Premier League Week 4 Review: Leeds and Brighton Shine
The Premier League’s fourth gameweek did not so much unfold as detonate — a round where centre-forwards bullied, red cards flew, and a 34-year-old centre-back casually struck a goal that will live on in highlight reels long after he has retired.
This is not a league table of points. It’s a ranking of performances, game by game, judged on what unfolded over 90 minutes rather than what the official standings say. Some teams soared. Some unravelled. One or two did both in the space of an hour.
Here’s how week four really looked.
1. Leeds United (last week: 3rd)
Leeds United 4-1 Newcastle United
Elland Road has seen nights like this before, but not many in recent years.
Daniel Farke’s “my boys were brilliant” was not a throwaway line. Leeds were ferocious. From the first whistle, Newcastle were smothered, chased, and physically dominated. By half-time, Alan Shearer was calling it an “absolute s*** show from the Toon” on social media. He was being kind.
Jayden Bogle seemed to exist in multiple places at once. One moment he was blocking Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s header on the line, the next he was unwittingly turning the ball in at the other end. Newcastle never got to grips with Leeds’ tempo, begging for the interval as wave after wave of white shirts poured forward.
Calvert-Lewin played like a classic No 9 on a mission. He bullied Sven Botman and Malick Thiaw, won everything in the air, scored one, made another, and left both centre-backs looking shell-shocked. Noah Okafor drifted in off the left, adding invention and a goal of his own.
Behind them, Anton Stach, Ethan Ampadu and Ao Tanaka simply ran over Newcastle’s midfield, snapping into tackles, recycling possession, and refusing to let anyone in black and white breathe. Even the late consolation goal irritated Farke. The rest of the night will have thrilled him.
A top-class performance, and the standout display of the weekend.
2. Brighton (last week: 17th)
Coventry City 0-5 Brighton
Two words defined Brighton’s afternoon: Lewis Dunk.
At 34, with the game already bending his way, the Brighton captain ambled forward and lashed in a 30-yard strike that looked like it had been scripted for someone half his age. It was a goal-of-the-season contender and the perfect emblem of a ruthless, swaggering performance.
Fabian Hurzeler’s side went to Coventry without Yankuba Minteh, Kaoru Mitoma and Georginio Rutter — three of their headline attacking threats. It did not matter. Brighton are still the division’s most prolific side, scoring at a rate that makes nonsense of any talk of an injury crisis.
Malick Yalcouye punished soft defending, the kind that makes coaches wince on the rewatch. Charalampos Kostoulas produced one of those juggling, improvised runs that belongs in a futsal hall, not a Premier League box. Dunk then stepped up with that languid, vicious strike into the top corner.
In midfield, Pascal Gross and Yasin Ayari knitted everything together, both getting on the scoresheet and dictating the rhythm. Brighton were a step ahead of Coventry in every department. The scoreline told the story. The manner of it underlined just how dangerous this team already looks.
3. Nottingham Forest (last week: 13th)
Aston Villa 1-2 Nottingham Forest
Oliver Glasner called the second-half performance “really amazing to watch”. He was not exaggerating.
Forest came out after the break as if someone had flicked a switch in the dressing room. Every second ball, every duel, every loose pass seemed to fall to a red shirt. Aston Villa, ragged and increasingly frantic, could not live with the tempo.
Liam Delap set the tone. Within a minute of the restart, he stepped into space and hammered in from distance, the kind of strike that tells defenders their afternoon is about to get long. He then headed into the side-netting and had another effort ruled out. On this evidence, he looked like the best player on the pitch by a distance.
Xaver Schlager, alongside James McAtee, dictated the midfield. The Austrian sprayed diagonals, arrived in the box, and went close with a header from Daniel Munoz’s cross. Munoz himself tore down the right flank, and when Ian Maatsen limped off — after McAtee’s cynical challenge that might easily have been judged more harshly — Villa were left to finish with 10 men.
Forest’s winner came, inevitably, from that right side. Morgan Gibbs-White added the flourish with a clever flick in the build-up. And somewhere in the midst of it all, Neco Williams plucked a ball from the sky with a touch that deserved its own replay loop.
Forest didn’t just win. They imposed themselves.
4. Manchester City (last week: 7th)
Manchester United 0-1 Manchester City
Strip away the VAR chaos. Focus on what Manchester City actually did.
Phil Foden’s straight red card after 23 minutes should have tilted the derby. Instead, Enzo Maresca used it as a tactical lever. Against a United side that crave transitions and space in behind, City simply refused to give them any. They dropped, compact, and suffocated the game.
The boldest call came at half-time. Off went Rayan Cherki, City’s most creative spark. On came Iliman Ndiaye, a runner, a carrier, a worker. It was the right call. Ndiaye took the ball under pressure, drove City up the pitch, and gave them an outlet that United never really handled.
Erling Haaland, who later likened Ndiaye’s cameo to Neymar in flashes, fed off the structure behind him. Elliot Anderson covered every blade of grass again, setting a work-rate standard that has quickly become normal at this version of City.
With ten men, City looked more coherent, more purposeful, and more sure of themselves than United did with eleven. That alone said plenty.
5. Arsenal (last week: 1st)
Sunderland 0-2 Arsenal
Champions need nights like this.
Arsenal left Wearside with three points that owed far more to resilience than rhythm. Sunderland were aggressive, direct and awkward, and Mikel Arteta’s side had to dig in. They did, and they seemed to enjoy it.
The game pivoted on a brutal two-minute spell. Enzo Le Fee stepped up from the spot, only to see David Raya — the best goalkeeper in the league on current form — read him and save. Moments later, Bruno Guimaraes, on from the bench, bent in a spectacular long-range strike that sucked the air out of the stadium.
Before and after those moments, Arsenal scrapped. Christos Tzolis, roughed up at Villa Park a week earlier, responded in the right way, chasing back, flying into a sliding tackle after a decision went against him, and embracing the fight.
Sunderland never folded. But this Arsenal no longer look like a team that might. Those brittle days feel a long way away.
6. Hull City (last week: 16th)
Chelsea 2-2 Hull City
Hull arrived at Stamford Bridge as relegation fodder in the eyes of many. They left having made a few more pundits look foolish.
Sergej Jakirovic’s side did not just cling on for a point. In the closing stages, they were the team trying to win it, swarming Chelsea’s midfield and nearly stealing all three points when Mohamed-Ali Cho met yet another wicked Ryan Giles cross and failed to connect cleanly.
Eight points from four games. The third-best start ever by a promoted Premier League side. This is no fluke.
Out of possession, Hull are disciplined, a narrow 5-4-1 low block that frustrates and funnels attacks into traffic. With the ball, they have Mohamed Belloumi, whose craft and guile sliced Chelsea apart and brought him two goals. His start to the season has been outstanding.
If you want a snapshot of Hull’s mentality, picture Regan Slater in the 92nd minute, sprinting to rob Valentin Barco deep in Chelsea territory. Jakirovic’s players do not stop. Nor, increasingly, do the questions about how high this team can climb.
7. Fulham (last week: 20th)
Liverpool 0-0 Fulham
Alvaro Arbeloa finally saw something he could build on.
Fulham went to Anfield under pressure, battered in the court of public opinion and criticised by their own head coach. They left with a goalless draw that felt like more than a point. It felt like a reset.
With David Affengruber making his Premier League debut at centre-back and Alex Iwobi pushed higher on the left, Fulham looked organised, compact, and surprisingly composed. Liverpool barely created anything of note.
Iwobi, drifting into the “inside winger in the pocket” role Arbeloa described, linked cleverly with Antonee Robinson, finding space and angles that unsettled Liverpool’s right side. Josh King did what Josh King does: ran in behind, embarrassed Dominik Szoboszlai with a sharp chop, and generally played like a forward whose ceiling might be higher than Fulham can realistically hold onto.
Only Jeremy Jacquet’s goal-line clearance denied Gonzalo Garcia the winner. The missing ingredient was a finish. The structure, at last, looked right.
8. Bournemouth (last week: 5th)
Bournemouth 2-2 Brentford
Bournemouth must be exhausting to support.
Marco Rose liked the way his team attacked, and with reason. The football is vibrant, brave, and often beautifully constructed. The results, though, keep slipping through their fingers.
Once again, Bournemouth led. Once again, they failed to hold on. That’s four games in a row now.
The move that summed them up came late on: Ryan Christie, Alex Scott, Tyler Adams and Marcus Tavernier combined in a sweeping passage from inside their own half. It was slick, incisive, the kind of move coaches replay in meetings as a model. Then Rayan’s finish dribbled into anti-climax. Story of their season so far.
Evanilson’s hold-up play and runs in behind stretched Brentford, with Antonio Silva repeatedly picking him out from deep. Scott was excellent again until it came to the final act. Rayan and Silva both passed up big chances.
Individual errors at the back continue to undermine everything. The attacking patterns are there. The killer instinct, and the defensive concentration, are not.
9. Ipswich Town (last week: 19th)
Crystal Palace 2-3 Ipswich Town
This was chaos with a logic to it.
Gary O’Neil argued that Ipswich deserved the win. The numbers backed him up: more shots, more on target, more touches in the box, an xG at least double Crystal Palace’s. Yet for long spells after Axel Disasi’s first-half red card, Ipswich were hanging on, somehow.
Anan Khalaili’s miss at the back post, with the game at 2-2 and the goal gaping, felt like a turning point. Ipswich had already wasted chances of their own just after half-time, which O’Neil rightly highlighted.
Leif Davis, though, stole the show. The left-back delivered a wonderful cross for the first goal, then scored the second himself, then set up the third by crashing a header off the bar that fell kindly. Three decisive contributions from a defender who is rapidly becoming one of the division’s most effective wide operators.
Not bad at all for a full-back. Not bad at all for a newly promoted side still finding its feet.
10. Sunderland (last week: 2nd)
Sunderland 0-2 Arsenal
If you wanted a clinic in back-to-goal centre-forward play, Brian Brobbey provided it.
By the 94th minute, Nordi Mukiele fizzed another ball into Brobbey’s feet. For the ninth time in the game, the Dutch striker pinned Ezri Konsa, held him off, secured possession, and found a team-mate. Old-fashioned note-taking, not data feeds, captured the pattern. Arsenal simply could not handle him physically.
Sunderland played to his strengths: direct, high-intensity, unapologetically confrontational. Within two minutes, Granit Xhaka had robbed Myles Lewis-Skelly. Seconds later, Brobbey had bundled Konsa to the turf. Arsenal got the message.
The match turned, brutally, in that short second-half window: Le Fee’s penalty saved by Raya, Guimaraes thundering in from distance. Sunderland did not deserve to be two goals down on effort alone, but the margins at this level are merciless.
Still, the impression they left was clear. This is a side with a plan, a centre-forward who terrifies defenders, and a style that will hurt plenty of teams.
11. Chelsea (last week: 8th)
Chelsea 2-2 Hull City
Chelsea defend like a team that has forgotten the basics.
Twenty Premier League games without a clean sheet tells its own story. Hull were merely the latest to profit from the chaos.
The day began with promise. Cole Palmer, Joao Pedro and Morgan Rogers combined neatly for the opener after seven minutes, a move that felt as natural as breathing. Then came the slapstick. “Don’t let the ball bounce” is a lesson drilled into defenders from childhood. Chelsea let it bounce twice before Hull’s equaliser, with Malo Gusto, Jorrel Hato and Wesley Fofana all implicated.
Xabi Alonso did not sugarcoat it. “If you are soft or if you are not prepared, you will get punished,” he said. Chelsea keep proving him right.
The structural problems are just as alarming. Without Moises Caicedo, there is a chasm in midfield when opponents break. Transitions cut through them. The back line never looks settled.
And yet, they are watchable. In the final minutes, Palmer, Rogers, Joao Pedro, Estevao and Danny Welbeck all hunted a winner at one end, while Hull’s press — typified by Valentin Barco being robbed late on — snapped at their heels at the other. Chaos, yes. But never dull.
12. Everton (last week: 9th)
Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Everton
Everton left north London with a question hanging over them.
Was this a point earned or a chance wasted?
Spurs nearly blew them away in the opening quarter of an hour, as David Moyes admitted. Yet Jordan Pickford barely had to make a meaningful save. His first real effort to stop, from Matheus Fernandes, was a tame dribbler. His second came in the 89th minute, immediately after his own errant pass had put his team in trouble.
Defensively, Everton bent but did not break. Jarrad Branthwaite threw himself into blocks, twice denying Fernandes and Sandro Tonali with full-blooded interventions. James Garner shielded diligently in front, snapping into tackles and then sparking Everton’s best attacking move with a neat exchange with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall that created a good chance for Brennan Johnson.
Dewsbury-Hall later almost profited from Antonin Kinsky attempting “the most dangerous pass in football” at the wrong time, a misjudged ball out from the back that echoed Alisson’s error for Liverpool against Fulham.
Yet Everton never really seized control. They survived. They competed. But did they show enough ambition against a Spurs side bereft of belief?
13. Tottenham Hotspur (last week: 14th)
Tottenham Hotspur 0-0 Everton
The pattern is becoming painful.
For 15 minutes, Spurs looked alive. Sharp. Energetic. The ball zipped, the runs were made, the crowd stirred. Then nothing.
Even in that early flurry, they lacked conviction. When Savio teed up Fernandes in the sixth minute, the midfielder needed only to hit it. Instead, he rolled his foot over the ball, delayed, and watched the chance evaporate. That hesitation felt symbolic.
What followed was sterile. Safe passes, sideways and backwards. In the 38th minute, Micky van de Ven’s aggressive win in the centre circle should have sparked a break. Instead, Tonali played six yards to Fernandes. Fernandes went back to Tonali. Tonali to Rodrigo Bentancur. Bentancur back to Tonali. The move died in a blur of caution.
With five minutes left, Mohammed Kudus and Lucas Bergvall engaged in a pointless bounce pass that visibly irritated Roberto De Zerbi and drew groans from the stands.
Two shots on target, one greeted with ironic cheers from their own supporters. Spurs look exactly what they are: a team drained of confidence and ideas.
14. Brentford (last week: 18th)
Bournemouth 2-2 Brentford
This was not the Brentford that tore into Spurs on opening day or dominated Leeds for 45 minutes at Elland Road.
They escaped with a point at Bournemouth and knew it. Kevin Schade, who scored both goals, admitted they were “lucky” to get out with a draw.
Schade’s brace accounted for Brentford’s only two shots on target. One came gift-wrapped, courtesy of a dreadful pass from goalkeeper Djordje Petrovic. At no stage did Brentford find their usual rhythm, even when they led. Bournemouth’s profligacy spared them.
Mamadou Sangare, so impressive in the first two weeks, was involved in the build-up to the opener by winning possession from Adrien Truffert, but could not hit his earlier heights.
The bigger worry lies up front. Igor Thiago is still searching for his first Premier League goal and offered little here. Right now, Brentford’s attacking threat begins and ends with Schade. That is not a sustainable plan.
15. Liverpool (last week: 4th)
Liverpool 0-0 Fulham
Liverpool’s head coach Andoni Iraola summed it up bluntly: this was the kind of game that sometimes needs a set play or a flash of genius to unlock. Liverpool found neither.
They had their moments from dead balls. Victor Munoz saw a header beaten away by Bernd Leno. Alexander Isak sniffed a half-chance in stoppage time. None of it carried the conviction of a side in full flow.
Open play was worse. Bradley Barcola is still searching for sharpness. Florian Wirtz never got going, aside from one deft flick that released Barcola, whose cutback failed to find Isak. That move felt like a metaphor for the afternoon: promising shape, blunt execution.
After back-to-back wins over Ipswich and Atletico Madrid, Liverpool looked flat, slow and short of ideas. Fulham, on paper, should have been obliging opponents. Instead, Liverpool lacked the energy and quality to break them down.
Anfield has seen far better under Iraola. It will need to again, and quickly.
16. Aston Villa (last week: 15th)
Aston Villa 1-2 Nottingham Forest
Unai Emery did not bother hiding behind excuses.
“How we played today, we didn’t deserve more,” he said. He was right. He questioned whether James McAtee should have seen red for the tackle that eventually led to Ian Maatsen’s injury, but he refused to pin the defeat on that alone. “It’s not an excuse… we played so, so poor.”
Forest outshot Villa 22-7. Emery burned through all his substitutions by the 63rd minute in a desperate attempt to change the flow. When Maatsen limped off late on, Villa were left to finish with 10 men and no way to reshuffle.
Midfield was a mess. Within seconds of the restart, Ross Barkley and Boubacar Kamara both gave the ball away cheaply in their own half. Kamara’s error proved fatal, leading directly to Delap’s opener. Up front, Nicolas Jackson, meant to be the focal point, was withdrawn at half-time amid fears he might collect a second yellow. Tammy Abraham, his replacement, barely registered.
The afternoon ended with Johan Manzambi volleying his first touch for the club straight out of play. It was that kind of day.
17. Manchester United (last week: 10th)
Manchester United 0-1 Manchester City
The injustice of the VAR decision that allowed Haaland’s goal to stand will dominate some conversations. It should not distract from the deeper issue: Manchester United were poor.
Phil Foden’s dismissal, bizarrely, seemed to harm United more than City. Against ten men, United’s play slowed to a crawl. Their best efforts came from distance — Marcus Rashford and Kobbie Mainoo both hit the post — and it took until the 70th minute for them to register a shot on target.
Passing patterns were pedestrian. Creativity was non-existent. Bruno Fernandes, usually the team’s heartbeat, looked strangely subdued. Michael Carrick’s in-game management invited scrutiny. Benjamin Sesko, an out-and-out striker, watched far too long from the bench while United probed without penetration.
This was a derby that laid bare the gulf in quality and cohesion between the squads. The VAR controversy will rage on. The performance, though, was damning in its own right.
18. Crystal Palace (last week: 11th)
Crystal Palace 2-3 Ipswich Town
Pierre Sage did not need advanced analytics to diagnose the problem.
“We have to prevent the crosses and be more aggressive in the box,” he said. Palace’s defending was, again, a catalogue of basic errors.
They had escaped against Fulham the previous week. There was no escape here. Disasi’s red card hurt, of course, but his rash challenge on Jack Clarke did not excuse the collective lapses that followed.
How did Emersonn, Ipswich’s striker, find himself with a free header between Disasi — appealing for offside instead of marking — and Honest Ahanor, stuck in no man’s land? Why did Daichi Kamada stand off as Tyrick Mitchell was left in a two-versus-one before the second goal? Where were Anan Khalaili and Chris Richards when the cross came in? Why did no one stop Julio Enciso’s delivery for the third? How did Khalaili allow Davis to win yet another header seconds later?
And then, at 2-2, how did Khalaili miss that golden chance at the back post?
Sage has more questions than answers right now. Palace have more chaos than control.
19. Coventry City (last week: 6th)
Coventry City 0-5 Brighton
Frank Lampard tried to cling to the positives. “We did some good stuff,” he said, before conceding that the game quickly became “very difficult”.
The problem was that the good stuff barely lasted. Once Brighton found their stride, Coventry’s fragility and naivety were laid bare.
The second goal summed it up: Aurele Amenda had to reach the ball before Malick Yalcouye. He did not. Minutes later, Taiwo Awoniyi saw red and the contest effectively ended. Coventry’s previous home defeat to Hull had exposed similar defensive flaws. Brighton simply punished them more ruthlessly.
Charalampos Kostoulas nipped in ahead of Bobby Thomas to win the penalty for Brighton’s third. That split-second sharpness mirrored the wider gap between the sides. Brighton were quicker, smarter, more decisive in every area.
Coventry did create chances, especially in a ten-minute spell around the half-hour mark, but even with Bart Verbruggen in fine form, the lack of conviction in front of goal is turning into a worrying theme.
20. Newcastle United (last week: 12th)
Leeds United 4-1 Newcastle United
Alan Shearer’s half-time verdict — “an absolute s*** show from the Toon” — captured the mood. By then, Newcastle were 3-0 down. Leeds soon made it four.
For the first hour, this was an embarrassment.
Dominic Calvert-Lewin dominated Botman and Thiaw, both in the air and on the deck. In midfield, the loss of Nico Gonzalez to concussion after 19 minutes forced Eddie Howe to throw in 18-year-old Sean Steur alongside 20-year-old Lewis Miley. Expecting that duo to cope with Stach, Ampadu and Tanaka was optimistic bordering on unfair.
Steur’s misdirected pass led to Leeds’ second, officially credited to Bogle but owed entirely to Calvert-Lewin’s towering leap and sheer will to get there first.
Newcastle were overrun centrally, soft at the back, and toothless going forward until a raft of substitutions in the second half injected some life. Six of their seven shots arrived after the break. By then, the damage was irreparable.
A performance that will sting, and one that raises uncomfortable questions about depth, resilience and direction as the season starts to take shape.
