We return for another
round of knee-jerk reactions to a single round of Premier
League fixtures. Is the title race really
over?
Every week following the latest round of Premier League
fixtures, we at Opta Analyst make some hasty calls that
should probably be reserved for the tabloids. The kind of
click-baity, attention-grabbing, headline-making conclusions that,
as a data-powered website, we shouldn’t really come to. Welcome to
Knee-Jerk Reactions.
Some of these prove to be nothing more than our own headline
suggests: knee-jerk reactions. However, as time goes on, some end
up becoming the start of a trend. For example, our Matchday 1
offering concluded both that Forest were “ready for another
Champions League challenge” when they quite clearly weren’t, but
also that “we’ve got a relegation battle”, which we very much
do.
So, here are our five reactions to Matchday 9 in the Premier
League that may or may not prove correct.
Arsenal
Will Dominate This Season Like Prime City
Nine games into the 2025-26 season, the title race is
concerningly lacking in competition. Top of the pile, Arsenal
are looking like they could be very hard to catch.
Mikel Arteta’s side appear unbreakable. Crystal
Palace managed a shot on target on Sunday, but they only had
one, and that was the first time any team had troubled David Raya
in a Premier League game since the win at Newcastle three games
earlier.
They have conceded just three goals all campaign, and are
on course to break Chelsea’s 21-year-old record of 15 goals
conceded in a Premier League season.
Meanwhile, everyone around them is failing. Manchester
City, Liverpool
and Chelsea,
the only three teams who, realistically, have any chance at all of
challenging Arsenal, all lost on the same matchday for the first
time since December 2015.
That was the season in which Leicester City won the league. They
did so with only 81 points, and were 10 points clear of their
nearest challengers.
We’re not saying this season is going to be like that one, nor
that Arsenal are anything like Leicester. But the chasing pack,
like in 2015-16, looks weak. Bournemouth,
Tottenham
and Sunderland
make up the top four, and while there’s a chance they’ll be there
in May, surely none of them are strong enough to put any real
pressure on Arsenal.
We’re still in October, and the title race might be over.
Aston
Villa Are Arsenal’s Only Remaining Threat
Aston
Villa are a little further back, but they are rising up the
table quickly, having won four games in a row. It’s the
second-longest winning streak by any team in 2025-26, after
Liverpool’s run of five wins at the start of the season.
On recent form – particularly given everyone else’s
inconsistency – Villa could easily be in the top three in a couple
of weeks’ time. They are very unlikely to challenge for the title
given they are are seven points off Arsenal and the Opta
supercomputer gives them just a 1.5% likelihood of winning the
league. However, they could be a worry for Arsenal in another
way.
Villa came from 2-0 down at the Emirates in January to draw 2-2
and put a huge dent in Arsenal’s title challenge last season, while
they did the double over them in 2023-24, when Mikel Arteta’s men
lost out in the title race to City by two points.
Villa are hitting form now, and they face Arsenal twice in the
next two months.
In their last two league games they have won at Spurs and ended
City’s better run of form with a wonderfully resolute defensive
display. Villa blocked 10 shots on Sunday, their highest tally in
any Premier League game in the last five seasons.
They are very, very difficult to beat, and they could have a say
in Arsenal’s fate this season.
Dyche
Can’t Fix Forest
Nottingham
Forest tried to quickly go from Nuno Espírito Santo’s
counter-attacking football to Ange Postecoglou’s possession game
mid-season, and it failed spectacularly.
They are now trying to veer the other way and go back to direct
football with the appointment of Sean Dyche and, dare we say it,
this might not work either.
At Bournemouth on Sunday, their approach was unsurprisingly
different to what had come before, but the result was very much the
same. Forest played 16.8% of their passes long, their highest rate
in a Premier League match this season, but still lost 2-0.
Dyche could point to the fact that Bournemouth’s two goals came
from a combined total of 0.03 xG, with Marcus Tavernier scoring
direct from a corner (which shouldn’t have been a corner in the
first place) and Eli Kroupi firing in from the best part of 30
yards. But a Forest critic could respond that the visitors managed
just 0.37 xG all game, the 11th-lowest total by any team in a
Premier League game this season.
Defensive soundness is very much needed at Forest, and Dyche
could be forgiven for prioritising that after the madcap football
of Postecoglou when they were far too open, but the evidence of
this weekend does not suggest another big jump between different
styles of football is what is needed.
Forest are in the relegation zone and haven’t won since the
opening day of the season. It’s starting to look very bleak, so
Dyche will need to work some magic to fix his players’ ruined
confidence.
United’s
Front Three Have Clicked
It would be perfectly understandable if Manchester
United’s expensively assembled new front three took a full
season to find their groove, but any optimists at Old Trafford on
Saturday may come away from this weekend’s football suggesting it
has already happened.
After Matheus Cunha opened the scoring against Brighton
with his first goal in United colours from his 25th shot (having
previously been the player to have taken the most shots without
scoring in the Premier League this season), Benjamin Sesko set up
Bryan Mbeumo to score United’s third, and the former Brentford man
added another late on. All three got a goal involvement as United
won a third consecutive Premier League game within a single season
for the first time since February 2024.
United are hitting form and are now only two points off second
place. Their front three are starting to look the part, and that
could mean a charge for Champions League qualification that looked
very unlikely only a few weeks ago.
Mbeumo, with four goal involvements in his last three United
games, is in the best form of the lot, and if he continues to
perform, United have every chance of extending this purple
patch.
An upcoming run of six games against Forest (A), Spurs (A),
Everton (H), Palace (A), West Ham (H) and Wolves (A) isn’t exactly
easy, but every one of those is winnable if United’s front three
play as they can. Might it be time to get excited?
Kroupi
Will Cost a Champions League Club £70m Before Long
Not many had heard of Eli
Kroupi a few weeks ago. Now he is a future star.
With four goals in his last three appearances, the 19-year-old
Frenchman has made a name for himself in England already, and he
could soon prove to be the latest money-making gem to pass through
Bournemouth.
He scores poacher’s first-time finishes (see his brace in the
3-3 draw at Crystal Palace last week) but can also hit rockets from
distance (see his strike against Forest this weekend).
Whatever the situation, he is ruthlessly clinical; nobody has
outscored their xG by a larger amount in the Premier League this
season than Kroupi (+2.4), and he is scoring goals more often than
any other player with 50+ minutes to their name, averaging one
every 41.3 minutes.
Bournemouth’s reinvention this term has been absolutely
remarkable. They are second in the table despite selling three of
their first-choice back four, as well as a key forward in Dango
Ouattara, in the summer. They are doing a very good job of buying
players cheap, developing them and turning them on for huge
profit.
It all means they won’t fear losing anyone, and they can simply
enjoy Kroupi’s rise without worrying about how much interest his
run of scoring will soon whip up.
Knowing how much success Bournemouth have had selling players of
late, they’ll be licking their lips at the prospect of how much
they could make from Kroupi in no time at all.
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