Chelsea's derby drought and Brighton's rising star: Weekend storylines
Chelsea have not beaten Brentford in the league since that tight 1-0 win back in October 2021, when Ben Chilwell settled it. Every trip across west London since has ended the same way: stalemate.
The clubs now feel like opposites. Brentford lean on continuity and clarity. Chelsea are mid-reboot yet again, this time under Xabi Alonso, and still trying to make sense of his defensive structure.
Kevin Schade will not mind that. Fresh from two sharp finishes at Bournemouth, the forward will fancy running at a back line still learning Alonso’s demands. History offers a warning too: only one Premier League title has ever been won with a back three, Antonio Conte’s Chelsea in 2016-17. Alonso is trying to bend the league to his own version of that idea.
His attacking work has landed more cleanly than the defensive side, which hands Jannik Schuster another examination. The 20-year-old centre-back, in for Nathan Collins, was worked hard by Bournemouth’s Evanilson on his first Premier League start and came through with credit. This is a different kind of test: less chaos, more guile.
Up the pitch, Chelsea are sweating on João Pedro. Three goals and three assists tell you how central he has become, but fitness concerns linger. If he cannot start, Danny Welbeck is in line for his first league start of the campaign. Another new face. Another moving part. Brentford, by contrast, know exactly what they are.
Spurs and Villa search for a pulse
What happens when a very stoppable force meets an extremely movable object? Tottenham against Aston Villa at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium might provide the answer.
Nineteenth-placed Villa arrive in north London with one league goal between the sides this season and no wins to show. Both are desperate just to feel something that resembles momentum.
Pedro Porro’s return is a big moment for Roberto De Zerbi. It should finally end the Archie Gray experiment at right-back, a stopgap that always felt one game away from disaster. The broader problem is deeper: no Premier League starting XI feels less settled than Spurs’. Almost everyone looks one mistake from the bench. The result is a team that plays as if scared of its own shadow, forever choosing the safe pass over the daring one.
Into that mood steps James Maddison. After two appearances off the bench against Everton and Liverpool, the injury-hit playmaker will be straining to start, to grab the game and the season by the collar. Spurs badly need someone to do it.
Brighton’s structure and a new No 10
When Fabian Hürzeler praised Brighton’s “well structured” performance after their comeback at Old Trafford, he could just as easily have been talking about Malick Yalcouyé.
The 20-year-old Ivorian arrived on the south coast in 2024 after only a brief spell at IFK Gothenburg. Brighton parked him on loan at Sturm Graz and then Swansea. He had to wait. This season, the door finally opened.
With Jack Hinshelwood injured until after the international break, Yalcouyé has stepped into the No 10 role and seized it. Two Premier League goals already, and a place in the division’s most free-scoring side: Brighton have 13 goals from four matches.
Next up, Arsenal. The champions, on their fourth straight away trip, know the numbers. They also know how quickly a clever, confident No 10 can tilt a game. Yalcouyé and company will not need a second invitation.
Mykolenko stands tall for Everton
Vitalii Mykolenko’s start to the season has slipped under the radar. That will suit him. It may not silence his critics, but it has certainly quietened them.
At a time when David Moyes needs his senior players to carry a thin squad, the Everton left-back has delivered. A new three-year deal in the summer, a visibly stronger frame, and a run of composed displays have underpinned a defence with four clean sheets in six league games.
There is still a hole behind him. Loaning Adam Aznou to Málaga has left Everton short of cover at left-back. Mykolenko, though, has eased the anxiety that used to hang over his position.
Ipswich will test that resolve. New forwards Emersonn and Zian Flemming give them fresh edge in attack. If Everton can shut them down and sign off with a win before the long international break, this opening stretch will feel like a platform rather than a scramble.
Jaissle digs in at Newcastle
Matthias Jaissle does not do waffle. Asked on Thursday, in the wake of a 4-1 hammering at Leeds and a growing injury list, whether he might switch to a back five or soften his beloved vertical football when Hull visit, his answer was one word.
“No.”
The German wants his young Newcastle side to stay loyal to the bigger picture. Eight of this summer’s signings are 24 or under. The club is learning to live without Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon. There will be bumps. Leeds was one.
“It’s a brave journey the club is going on and I’m fully committed in that,” he said. One setback is not enough to rip up the plan. The response has to come on the pitch, but without flinching from the identity he is trying to build. Newcastle, he insists, do not change.
Delap, Forest and a club on the rise
Plenty laughed at the £45m fee for Liam Delap. Nottingham Forest might have the last word.
The City Ground has been a welcoming home for big, old-fashioned centre-forwards. Chris Wood, now injured, thrived as the side’s focal point. Delap looks like the younger heir: powerful, sharp in the box, happy to bring team-mates into play.
At Villa Park last weekend, he and Morgan Gibbs-White already looked on the same wavelength in Forest’s win. Now they face a Coventry team that has shipped eight goals in its last two matches. Delap will fancy the spaces that kind of record suggests.
Off the field, Forest are thinking big too. The local council has approved plans to expand the City Ground from 31,000 to 52,500 at an estimated cost of £790m. For a club that spent last season peering over its shoulder, the mood has shifted. They feel like they are moving forwards again.
Iraola’s homecoming and Bournemouth’s test
Andoni Iraola watched Bournemouth’s European debut from afar in San Sebastián, a city he knows like the back of his hand. On Sunday, he walks back into it as Liverpool’s head coach.
His work on the south coast – guiding Bournemouth to a best-ever Premier League finish of sixth and into the Europa League – earned him this step up. His assistants, Tommy Elphick and Shaun Cooper, are Bournemouth men too, the former having captained the club into the top flight in 2015. The reception will be warm.
It will not be gentle. Marco Rose has made a slow start as Iraola’s successor, but his Bournemouth side still carry a threat. Rose spent a couple of hours with Iraola before officially taking the job in June; both men know what an all-action contest looks like, and both will expect one.
Eddie Howe never beat Bournemouth in eight league attempts with Newcastle. Iraola and his staff know exactly how awkward their old club can be.
Calvert-Lewin chases history at Elland Road
Dominic Calvert-Lewin walks into Elland Road on Saturday with history in reach and Crystal Palace in his sights.
Leeds’ centre-forward can become the first player since Arthur Hydes in 1932 to score in six consecutive home league games for the club. For a long time, that kind of run felt impossible. Then Daniel Farke tweaked the system.
The shift to 3-5-2 late last November changed everything for Calvert-Lewin. As a lone striker he had laboured, isolated and frustrated. Once paired with Noah Okafor or Lukas Nmecha, the goals started to flow. The shape is flexible – sometimes 3-4-3, sometimes a back four – but the principle is clear: he thrives with a partner.
Eight points from four games have given Leeds their best top-flight start since David O’Leary’s 2001-02 side. Palace arrive knowing the numbers, and the noise, that will greet them. Is Hydes’ record about to fall? And if 3-5-2 can revive Calvert-Lewin, how many other strikers might be waiting for the same cure?
City’s perfect start meets Le Bris’s resistance
Manchester City have started with a ruthless kind of variety. Four games, four wins, 12 points. The scores read like a team feeling its way into form: 1-0 against Coventry, 1-0 against Manchester United, 2-1 at Bournemouth, 4-1 over Crystal Palace.
Eight scored, two conceded. Only Arsenal can point to a tighter defence – one goal against in their own perfect opening – but the champions have not outstripped City by much. Enzo Maresca’s side already look like serious title contenders.
Régis Le Bris has seen City up close. With Sunderland last season he took a point off them at the Stadium of Light in the league, though the return at the Etihad ended in a routine 3-0 City win. This time he must find a way to disrupt a team that seems to be accelerating, not easing off.
The margins are thin at the top. Maresca has his machine humming early. Le Bris arrives knowing that if he can be the first to knock City off course, the entire shape of the title race might shift before autumn has even settled in.
