Arsenal's Dominance Continues with 2-0 Victory at Sunderland
Arsenal’s perfect title defence rolled on with a ruthless 2-0 win at Sunderland, lit up by a thunderbolt from Bruno Guimaraes and anchored by David Raya’s big save on a night when the champions quietly tightened their grip on the Premier League.
Four games, four wins, four clean sheets. A three-point cushion over Manchester City already in place. The numbers tell one story. The way Arsenal are doing it tells another.
Guimaraes stunner and Raya rescue
Sunderland had the Stadium of Light crackling early, sensing an upset. Arsenal smothered that mood in a couple of brutal minutes.
First came the warning: Enzo Le Fee stepped up from the spot with the home crowd roaring, only for Raya to read him and push away the penalty. A huge moment, and Arsenal knew it.
Just over two minutes later, Guimaraes delivered the punishment. Picking up the ball from distance, he let fly with a first Arsenal goal that screamed into the top corner and silenced the stadium in an instant. One swing of his right foot, and the champions were in command.
Sunderland chased, pushed and probed, but Mikel Arteta’s side managed the game with the authority of a team that has been here before. And when a late chance arrived to kill it, Bukayo Saka did exactly that, burying a penalty with the final kick of the game to wrap up another statement victory.
City can reel them back in if they win the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on Sunday. For now, though, the table shows Arsenal alone at the top — and a gap already forming behind them.
Alonso wants ‘boring’ Chelsea as Hull stay unbeaten
At Stamford Bridge, the spectacle was wild again. The control, less so.
Chelsea’s front three of Morgan Rogers, Joao Pedro and Cole Palmer sparkled in flashes, but Xabi Alonso’s side were once more dragged into a shootout they could not win. In five games against top-flight opposition under Alonso, Chelsea have now scored 16 and conceded 12 — exhilarating, chaotic, and costly.
“(It’s) maybe entertaining, but I hope one day you’ll say it was a boring game and we win and we don’t give these entertaining moments,” Alonso admitted, his team now five points off the top.
Hull arrived as the last team in the league yet to concede and left still unbeaten, clinging on to third place after a breathless 2-2 draw. Their resistance finally cracked after just seven minutes when Rogers drilled in at the near post to put Chelsea in front.
That should have settled the hosts. Instead, it jolted Hull awake.
Mohamed Belloumi twice punished slack defending before the break, turning the game on its head and exposing Chelsea’s soft underbelly. Stamford Bridge grew restless. Chelsea chased.
The pressure told just after the hour when Joao Pedro met a Palmer cross and lashed it into the top corner to level. The momentum was theirs, the crowd back onside. But the winner never came, and Hull’s Premier League honeymoon rolled on with another point and another statement.
Liverpool stall, Fulham dig in for Arbeloa
Anfield did not turn on Liverpool, but the boos at full-time told their own story.
Andoni Iraola is still unbeaten in the league, yet a goalless draw against a struggling Fulham side under new boss Alvaro Arbeloa felt like a step backwards. A forward line boasting three £100 million players — Bradley Barcola, Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak — never truly clicked against a defence that has already leaked goals this season.
“When you draw, especially at home, you can’t be happy,” Iraola said, pointing to fatigue after Wednesday’s Champions League exertions against Atletico Madrid. “Today we lacked a bit of freshness and we did not do enough offensively to make the difference.”
The table is unforgiving. Liverpool sit sixth, already six points behind Arsenal.
For Fulham, though, this was a precious first point under Arbeloa and a platform to cling to.
Tottenham toothless again, Forest lift off
Tottenham’s summer spending spree — around £300 million on new faces — was supposed to drag them away from the anxiety of back-to-back 17th-place finishes. The goals were meant to flow. They haven’t.
Another 0-0, this time at home to Everton, left Spurs still waiting for their first league goal of the season and hovering just above the relegation zone. The tension is building, the patience thinning, and the numbers are brutal.
Aston Villa know the feeling. They are also stuck in the bottom three after Nottingham Forest struck late to claim a measure of revenge for last season’s Europa League semifinal defeat.
Eyebrows had been raised when Forest agreed a club-record £45 million fee with Chelsea for Liam Delap, a striker who never made the grade at Stamford Bridge. On this evidence, Forest may have found their man. Delap announced himself with a crisp long-range strike into the bottom corner to open the scoring and validate the investment.
Villa finally broke their league duck when Alysson levelled with their first top-flight goal of the campaign, but it was not enough. Igor Jesus struck to secure Oliver Glasner’s first win as Forest manager and flip the mood at the City Ground.
Palace punished, Ipswich and Brentford refuse to fade
Glasner’s former club Crystal Palace continue to stumble. A 3-2 home defeat to Ipswich deepened their early-season malaise, with the visitors helped by a first-half red card for Axel Disasi.
Even then, Palace could not see it out. Deep into stoppage time, Zian Flemming produced his first goal for the Tractor Boys to snatch all three points and send the away end into delirium.
Brentford, meanwhile, just keep ticking over. Kevin Schade’s double earned them a 2-2 draw at Bournemouth and preserved their unbeaten start.
On a day when the chasing pack slipped, stumbled or simply failed to score, Arsenal walked off into the Wearside night with another clean sheet, another win and the air of a team already setting the pace. The question now is simple: who is really equipped to stay with them?
