The Wrap: What happened in Matchweek 9

When will Sunderland’s train stop chugging? With victory at Chelsea, Regis Le Bris’ promoted side climbed to fourth in the Premier League table to continue their remarkable start to the campaign.

Their rise was aided by defeats for champions Liverpool – who suffered their fourth consecutive league loss – and Manchester City, while Arsenal sit imperious at the summit after Eberechi Eze helped to see off his former club Crystal Palace.

AFC Bournemouth are their closest challengers in second place after beating Nottingham Forest, who are joined in the relegation zone by two other defeated parties over the weekend in West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Vitor Pereira’s side are still yet to taste victory this season.

Meanwhile, Manchester United made it three wins in a row by beating Brighton & Hove Albion, and Tottenham Hotspur rounded off the weekend by beating Everton.

Here is everything you need to know about Matchweek 9.

It took just 15 minutes to consign West Ham to their worst start to a top-flight season for more than 50 years.

Early goals from Brenden Aaronson and Joe Rodon saw the visitors fall two goals behind – a deficit they were unable to recover from despite pulling one back courtesy of Mateus Fernandes in the 90th minute.

It leaves Nuno Espirito Santo’s side with only four points from their opening nine games of the season – their joint-worst ever return at this stage of a top-flight campaign alongside 1973/74.

If they are seeking positive signs, they can take heart from their brilliant second half of that season, which ensured they avoided relegation. It is certainly not too late to turn things around.

“You have to face the reality of where we are: second bottom and we’re in trouble now,” said West Ham captain Jarrod Bowen.

“The only way this is going to change is if players step up, roll their sleeves up and get ready for the fight. We need more of that week in, week out. When things aren’t going so well, it’s easy to hide and be scared but as easy as it is to say, it’s hard to do. We have to do that.”

Leeds United faded as the match wore on but never looked in danger of letting victory slip away. West Ham have now conceded nine goals from corners in the Premier League this season – triple the amount of any other side and the most of any side ever at this stage of a Premier League season.

Was there anyone who predicted this start to Sunderland’s Premier League return? With this last-gasp victory at Stamford Bridge, Le Bris’ side now have 17 points, which is the highest tally for a promoted club at this stage since Hull City in 2008/09.

Amazingly, they are already just nine points off hitting a mark that none of the relegated sides managed last season. The win also meant they ended the day in second place, and the weekend fourth.

The result had seemed unlikely when Alejandro Garnacho scored his first Chelsea goal after just four minutes. The Argentinian became his club’s 10th different Premier League goalscorer this season, but the remainder of the match showed why Chelsea are lacking a focal point to their attack.

The hosts rarely threatened and Marc Guiu, making his first league start since returning from the briefest of loans to Sunderland at the start of this season, was ineffective leading the line.

Wilson Isidor equalised for Sunderland in the first half, before Chemsdine Talbi scored a stoppage-time winner.

“We were not good enough,” said Enzo Maresca. “We didn’t create a lot apart from the goal. We struggled. We need our players to perform 100 per cent.”

Making his 150th start for the club, Newcastle United captain Bruno Guimaraes stole victory in the dying moments to consign Fulham to their fourth consecutive Premier League defeat.

The match seemed to be heading for a draw until the Brazilian tucked home a rebound in the 90th minute to back up Newcastle’s midweek UEFA Champions League victory over Benfica. It was his fifth goal in his last 10 Premier League appearances at St James’ Park.

“We cannot play the perfect game every time but we need to find the three points and we did this,” said Guimaraes. “This is the Newcastle I know – we fight until the end.”

Jacob Murphy had put the hosts ahead with a fine finish early on. Since the start of February, only Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland have been involved in more goals across home games in all competitions among Premier League players than Murphy’s 12 (five goals, seven assists).

Sasa Lukic’s headed equaliser proved in vain for Fulham, who have lost four successive Premier League games for only the second time since returning to the top flight in 2022/23.

Man Utd have won three successive Premier League games in a single season for the first time since February 2024. That was considerably the most important statistic for home fans at Old Trafford, but they would have been alarmed at how close their side came to letting victory slip away.

United had eased into a three-goal lead courtesy of Matheus Cunha, Casemiro and Bryan Mbeumo. Ending a 16-game drought, Cunha’s opener was his first for the Red Devils, having previously topped this season’s charts for attempts on goal without scoring from Premier League players in all competitions.

But Brighton hit back through Danny Welbeck and Charalampos Kostoulas to give home supporters an almighty scare until Mbeumo added his second deep in stoppage time.

“We suffered a little bit in the end but it would not be Manchester United without suffering a little bit,” said Ruben Amorim. “But I think we deserved the win against a very, very good team.”

The respite of Liverpool’s midweek UEFA Champions League triumph over Eintracht Frankfurt is long forgotten.

This defeat – a fourth successive league loss for the first time since February 2021 – means Liverpool have now lost as many top-flight games this season as they did in the entirety of last season’s title-winning campaign.

Arne Slot needs to figure out what is going on, and fast. “If you change quite a lot during the summer, then I think it’s not a surprise that it can go a bit like this,” he said. “But I didn’t expect it to go with four losses in a row.

“It’s always a bit of a bumpy road. I don’t know if that has been seen as an excuse, but from the last six games we’ve played, it’s been five away.”

Worryingly, his side were entirely outplayed and outfought here. Dango Ouattara finished off Michael Kayode’s lethal long throw, and Kevin Schade put the hosts two goals up before Milos Kerkez hit back on the brink of half-time.

Igor Thiago’s penalty – his sixth Premier League goal of the campaign, putting him behind only Haaland – restored Brentford’s two-goal advantage, with Salah’s much-needed goal in the 89th minute insufficient to affect the result.

Liverpool are now down to seventh, seven points behind leaders Arsenal.

Never before have Bournemouth had it this good. Andoni Iraola’s side sit second in the Premier League table with an all-time club high of 18 points after nine top-flight games.

“It’s definitely a very good start, but it’s just a start,” said Iraola. “This season, the differences between teams are so small. It’s going to be difficult for us to earn more points, but we have to try.”

The hosts went ahead when Marcus Tavernier scored directly from a corner, before Junior Kroupi added a wonderful second from close to 30 yards out. It was the 19-year-old’s fourth Premier League goal in three appearances. Across Europe’s top five leagues, Eintracht Frankfurt’s Can Uzun is the only teenager with more league goals than Kroupi this season.

It was back to earth with a bump for Sean Dyche, who had won his first match in charge at Forest, beating Porto in the UEFA Europa League on Thursday. His preferred style was evident here, with 16.8 per cent of Forest’s pass attempts hit long – their highest long-pass average in a Premier League match this season.

However, he has plenty of work to do, with the visitors now yet to score in their last 448 minutes of Premier League action.

A wonderful goal and a poignant moment for its scorer stretched Arsenal’s unbeaten run to 10 games in all competitions.

Back at the club that had rejected him as a 13-year-old, Eberechi Eze’s acrobatic strike sunk a Palace side with whom he subsequently made his name. He did not celebrate his first Premier League goal for Arsenal, but almost everyone else inside Emirates Stadium did.

“Eze delivers the magic moments,” said his manager Mikel Arteta. “To strike the ball in the manner that he did – he did it very similarly last year but against us when he scored from that corner and directly on the post.” 

Eze's similar strikes

“He’s certainly a big player and hopefully that’s going to give him a big boost and confidence to generate many more moments like this because that’s the moment that sometimes defines a season.” 

The goal came from a familiar source after Gabriel had knocked down Declan Rice’s free-kick. Eleven of Arsenal’s 16 top-flight goals this season have come from set-pieces – the highest ratio by a team in a single Premier League campaign.

Palace are now without a win in four games as Oliver Glasner battles managing a small band of first-team players with an inaugural European campaign.

Aston Villa’s Premier League turnaround has been remarkable in recent weeks. Five winless games to start the campaign have paved the way for four league wins on the bounce, to propel Unai Emery’s side up to eighth in the table.

This hard-fought win came courtesy of Matty Cash, who struck from the edge of the box after a Villa corner. It inflicted a third successive Villa Park defeat on Man City, whose nine-game unbeaten run came to an end.

Pep Guardiola’s team have now lost three of their opening nine Premier League games – they last suffered more defeats at this stage of a season in 2008/09.

Haaland had a late goal disallowed as he failed to score for the first time in 13 matches.

This is a crucial period for City, whose next two Premier League fixtures see them host second-placed Bournemouth and defending champions Liverpool, either side of the UEFA Champions League visit of Borussia Dortmund.

“I was worried before the [September] international break when we were 14th in the table and [Arsenal] were seven or eight points in front,” said Guardiola. “Our job is not to look at the table. If they win all their games and win the Premier League, congratulations to them, that’s all we can do. But I have the feeling the team is alive, the team is good.”

Exactly six months after they last won a Premier League match, Wolves became only the third team in English top-flight history to go without a victory in their opening nine league games in consecutive campaigns (after Bury in 1904/05 and 1905/06, and Sunderland in 2015/16 and 2016/17).

This one hurt because the hosts had done brilliantly to draw level by half-time, with Jorgen Strand Larsen and Marshall Munetsi hitting back after a Zian Flemming double had given Burnley a two-goal lead at Molineux.

Wolves were the dominant force throughout much of the match, registering more shots, more possession and a higher Expected Goals (xG) than the visitors. But they were unable to find a winner and paid the price when Lyle Foster scored in stoppage time to give Burnley a first away victory.

After the match, Vitor Pereira tried to reason with unhappy Wolves fans. “What I said to them is we work a lot and we need to fight together,” he said. “I understand the frustration, when you are there in 90 minutes trying to help the team and the team gave everything on the pitch to win, but in the end you concede a goal.

“What I must say to them, if we fight with them, united, we can win games. We can compete and achieve our targets. If not, without them, it’s impossible.”

For the first time in the Hill Dickinson Stadium era, Everton fans departed disappointed. Three headed goals were sufficient to inflict a first defeat for Everton at their new ground, while continuing Spurs' remarkable away form.

Thirteen points from a possible 15 on their travels, the league's best tally, have powered Spurs to third in the table. Now they just need to do something about their dismal home performances.

Captaining in the absence of Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven made it five goals in 13 appearances this season, burying two headers from corners in the opening half to become the first Spurs defender to score twice in a Premier League game since Jan Vertonghen in 2013. Pape Matar Sarr then also nodded home in the 89th minute.

Van de Ven's double v Everton

“I’m very happy with the set-pieces, and the clean-sheet mentality is a good foundation,” said head coach Thomas Frank. “We need to do more, but it is an inexperienced Champions League squad so to go every three or four days and keep the energy and focus showed a lot about the mentality.”

It was the fourth match in which Everton have failed to score, only Forest, with six, have done so more.

More reaction from Matchweek 9