday 5 in the books, here are our knee-jerk reactions from another pulsating round of action.
The Premier League Title Race is as Good as Over
This is a column of knee-jerk reactions, so why not kick things off with the biggest one of them all following Matchday 5?
Liverpool already hold a five-point lead at the top of the 2025-26 Premier League table, with their latest win over Everton on Saturday keeping up their 100% winning start to the campaign.
Arsenal, Bournemouth and Tottenham could have moved closer to the reigning champions with wins this weekend, but failure to do so against Manchester City, Newcastle and Brighton respectively means that the gap between Liverpool and the rest of the league is already the joint-highest it’s ever been at this stage of a Premier League season.
Only in 2019-20, when Liverpool led the league by five points over second-placed Man City, has the lead at the top of the Premier League been this big after all the teams have played five games. Of course, the Reds went on to win the league that season by 18 points.
Crystal Palace are the only other unbeaten side in the Premier League this season, and Liverpool could put a stop to that next weekend. Arne Slot’s side travel to south London to face the Eagles on Saturday afternoon.
Since Slot arrived on Merseyside, Liverpool have been by far the most consistent team at the top of the Premier League. Their tally of 99 points in 43 games is 15 more than the next best (Arsenal, 84 points) and 21 more than Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. Yes, there are 33 games remaining, but it’ll take a big downturn in form for Liverpool to let this lead slip now.
Enzo Maresca’s Rash Decision-Making Was a Worrying Sign
With Manchester United in a state of disarray, Enzo Maresca would have expected his Chelsea side to head to Old Trafford and get a result this weekend.
Of course, a fifth-minute red card for goalkeeper Robert Sánchez – Chelsea’s earliest ever red card in a Premier League game (4:01) – made that task a whole lot harder, but Maresca’s panicky decision making on the sideline didn’t help matters either.
He made his first substitution immediately, with the creative talent of Estêvão understandably sacrificed for substitute goalkeeper Filip Jörgensen. But less than a minute later, Maresca took off pacy winger Pedro Neto and replaced him with central defender Tosin Adarabioyo, taking out one of the Blues’ most obvious counter-attacking options.
Then, in the 21st minute, and only seven minutes after Bruno Fernandes put United 1-0 ahead, Cole Palmer was forced off with an injury and replaced by defensive midfielder Andrey Santos. Maresca later revealed that Palmer had struggled all week with his fitness but decided to leave him on the pitch while withdrawing Estêvão and Neto before him.
With those three substitutions all made in the first 21 minutes of this match, it was earliest a side has ever done so in a Premier League game.
As it turned out, United’s man advantage disappeared when Casemiro was shown a red card in first-half added time, but it took Chelsea until the 80th minute to halve the deficit, which was also their first shot on target.
By that point, Chelsea had made all of their substitutions and attacking options Jamie Gittens, Marc Guiu and Alejandro Garnacho all remained on the bench, unused.
Coming into this weekend, Man Utd had won just 31 points from 31 Premier League games under Ruben Amorim with a goal difference of -17, the worst record of all 17 ever-present clubs since his appointment.
They’d lost more league games (8) than they’d won (5) under the Portuguese manager at Old Trafford in that time, and Maresca’s panicked decision making on Saturday evening ended up costing Chelsea in a game they still could have won despite having 10 men.
Wolves Are Doomed
It’s not the first time Wolves have appeared in this column. Bottom, pointless and winless, things are looking bleak. Four defeats to open the season already made this their worst-ever start to a league campaign, but Saturday’s 3-1 loss to Leeds extended that run to five.
Wolves are now just the sixth team in Premier League history to lose their opening five matches of a season.
Three of those sides – Sunderland in 2005-06, Portsmouth in 2009-10 and Norwich in 2021-22 – went on to finish bottom. The other two – Southampton (17th in 1998-99) and Crystal Palace (11th in 2017-18) – managed to survive. So, hope remains even though history is against them.
But this is a side that has lost its main attacking spark in Matheus Cunha, as well as the ever-present Rayan Aït-Nouri. With Jørgen Strand Larsen struggling for form and fitness, it’s hard to see where their goals will come from. Wolves’ shot conversion rate currently sits at just 5.9%. Only Aston Villa and Newcastle have been less clinical in front of goal.
Defensively, mistakes are crippling them. Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s header to equalise at the weekend was well taken, but he should never have had so much space in the box given the lack of pace on Jayden Bogle’s cross. The fact he was able to head towards goal under no pressure at all was poor, given the distance the ball had to travel to reach him.
Ladislav Krejcí then conceded a clumsy foul for Anton Stach’s free-kick, before Emmanuel Agbadou gifted away possession for the third, scored by Noah Okafor. Wolves have already made three errors leading directly to goals this season – tied with Manchester United for the most in the league. It’s already half their total from the whole of last season. Those errors have compounded and Wolves are conceding 1.54 expected goals per game – the fourth-worst record in the division.
Off the field, the club are making the right noises to project calm. Manager Vítor Pereira has signed a new three-year deal, while Strand Larsen has committed to five. But beyond that, reasons for optimism are thin.
The one positive? Pereira took over last season with Wolves 19th after 16 games and he steered them safely to 16th. He’ll need to do a similar rescue job again.
Unai Emery Might Not Last Much Longer
Things aren’t working at Aston Villa. Matty Cash may have finally scored their first goal of the season, but they still surrendered a 1-0 lead against 10-man Sunderland to draw 1-1.
After the game, Unai Emery cut a frustrated figure:
“I am frustrated and disappointed, but not at the result,” he said. “Playing 11 against 10 it should be easier to dominate and take advantage … but we were not playing with our identity, with the ideas we were building for the last three years. I am more frustrated and disappointed with how we are not achieving our identity.”
Emery went further, branding his players “lazy”. It raised questions not only about his tactical set up, but also whether some in the squad are becoming less receptive to his methods.
Much has been made of Villa’s lack of creativity. Cash’s goal was their first of the season – 427 minutes in. Only Crystal Palace in 2017-18 (641) and Newcastle in 2005-06 (438) have ever waited longer for a first goal from the start of a Premier League campaign.
No team have had fewer shots on target this season than Villa (12 – level with Everton and Leeds). A real lack of ideas and energy was on display at the weekend, and the fact Sunderland outperformed Villa for total expected goals and total shots despite playing with 10 men for over an hour is very concerning.
Asked why he had called his players lazy, Emery clarified: “Lazy… sometimes lazy when we are playing here away, we have to fight [in] the duels, and we were not fighting all duels.”
That rings true. Villa have lost more than half of their duels in every Premier League match so far this season. Their overall ground duel win ratio is at 44.6%, the lowest of any team in the division. Are Emery’s players no longer buying into him?
Crystal Palace Will Finish Inside the Top Six
Crystal Palace are on an incredible run of form. Following a 2-1 win at West Ham this weekend, the Eagles are now unbeaten in 17 games in all competitions (W7 D10), their joint-second longest run in their history, surpassed only by an 18-game run that ended in August 1969.
It’ll be a difficult challenge for them to equal that club-record run, with their next opponents league-leaders Liverpool at Selhurst Park next Saturday. But they did defeat the reigning Premier League champions in a penalty shootout in the Community Shield at Wembley last month.
Olivier Glasner has done a sensational job at the south London club since arriving in the second half of 2023-24. In 56 games under the Austrian since February 2024, they have won 86 points from 56 games – only six Premier League clubs have won more.
Not only did he help them to their highest Premier League points total last season (53), he led them to their first ever FA Cup by beating Manchester City in the final in May – the club’s first major trophy.
Palace are top of Opta’s expected points table in the Premier League after five matchdays, with no team’s underlying performances more impressive than theirs.
They will hope to build on that and finish inside the top six of the Premier League this season. Based on their performance so far in 2025-26, they are more than capable of achieving that.
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