Chelsea faces Brentford as Spurs seek stability in Premier League

West London derbies used to be Chelsea’s comfort zone. Not here. Not lately.

Since Ben Chilwell’s 1-0 winner in October 2021, every Chelsea trip to Brentford in the league has ended level. The fixture has become a measuring stick for two very different projects: Brentford doubling down on continuity and clarity, Chelsea spinning into yet another grand redesign.

Xabi Alonso’s latest iteration arrives with an attack that already looks sharper than his defence. The back three remains a work in progress, still learning his angles and distances, still vulnerable when dragged into wide spaces. History offers a warning: only one side has ever won the Premier League with a defensive trio – Antonio Conte’s Chelsea in 2016‑17 – and that unit was drilled to within an inch of its life. Alonso’s is nowhere near that yet.

Kevin Schade will have noticed. Fresh from two coolly taken goals at Bournemouth, the Brentford forward has every reason to fancy a back line still tuning into their manager’s demands. His movement off the shoulder, particularly into the channels, will ask questions that Chelsea have not yet convincingly answered.

On the other side, Chelsea’s brightest early-season light, João Pedro, carries three goals and three assists into the derby, but his fitness is under scrutiny. If he cannot start, Danny Welbeck is in line for his first league start of the campaign. Welbeck offers less invention between the lines but more structure without the ball – a trade-off Alonso may be forced to make in a game that has recently refused to bend to Chelsea’s will.

Spurs and Villa: fear v desperation in north London

What happens when a very stoppable force meets an extremely movable object? Tottenham Hotspur Stadium might provide the answer.

Aston Villa arrive in 19th, with the two sides sharing a single league goal between them and not a win in sight. This is not a clash of heavyweights. It is a scramble for a foothold.

Tottenham’s season so far has been defined by uncertainty. No starting XI feels less settled. Almost every player seems one mistake away from the bench, and the football reflects it: safe passes, safe choices, a team playing not to be blamed.

Pedro Porro’s return should at least bring some order. It also spares Archie Gray further experimentation at right-back. The teenager has been game, but the “experiment” has looked exactly that – makeshift and temporary.

The mood could shift if James Maddison is let off the leash. After two appearances from the bench against Everton and Liverpool, the injury-hit playmaker is pushing hard to start. Tottenham need someone willing to take the ball, take risks and take responsibility. Maddison has never shied from any of those. Whether the rest of the team follows his lead is another matter.

Brighton’s new No 10 and a warning for Arsenal

Fabian Hürzeler talked about structure after Brighton’s comeback at Old Trafford. He could have been talking about one player in particular.

Malick Yalcouyé, 20, has slipped into the No 10 role with the calm of a veteran. Brighton signed him in 2024 after only a brief spell at IFK Gothenburg, then sent him out to Sturm Graz and Swansea. The apprenticeship has paid off. Now, with Jack Hinshelwood injured until after the international break, Yalcouyé has seized his chance and already scored twice in the league.

He steps into an attack that has roared into the season. Brighton are the division’s top scorers, with 13 goals from four matches, and next up are the champions, Arsenal, in what will be Mikel Arteta’s fourth consecutive away league game.

Arsenal’s defensive numbers are pristine – one goal conceded in four – but Brighton’s movement between the lines, with Yalcouyé ghosting into pockets, will stretch that organisation. Arteta will not need reminding: this is not a fixture that allows lapses in concentration, not against a side that looks so sure of its attacking patterns.

Mykolenko stands tall as Everton grind it out

Vitalii Mykolenko’s resurgence has not made many headlines. It probably never will. But David Moyes will not care.

The Everton left-back, who signed a new three-year contract in the summer and appears noticeably stronger, has quietly become one of the pillars of a defence that boasts four clean sheets in six games. In a small squad that needs its senior players to carry weight, he has delivered.

There is a catch: there is almost no cover. Adam Aznou’s loan to Málaga has left Everton light at left-back, a gamble that looked risky in August and still does now. Mykolenko, though, has dulled the anxiety with a run of disciplined, no-frills performances.

Ipswich’s new forwards, Emersonn and Zian Flemming, will probe that flank, looking to drag him out of position and expose the lack of depth behind him. If Everton come through and sign off with a win before the extended international break, Moyes will feel his side have laid the foundations for something more stable than last season’s struggle.

Jaissle’s Newcastle refuse to blink

Matthias Jaissle does not do nuance when it comes to his footballing principles.

Asked on Thursday if Newcastle might ditch their aggressive, vertical style or switch to a back five after Monday’s 4-1 defeat at Leeds and a spate of injuries, he needed just one word. “No.”

The German is all-in on the project. Newcastle signed eight players aged 24 or under this summer and are learning to live without Bruno Guimarães, Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon. There will be bumps. Leeds was one. Jaissle saw it coming.

“It’s a brave journey the club is going on and I’m fully committed in that,” he said. One setback does not prompt a rewrite. “We don’t change.”

Hull’s visit to Tyneside will show how deep that conviction runs. The temptation to retreat after a heavy defeat is strong; Jaissle is betting that his young team will grow faster by playing through the fire, not stepping away from it.

Delap finds his stage at Forest

Plenty scoffed when Nottingham Forest paid £45m for Liam Delap. The fee raised eyebrows. The fit, though, looks increasingly right.

Forest thrived with Chris Wood as their focal point last season. Delap is a younger echo of that profile: powerful, instinctive, happy to occupy centre-backs and bring others into play. In the win at Villa, his connection with Morgan Gibbs-White already looked promising, the pair dovetailing in transitions and combining around the box.

Now comes Coventry, a side that has shipped eight goals in their last two games. Forest, after a jittery previous campaign, feel as if they are climbing again. Off the pitch, the club received a major boost when plans to expand the City Ground from 31,000 to 52,500 at an estimated cost of £790m were approved by the local council on Wednesday.

A bigger stage, a growing partnership, and a centre-forward with a point to prove – it is exactly the kind of setting in which Delap can start to justify that price tag.

Iraola’s Bournemouth homecoming with Liverpool

Andoni Iraola watched Bournemouth’s European debut from afar in San Sebastián, a city he knows as well as any. On Sunday he goes back, this time as Liverpool’s head coach, to face the club he led into Europe.

Iraola, alongside assistants Tommy Elphick and Shaun Cooper – both former Bournemouth players, with Elphick having captained the club into the Premier League in 2015 – took the Cherries to their best-ever finish, sixth, and into the Europa League. That work earned him the call from Anfield and ensures he will be warmly received.

Sentiment stops at kick-off. Marco Rose has endured a slow start as Iraola’s successor, but Bournemouth remain awkward opponents. Rose even spent a couple of hours picking Iraola’s brain before taking over in June, a handover that underlined how much of the old intensity he intends to retain.

Eddie Howe never beat Bournemouth in eight league attempts as Newcastle manager. Iraola knows exactly why. Whatever the form table says, his Liverpool staff will be braced for a contest that rarely allows a moment’s rest.

Calvert-Lewin chases history in Leeds’ new shape

Dominic Calvert-Lewin walks into Elland Road on Saturday with history in his sights and Crystal Palace in his way.

The Leeds centre-forward can become the first player since Arthur Hydes in 1932 to score in six consecutive home league games for the club. The turning point came late last November, when Daniel Farke shifted to a 3-5-2. Until then, Calvert-Lewin had laboured as a lone striker. With a partner – Noah Okafor or Lukas Nmecha – the goals started to come.

Leeds are not dogmatic. Farke still toggles between 3-5-2, 3-4-3 and a back four, but Calvert-Lewin has underlined the value of partnerships up front in an era obsessed with single No 9s and inverted wingers.

Eight points from four games mark Leeds’ best top-flight start since David O’Leary’s 2001‑02 side. Palace now have to decide whether to engage Leeds high, risking space behind for those two strikers, or sit off and allow Farke’s team to build. Either way, Calvert-Lewin’s run and Hydes’ record hang over the afternoon.

City’s perfect start faces a familiar challenger

Manchester City have opened with the kind of ruthless efficiency that usually spells trouble for everyone else.

Four games, four wins. Two 1-0s – against Coventry and Manchester United – a 2-1 over Bournemouth and a 4-1 against Crystal Palace. Eight scored, two conceded. Only Arsenal can match the points and better the defensive record, with one goal against and the same tally scored.

Enzo Maresca’s side already look like serious title contenders, their control of games tightening by the week. Yet Régis Le Bris has reasons not to be overawed. Last season, he took Sunderland to a draw against City in the league, holding the FA Cup holders at the Stadium of Light.

The Etihad was a different story: City cruised to a 3-0 win in the corresponding fixture. That memory will sting Le Bris and sharpen his planning. City’s numbers say they are on track for another relentless season. The question is whether anyone – starting now – can knock them out of their stride before the gap becomes something more ominous than an early-season quirk.