The first international pause of the season arrived with a final round that felt, in every sense, like a term-end review. Before attention turns away from the Premier League for three weeks, there was one more set of performances to assess.<\/p>\n
Arsenal were out of the contest almost immediately. After just 18 seconds, they were forced back into their own corner from the opening throw-in and never recovered. The 3-0 defeat was made to look even heavier by Brighton\u2019s two fine long-range efforts, but the visitors were second best throughout. It was the sort of loss that invites awkward questions.<\/p>\n
Nottingham Forest could not settle the nerves at the City Ground. Oliver Glasner admitted that the \u201centire City Ground was nervous\u201d and his side did little to calm the atmosphere in a stubborn game against Coventry. The manager was left \u201cfrustrated\u201d and \u201cdisappointed,\u201d emotions echoed in the stands once the tension took hold.<\/p>\n
Tottenham continue to frustrate, only in a different way. Roberto De Zerbi sounded exhausted by another 3-2 defeat, insisting, \u201cThese players, they don\u2019t need to play better,\u201d before adding that what Spurs require is more \u201cblood\u201d and \u201cfight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s defeat at Brentford followed a more gradual collapse. There was little obviously wrong in the opening hour, and Xabi Alonso had wanted his side to be more \u201cboring,\u201d but the match quickly slipped away. Ipswich, meanwhile, stayed alive despite conceding early and finishing with 10 men at Everton, where Gary O\u2019Neil said, \u201cThe only disappointment is the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leeds had a clear chance through Dominic Calvert-Lewin, but the fresh England call-up could not convert. At the other end, James Trafford was busier than Walter Ben\u00edtez in a game that ended in another encouraging clean sheet for Pierre Sage\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
Manchester United\u2019s trip to Fulham brought fierce criticism, with Gary Neville saying, \u201cI\u2019ve watched Manchester United since the age of 5,\u201d and that the second half\u2019s opening 15 minutes were \u201cthe worst 15 minutes I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d Fulham settled for a \u201cfrustrating\u201d 1-1 draw, while Calvin Bassey called it \u201ca game of luck, we both had it on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Everton\u2019s win was functional rather than elegant, Aston Villa needed a lift and got one, Bournemouth were left empty-handed, Sunderland earned admiration despite defeat at the Etihad, Newcastle held on after a nervy finish, Liverpool were second best for long spells, and Manchester City\u2019s chaotic game left Enzo Maresca saying, \u201cToo many goals,\u201d before admitting, \u201cI\u2019m always concerned, always trying to see what we can do better.\u201d Coventry\u2019s long wait for a Premier League win finally ended, and Frank Lampard had every reason to enjoy it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A full Premier League Matchday 5 review before the season\u2019s first international break arrived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19997,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,172],"tags":[1836,1162,1985],"class_list":["post-19998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-gameweek-5"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}