Premier League Matchweek 2 Preview: Difficult second albums, awkward reunions and the first whiff of panic
Jack Fairman, YSW Chief Football Editor
Well, that didn't take long.
One round of Premier League football has been played and already Arsenal are champions, Manchester United are doomed, several summer signings are either world class or complete frauds and at least one manager is probably being described somewhere on social media as "tactically naive".
Football is back.
Matchweek 1 gave us plenty. Arsenal started their title defence by putting three past Coventry. Hull celebrated their return to the Premier League by beating Manchester United. Ipswich beat Sunderland. Brighton dismantled Aston Villa with the efficiency of a bailiff who'd spotted a flatscreen TV.
And Newcastle and Liverpool spent Sunday afternoon paying a magnificent tribute to Kevin Keegan by apparently deciding that defending was optional and nobody was allowed to go home until something ridiculous happened.
Now we do it all again.
The dangerous thing about Matchweek 2 is that one result can still look suspiciously like a pattern.
Lose your first game and it's unfortunate.
Lose your second and people start producing graphics.
So, with ten games spread from Friday night to Monday, here is what might actually be worth watching.
Crystal Palace V Manchester City: Friday Night At Selhurst
Manchester City won their opening game.
Eventually.
Bournemouth made Enzo Maresca's side work considerably harder than expected before two late goals secured a 2 1 victory, and Friday night at Selhurst Park provides another interesting examination of the post Guardiola project.
Palace themselves lost 2 0 at Everton and remain without a league win under Pierre Sage.
The historical numbers aren't particularly encouraging for them either. Palace have won only twice in their last 22 league meetings with City and haven't beaten them in the Premier League since 2021.
Still, Selhurst under the lights isn't usually where visiting teams go for a relaxing evening.
There is also the slightly peculiar sight of Marc Guéhi returning to Palace almost immediately after leaving them for City.
Maresca used Guéhi in midfield against Bournemouth, because apparently being one of England's best centre backs is no longer sufficiently interesting.
City have an enormous amount of quality, but they're still learning what life after Guardiola looks like.
Palace away on a Friday night should tell us rather more than Bournemouth at home did.
Liverpool V Nottingham Forest: Surely They Haven'T Done It Again?
Liverpool's opening afternoon at Newcastle contained plenty to encourage Andoni Iraola.
It also contained plenty to make him stare at a tactics board for several hours afterwards.
They twice came from behind and Dominik Szoboszlai rescued a point with a superb 99th minute penalty, but defensively they looked vulnerable whenever Newcastle attacked space quickly.
Iraola has acknowledged the balance still needs work.
Enter Nottingham Forest.
Forest have become a strangely persistent irritation for Liverpool since returning to the Premier League and have won on their last two league visits to Anfield.
That sentence doesn't look right.
It is.
Morgan Gibbs White is fit, which matters, and Liverpool's ability to control him while maintaining enough protection against the counter could be one of the afternoon's more interesting tactical battles.
Forest have started badly, while Liverpool possess comfortably enough attacking quality to win this.
Opta makes Liverpool strong favourites.
But Forest winning at Anfield for a third successive league visit would be extremely funny.
For almost everybody.
Bournemouth V Everton: Quietly Rather Interesting
There probably won't be a documentary crew making a dramatic trailer for Bournemouth against Everton.
They should reconsider.
Bournemouth were unbeaten in 18 Premier League matches before City's late intervention last weekend and Marco Rose's side looked considerably better than the result suggested.
Everton, meanwhile, have started looking suspiciously like a sensibly run football club.
This remains concerning.
David Moyes' side won their opener and then watched Thierno Barry score a midweek hat trick in the cup, while Brennan Johnson also got off the mark.
There are goals appearing.
There is organisation.
There appears to be a plan.
Everton supporters who have spent the last decade treating optimism like an unattended bag at a railway station will understandably remain cautious.
Bournemouth also have a curious hold over them, having won more Premier League matches against Everton than against any other opponent.
This could be one of those games everybody ignores at three o'clock before discovering at quarter to five that it's 3 3.
Coventry City V Hull City: Welcome Home
This deserves more attention than it will receive.
Coventry's first Premier League home game in 25 years.
That sentence alone is enough.
Their return to the top flight began with Arsenal away, because apparently the Premier League fixture computer enjoys practical jokes.
Frank Lampard's side lost 3 0, but there was no disgrace in it. They competed, their supporters travelled in enormous numbers and the season was never going to be defined by what happened at the home of the champions.
This one matters rather more.
Hull arrive with three points already safely stored after producing the shock of Matchweek 1 by beating Manchester United 2 0.
And, beautifully, Coventry against Hull has never previously been played in the English top flight.
More than a century of league football and somehow we've saved this one until now.
Coventry have almost a full squad available and new centre back Ethan Pinnock is ready to play. Hull also received better injury news than initially feared after several players went down last weekend.
Nobody needs to call this a relegation six pointer in August.
Please don't.
There are another 36 games after this.
But for two promoted clubs, these are precisely the afternoons where points feel particularly valuable.
More importantly, Coventry have waited a quarter of a century for this.
Let them enjoy it.
Tottenham Hotspur V Newcastle United: Well, This Isn'T Awkward At All
Sandro Tonali against Newcastle.
There we are.
Preview done.
Tottenham's marquee summer arrival gets an immediate meeting with the club he left only weeks ago and, whatever affection remains for the player who occasionally looked magnificent in black and white, the travelling Toon Army are unlikely to spend the afternoon expressing it.
One prominent Newcastle supporter summed up the revisionist assessment of Tonali's three years rather brutally this week: banned for most of his first season, brilliant for about six months of his second and largely stinking the place out in his third.
Harsh?
Perhaps.
But don't expect 3,000 travelling Geordies to arrive in North London carrying thank you cards.
There is an actual football match taking place around him too.
Spurs were dreadful at Brentford last weekend, losing 3 0, before Roberto De Zerbi's much changed side restored some confidence with five goals in the cup.
Newcastle's opening draw with Liverpool was altogether more encouraging.
Matthias Jaissle has only been working with his squad for a few weeks, but there were already signs of an identity. Less possession, more comfort without the ball and a willingness to attack space at speed.
Anthony Elanga looked particularly delighted by this development.
That makes De Zerbi's Spurs an intriguing opponent.
De Zerbi isn't famous for placing eleven men behind the ball and hoping everybody has a pleasant afternoon.
There should be space.
Newcastle also have Nico González available following his arrival, although Joelinton, Dan Burn and Will Osula remain unavailable and Tino Livramento is being eased back carefully.
Historically Newcastle enjoy this fixture too. They've won more Premier League away games against Spurs than against anybody else.
Their recent away form generally, however, is dreadful.
So something has to give.
And somewhere in the middle of all this will be Tonali.
He'll know exactly what the away end thinks of him soon enough.
Chelsea V Brighton: Bogey Team Alert
Brighton have won their last three league meetings with Chelsea.
They scored three in each of them.
Chelsea haven't kept a Premier League clean sheet in 17 matches.
This seems relevant.
Brighton started the season by scoring four times against Aston Villa inside the opening 31 minutes, which is less a football result and more an administrative error.
Chelsea won too, edging Fulham 3 2.
So this is one of the weekend's genuinely intriguing fixtures.
Brighton's injury list isn't insignificant, with several attacking players unavailable or doubtful, but they've reached the stage where selling players, losing players to injury and replacing them with somebody you've never heard of who turns out to be brilliant appears to be part of the business model.
Chelsea remain Chelsea.
There is enough talent in the squad to beat almost anybody and enough unpredictability to make predicting when they'll do so extremely hazardous.
Opta makes them favourites.
Brighton probably won't care.
Leeds United V Brentford: The Hipster'S Choice
Two games into their competitive seasons and both of these teams appear to have forgotten they were supposed to be sensible.
Leeds have beaten Nottingham Forest twice already, once in the league and once in the cup.
Brentford opened by dismantling Tottenham 3 0 and then scored six against Birmingham in midweek.
Nobody calm is welcome here.
Opta can barely separate them and the recent history supports that assessment. Four of their six Premier League meetings have finished level.
Elland Road will be Elland Road.
Brentford will be Brentford.
There will be pressing.
There will be transitions.
Somebody will use the phrase "second balls" on television.
This might be excellent.
Sunderland V Fulham: Nobody Panic
Both lost last weekend.
Sunderland were beaten late by Ipswich.
Fulham lost a five goal game at Chelsea.
And because football discourse is now entirely normal and healthy, Sunderland have already spent the week hearing questions about whether their excellent first season back in the Premier League might be followed by something considerably more difficult.
Perhaps.
But we're one game in.
Fulham get Joachim Andersen back from suspension, while Sunderland return to the Stadium of Light where their support was such an important part of last season.
Opta's supercomputer thinks this is the game most likely to finish as a draw.
Which feels slightly rude.
Imagine spending millions of pounds building two Premier League squads, preparing all week, filling a stadium and then being informed by a laptop that essentially neither of you is going to win.
Prove it wrong.
Manchester United V Ipswich Town: Nothing To See Here
Manchester United lost 2 0 at newly promoted Hull City last weekend.
This weekend they play newly promoted Ipswich Town.
What could possibly go wrong?
Statistically, quite a lot.
United have only twice previously lost their opening two matches of a Premier League season.
No Premier League side has ever begun a campaign by losing consecutive matches against promoted opposition.
Michael Carrick's record against promoted teams is also strangely poor.
This is exactly the sort of collection of statistics you want appearing on television immediately before a match you're expected to win comfortably.
Ipswich arrive with absolutely nothing to lose.
They beat Sunderland on opening weekend, with Jack Clarke scoring a last minute winner, and a heavily reconstructed side already has three points that almost every relegation candidate would happily have taken before a ball was kicked.
United should win.
Opta gives them the highest victory probability of any side this weekend.
Old Trafford should expect them to win.
The players will expect to win.
Carrick desperately needs them to win.
Which is precisely why the first 20 minutes could be fascinating.
If United score early, everybody relaxes and this could become straightforward.
If Ipswich score first, however, Old Trafford may produce a noise previously recorded only when somebody discovers a wasp inside their motorcycle helmet.
And after Sir Jim Ratcliffe's facial performance during the Champions League draw this week, the television director surely already knows where camera two needs to be pointing.
Aston Villa V Arsenal: Oh Good, Arsenal
Imagine being Aston Villa.
You spend the summer watching key players leave.
You start the season at Brighton.
After 31 minutes you're 4 0 down.
A few days later the Champions League draw gives you PSG, Barcelona, Dortmund, Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe.
Then somebody looks at the domestic fixture list.
Arsenal.
Lovely.
Mikel Arteta's champions began with an emphatic 3 0 victory over Coventry and already look exactly what we thought they might be before the season started.
Very good.
Very deep.
And extremely difficult to play against.
Monday also brings Ezri Konsa back to Villa Park in Arsenal colours after his summer move.
He should receive the reception his years at Villa deserve, but once the whistle goes sentiment will disappear fairly quickly.
Villa desperately need something positive.
Unai Emery is too good a manager for anybody sensible to start writing obituaries after one dreadful half hour at Brighton, and Villa Park under the lights remains an uncomfortable place for visiting teams.
But Arsenal look like the team to beat.
If they go there and win convincingly, two matches won't make them champions.
Obviously.
It will, however, give everyone on television another six days to discuss whether anybody can stop them.
So What Are We Watching?
Spurs against Newcastle probably has the most obvious drama.
Tonali facing his former club, two new managers, two teams still discovering what they are and enough tactical ambition on both sides to make a cautious nil nil feel unlikely.
Chelsea against Brighton could be the best actual football match.
Coventry's homecoming might be the best occasion.
Liverpool against Forest has just enough bogey team nonsense to make Anfield slightly nervous.
And Manchester United against Ipswich has the greatest potential for the television director to spend 90 minutes hunting for wealthy men looking concerned.
Then there's Villa against Arsenal on Monday.
By the end of that one we'll have completed precisely 20 matches of a 380 match Premier League season.
Which will be more than enough evidence for everyone to reach completely definitive conclusions about absolutely everything.
Arsenal will either be unstoppable or exposed.
Manchester United will either be back or finished.
One of the promoted clubs will have been declared this season's surprise package.
Somebody who cost £60 million will already be a bargain.
Somebody else who cost £60 million will apparently need to be sold.
And at least one manager will be under pressure.
It's August.
Welcome back.
