This never felt like a game that would get the pulse racing but for Burnley it resembled a deeply demoralising defeat after the high of putting five goals past the Premier League’s bottom club a few days ago. Even in the immediate aftermath of their 5-0 trouncing of Sheffield United on Saturday it was hard to truly quantify the weight of victory and the more cynical were vindicated here. A tougher test was guaranteed in this game and Hwang Hee-chan’s neat first-half finish extended his fine goalscoring form and Burnley’s sorry away run. If there was any doubt that the rest of this season remai ..read more

Oleksandr Zinchenko struggles to strike right balance, Vincent Kompany gets a break and Chelsea still too naive Oleksandr Zinchenko’s mixed bag of a performance showed the full-back’s qualities in attack but once more highlighted his defensive deficiencies. While Zinchenko was instrumental in the brilliant team goal scored by Martin Ødegaard that gave Arsenal a 2-0 lead over Wolves, a series of errors culminated with him giving the ball away cheaply to allow Matheus Cunha’s late strike that threatened what could have been a comfortable victory for the league leaders. While Mikel Arteta brushed ..read more

Paul Heckingbottom insisted he could hold his head up high after a number of fans turned on him following Sheffield United’s capitulation at Burnley. The odds on Heckingbottom becoming the first Premier League manager to lose his job this season tumbled after a humbling defeat, in which a Burnley side who started the day bottom of the table scored an opener through Jay Rodriguez just 15 seconds in and recorded their biggest top-flight win since 1970 ..read more

Havertz delivers at key time, Chelsea anger Pochettino and practice makes perfect for Luton’s Ogbene If injustice was Everton’s fuel, they never quite caught fire against Manchester United. Beyond their 10-point penalty, Goodison Park rattled with the sound of further injustice, with just about every refereeing decision barracked. It is not uncommon for fans to believe referees are biased against their club, such complaints are heard at every ground in the world but John Brooks actually ruled – and wrongly, as shown by VAR – in Everton’s favour when booking Anthony Martial for a dive when Ashl ..read more

When Vincent Kompany and Burnley won the Championship with 101 points and followed it with a summer of spending more than £90m on players, few in Lancashire could have anticipated the club having something in common with the 1970-71 Newport team of the Fourth Division, but after seven straight defeats at Turf Moor they have matched the Welsh club’s record for the worst home start to an English league season. Burnley’s appalling form continued with defeat to West Ham despite leading until the 86th minute, as a Dara O’Shea own goal and Tomas Soucek volley settled the match late on. Jay Rodriguez ..read more

Bottom of the league table after 12 games, Burnley fans are reevaluating what it means to be a Premier League side Burnley are in need of therapy. They’re the married couple who’ve lost their spark after a whirlwind romance that was winning the EFL Championship in 2022/23, England’s second division, by a landslide 101 points. They’re the nostalgia-laden searcher of purpose, wondering what is the point of all this? If they were on the figurative couch, they might need more of a Frasier Crane than Jennifer Melfi to help work through classic psychodynamic defense mechanisms of repression, denial ..read more

A mouthwatering clash in Manchester, Forest making do without Awoniyi and Everton hosting in a real cauldron Is Erling Haaland fit? He thinks so. Which of these gladiatorial contenders will adopt a higher line? Might there be touchline antics from Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp? And which of the Premier League leaders and the second-placed side will emerge on top? For subplots, sideshows and headline narratives, Manchester City’s hosting of Liverpool on Saturday lunchtime is this weekend’s only game in town, such an enticing prospect that whatever occurs cannot – surely – be anything other tha ..read more

Chelsea are becoming great entertainers, Zinchenko provides solutions for Arsenal and Fulham need goals If in doubt, watch Chelsea. For the second time in six days, Mauricio Pochettino’s blend of youth and experience staged a fabulous show and scored four times against a fellow member of the old Big Six. Their 4-4 against Manchester City was not so much a soap opera, more a box-set thriller squeezed into 105 minutes. When City took the lead through the two most boring words in the football lexicon – “Haaland pen” – it wasn’t hard to see Chelsea crumbling. But then they had gone a goal down at ..read more

Crisis averted. Or perhaps Arsenal were simply trying to keep themselves awake. While they briefly flirted with trouble after shipping a sloppy equaliser and even contrived to end a tepid game with 10 men, Mikel Arteta’s side returned to winning ways in the league after finding Burnley unable to handle nothing more fearsome than high balls into the box. With James Trafford flapping at corners and Burnley’s defenders even losing out in aerial duels with Bukayo Saka, it was rather sedate after last weekend’s rumble with Newcastle. Even Arteta, who raged at the officials after that defeat, could ..read more

Clarets face struggle to avoid relegation after becoming the first English top flight side to lose their opening six home matches Football often boils down to simple statistics, the sort that proved Burnley were one of the most exciting teams in England last season. Vincent Kompany’s side scored the Championship’s most goals, conceded the fewest and secured 101 points on their way to securing their Premier League return at the first time of asking. Unfortunately for Kompany the top-flight table after 11 matches looks far less favourable. They sit second bottom with four points, including a sol ..read more