AFTER a weekend in which three of England’s top-six were vanquished by teams they were widely expected to beat, the fixture list for this round of matches has thrown up another trio with the potential for more riveting football.
Champions and favourites, Manchester City unceremoniously lost their perfect record and will tomorrow face Arsenal, the side that finished runners-up last season. The Gunners remain unbeaten this term, in fifth place.
Man Utd, with their billion-dollar squad, lost for the fourth time in the league this season, but should get past Brentford, a club sitting in 14th place.
Fans of the Bees, though, might not take kindly to that assessment – not when they are only two points behind the 10th-placed Red Devils in the standings. And they would have an argument with substance.
Pep Guardiola, the perfectionist at the Etihad, will have been seething after his side were ambushed by Wolves.
But that is the beauty of the Premier League. No team is immune to defeat here, and giants of the game like Liverpool can attest to that. Although it should be mentioned that the Reds’ defeat at Tottenham was a gross injustice – certainly not after the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd themselves apologised for their “significant human error” and took some real flak for it.
City will start the late kick-off tomorrow with the edge, borne of their recent dominance in the competition and stature that is unrivalled in England.
For a long time, the Citizens trailed the Gunners last season before leapfrogging them down the home stretch. So far, City have been in front since the get-go and still top the standings by one point, despite the loss last weekend.
And there will be every effort made in London to maintain their position and maybe extend the gap. Given their exploits in the Uefa Champions League in midweek, one can never be too sure who Guardiola will call upon for duty at the Emirates.
But the spine of the side should be there. That should include Edersen, Ruben Dias, Kyle Walker, Mateo Kovacic, Julian Alvarez and Erling Haaland.
The after-effects of travelling to the Red Bull Arena to take on RB Leipzig in the Champions League, where they comfortably won 3-1, are unlikely to adversely affect Guardiola’s side.
This is so because of the great depth they have in the squad and the Spaniard’s rotation system.
Arsenal lost for the first time this season when they crashed to a 2-1 defeat at RC Lens in the Champions League in midweek. That was despite Gabriel Jesus giving the Londoners a healthy first-half lead.
More worrying for Mikel Arteta was the injury to Bukayo Saka, who limped off injured.
The Emirates boss said he had no idea if the England winger would have recovered in time for the Man City clash.
Man United’s defeat by Galatasaray at Old Trafford has regurgitated the debate of how long Erik ten Hag might still be the boss there.
That was Man United’s sixth defeat in 10 games across all competitions this season and left them bottom of the heap in their Champions League group.
It also left their adversaries calling Old Trafford the “Theatre of Pain (a far cry from the Theatre of Dreams).
