Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice during Arsenal's 2-1 defeat of Chelsea on Sunday Getty Images Welcome to The Briefing, where, every Monday, The Athletic discusses three of the biggest questions posed by the weekend’s Premier League action. This was the round when Liverpool fans will hope the Alexander Isak era finally started , Erling Haaland reminded everyone (again) that at least one global superstar plays in the Premier League, and free-spending Tottenham Hotspur got a bit closer to scoring their first goal of the season . Elsewhere, Crystal Palace won at Fulham to notch their first win and keep their hosts pointless and Newcastle United rallied to earn a point against a potent but porous Bournemouth , while Brentford-Sunderland and Brighton & Hove Albion-Leeds United both ended up as “fair enough” 1-1 draws. But here we will discuss Arsenal’s win against Chelsea in a wonderful London derby, Marcus Rashford’s contribution to an entertaining 2-2 draw between Everton and Manchester United, and Hull City’s continuing mission to destroy xG’s credibility as a meaningful metric. Gameweek 3 results… Friday Ipswich Town 0 Liverpool 2 Saturday Newcastle United 2 Bournemouth 2 Brentford 1 Sunderland 1 Brighton & Hove Albion 1 Leeds United 1 Fulham 2 Crystal Palace 3 Manchester City 1 Coventry City 0 Nottingham Forest 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0 Hull City 0 Aston Villa 0 Sunday Everton 2 Manchester United 2 Arsenal 2 Chelsea 1 How ominous do Arsenal look? First up: what a game. If the 2026-27 Premier League season is a tasting menu, the first few dishes have been a little meh. Not awful but not very memorable or substantial. Arsenal-Chelsea, on the other hand, was a Wagyu beef slider in a brioche bun, with onion and pear chutney and melted brie. And I want another one ASAP. To be honest, when you have ingredients as great as this, even I could come up with something tasty. I will stop the food chat now — you get the idea. Two unbeaten teams, big London rivals, managers who grew up on the same street, stacked squads, an England star who could have joined Arsenal only for Chelsea to dig a little deeper into their pockets; yep, there were plenty of potential plot lines to this one and the scriptwriters did not disappoint. Just over one minute gone and the aforementioned England star, Morgan Rogers, volleyed the visitors in front. See that? It is what you pay that extra £37million for. But instead of kicking themselves over transfer punts not taken, Arsenal remembered who they were and what they are good at, taking the lead through Martin Odegaard. At 2-1 down, Chelsea kept pushing for an equaliser until the end but, apart from another fine David Raya save from Estevao, Arsenal looked in control. It always helps when you can bring on two 2026 World Cup winners in Mikel Merino and Martin Zubimendi to play keep-ball. And that is the thing about this Arsenal side — they can bombard you with set pieces, stretch you with pace, carry the ball past you or play it around you. They already had the league’s best defence and then spent £51million on England centre-back Ezri Konsa, who enjoyed an unsurprisingly solid debut on Sunday. They can play nice, as Kai Havertz (who scored their equaliser) and Odegaard demonstrated, or they can play nasty, as Declan Rice showed when he tripped England team-mate Rogers to stop him joining a Chelsea break, or Konsa underlined when he picked former Aston Villa team-mate Rogers up and dumped him on the ground, WWE-style. Three wins from three — four if you are including the Community Shield defeat of Manchester City, which, of course, you should not — and a first proper test passed with distinction. It took Arsenal 22 years to add a 14th English title to their honours list. The odds on them claiming a 15th in May are shrinking. Is the old Marcus Rashford back for Manchester United? It should seem strange that almost every game a homegrown star who has played 428 times for his club, scoring 138 goals, helping them win five trophies and earning himself 78 England caps in the process, should feel like a trial, but Marcus Rashford’s Manchester United career has become a bit strange. Having joined the club at age seven, he spent most of his teenage years being touted as United’s next starlet, before breaking into the first team at 18 and immediately eclipsing George Best’s record for being the club’s youngest scorer in European competition. The next eight seasons brought Rashford silverware, individual accolades, international recognition and, in 2022-23, 30 goals. At that point, nobody questioned the decision to reward him with a new five-year contract worth almost £17million a year. But this is when the strangeness started. Every player goes through dips in form, but with Rashford the debate was about a dip in focus. What once looked so easy and joyful became hard and gloomy. Multiple United managers questioned his effort and he became a constant talking point for pundits looking for reasons why the glory had run dry at Old Trafford. Things got so bad for the player and his club that it looked like the only possible outcome was a divorce, with Rashford spending the previous season and a half on trial separations on loan at Aston Villa and then Barcelona. And United were so keen to move on, they cut the amount needed to make the separation permanent from £40million to £25m. But, despite him rediscovering his form and smile in Spain last season, neither Villa nor Barca bit, forcing Rashford and United to make one more go of it. The reconciliation started with a decent display off the bench in the otherwise dozy opening-weekend defeat by Hull City, but the 28-year-old Mancunian was among United’s better players in the thrilling win over Ipswich Town last Sunday and, for many observers (but not all, as he continues to divide opinion), he was their best one yesterday against Everton. I suspect if Everton’s Merlin Rohl was asked who played best for his opponents, the German would say there is no way any of his team-mates had to face someone as fast and as skilful as United’s left-winger. Rohl did not play that badly himself but was turned inside out, spun around and left in the dust on several occasions. It was Rohl’s bad luck to face Rashford in form this good, but it was also his good luck that other United players did not do more with the openings he made. Rashford’s shift lasted only 70 minutes, though, which some will argue was 20 minutes or so too soon to substitute him, but others will say was about right, as he had started to tire. This means he missed the thrills and spills of the last 15 minutes, when United dropped two points, earned them again and then had them taken away by a stunning strike from Ainsley Maitland-Niles. The result seemed fair enough to this observer, but United fans will no doubt be annoyed about losing the lead twice and conceding two goals for the third game in a row. But I think most of them will be pleased with how the Rashford remarriage is going.

As United’s performative pessimist and noted Rashford critic Mark Goldbridge tweeted: “Rashford off for Dorgu. Good performance from Rashford.” Hull City, laughing in the face of xG Speaking of Hull… Come on, be honest, who had them on seven points after three games, with no goals conceded and sitting third in the table? The bookmakers certainly did not, as they were everyone’s pre-season favourite to come last, with some even wondering if Derby County’s record-worst Premier League tally of 11 points for a 38-game campaign was beyond them. Well, they only need five more points to beat Derby’s total and are now only the second favourites for the drop. Baby steps. But should we be raising our forecasts and expectations for Sergej Jakirovic’s charges much higher? After all, they have spent £150million on 18 new players, dispatched Rashford and company, beat anticipated relegation-scrap rivals Coventry away and, on Saturday, shared the spoils with Europa League champions Aston Villa. Buyers of Hull stock would also point out that Jakirovic looks completely unflappable at this level, Algerian winger Mohamed Belloumi is a baller and their new £20million goalkeeper Konstantinos Tzolakis is an early shout for the league’s most impactful summer signing. However, I feel some brake-pumping is in order. First, over the past 20 years, only nine of the previous season’s Championship play-off final winners have stayed up. This should not be a surprise as those teams were, by definition, the weakest of the three promoted sides over the course of the previous campaign, and they had at least two weeks fewer than the two automatically-promoted clubs to prepare for the new challenge. But Hull’s handicap was even worse, as they finished sixth, and only one team to come up after doing that have ever survived the following season: West Ham, 20 years ago. Even Hull’s sixth-place finish last season came with an asterisk, as they ended up 22 points behind Coventry in first and seven points adrift of Middlesbrough, who they beat fair and square at Wembley, in fifth. And their goal difference was a decidedly mediocre +4, a consequence of conceding more goals than 19 of their 23 second-tier rivals. In fact, if statistical anomalies are your thing, Hull’s cumulative xG for the season should have seen them relegated, not promoted, and only four Championship teams took fewer shots than they did. Guess what? According to xG, they should have lost to United, Coventry and Villa, too. Are they bovvered? To be honest, I am all in on Hull’s attempt to troll xG, and why take 10 shots when three will do? We also know that Hull have bolted out of the gates before and then coasted on fumes all the way to survival. Former Hull manager Phil Brown was on BBC 5 Live radio’s 606 phone-in on Saturday, and he reminded the nation that his 2008-09 side won six of their first nine matches, banking 20 points, and were still third at the end of October. But they won only one of their last 22 games and slid all the way to 18th before a draw at Bolton Wanderers in the penultimate game gave them the point they needed to climb to 17th. They went down the following year, being equally bad all season, but were back in the Premier League in 2013, romping to 10th in the table at Christmas, only to fall back to earth and 16th place by the end of the campaign. Fast starts are their thing, then. But a point in September is worth as much as a point in April. Does it matter when Hull earn them? They have tricky visits to Chelsea and Newcastle United before the international break later this month but then a run of Everton, Fulham, Brentford and Ipswich Town. Can they top Brown’s 20 points after nine games? I doubt it. But I have seen enough of this side to think they will not collapse in 2027, either. There is a path to top-flight survival for Hull, and they have made a surprisingly positive start. Coming up this week If I were you, I would take Monday off in terms of watching football. Think of it as a short fast to sharpen the senses ahead of a massive week. But if you absolutely must, the League One clash between Bromley and Wimbledon is a south London derby. Just don’t expect the Old Firm. Tuesday, on the other hand, is stacked, as it sees the start of the Champions League group, sorry, league phase, five Carabao Cup third-round ties and six Championship matches. Club Brugge vs Aston Villa is one of the two early kick-off Champions League games, while Manchester City are at Porto in one of the four later ones. The pick of the evening is probably the Jose Mourinho derby between Real Madrid and Inter. Liverpool host Atletico Madrid on Wednesday, which they seem to do almost every year nowadays, and Arsenal travel to Napoli. Once upon a time, these games would have seemed huge, but I suspect all four of these teams will reach the knockout stages, so the jeopardy levels have dropped. Chelsea vs Leeds in the Carabao Cup, on the other hand, is a proper cup tie, so maybe second-screen that one. The last six Champions League games of this opening round are on Thursday, with Sabah’s visit to Manchester United perhaps the tie of the week. I am not ashamed to admit that I had never heard of them until about a week ago — Sabah, that is — but they won the double in Azerbaijan last season and have fought through four rounds of qualifying to get this far. Fair play. Speaking of things that are further along than you might think, there is a Scottish League Cup quarter-final on Friday between Stenhousemuir and Hearts. There is also West Ham-Wrexham in the Championship, which feels like a future episode in a smash-hit reality show. Connections: Sports Edition Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle