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Gutsy Gunners are worthy favourites for the Premier League title
Steve Davies runs down the top talking points from the sixth weekend of the 2025-26 Premier League season
Another Premier League weekend ticked off, packed full of drama, controversy and entertainment, as per usual.
There was much to admire, much to lament, but what did we learn from Week Six? Here are five takeaways.
No need to drool over dribble king Doku
Jeremy Doku had his best game of the season for Manchester City in Saturday's 5-1 win over Burnley, according to many observers.
Indeed, he has had a very encouraging start to the season if you're blinded by dribbling stats, key passes and assists.
Yet if his performance against Burnley told us anything it's that he is still unpolished, will only ever perform fitfully and inconsistently, and that he won't be winning the title this season.
Credit to him for the bursts into the box and the assist for Erling Haaland. But it's the knack of running down blind alleys, getting dispossessed and offering almost no goalscoring threat that are the very real negatives in a side a long way from their best.
Doku has had four shots in 374 minutes this term, one on target. He scored three league goals last season, three the campaign before, numbers that pale next to former City wide boys like Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling and Riyad Mahrez, who were far trickier, far more imaginative and far more prolific.
The young Belgian can have a bright future but should never be considered an essential piece in the City jigsaw.
Just as none of us are fooled by the 5-1 win against Burnley, a scoreline that thoroughly flattered the victors.
Slot's machine aren't the only late stars
VAR continues to divide opinions for manifold reasons but one of its unintended consequences is far more late drama.
There are many reasons for more added time – stopping the watch for the usual suspects like goals, injuries and substitutions, but also a welcome clamping down on time-wasting – but VAR's infernal intrusions also ensure the clock continues to tick.
All of which means late goals are now a common currency as evidenced on Saturday when eight goals in seven fixtures came after the 90th minute.
Twenty-three per cent of all goals scored in the top flight so far have come after the 80th minute – with Liverpool contributing six of those – which punters betting on the last goal time in a match might want to give some thought.
Once rigidly pitched in the low 70s, the time of the last goal mark has now ticked on into the late 70s as standard.
With that in mind, if you fancy next Saturday's quartet of games to all produce last-gasp drama, a late-goal fourfold with bet365 pays over 10-1.
Gunners right to be title favourites
Arsenal usurped Liverpool at the head of title betting this weekend and rightly so.
While the Reds have largely laboured to wins and finally came up short at Crystal Palace, Arsenal have done precious little wrong and a lot more right than their critics would ever concede.
There was far too much negativity surrounding last week's 1-1 draw with Manchester City, which in a season that is going to be full of swings and twists, in a league without a stand-out team but a lot of very good ones, was neither a terrible result or performance.
But they still probably needed to convince themselves that they can edge games against likely top-four rivals and Sunday's 2-1 win at Newcastle was everything they could have hoped for.
The Gunners were outstanding, by far the better team against the best defence in the league and showed all their resilience and spirit to come from behind to not only equalise but go on and grab a winner.
They never looked panicked, changed pace of attack constantly and were able to draw on a high-class bench.
Runners-up in each of the last three campaigns, Arsenal will never have a better opportunity to take that next step in a season where 80 points could well be all it takes.
Any lingering doubts should have been well and truly banished after their win on Tyneside.
Vitor's cup tonic a knockout reminder
No one takes the League Cup seriously, do they? Well, not the early rounds anyway.
Managers never say it publicly but you only need to look at team selections to realise what they really think of the lesser of England's two knockout competitions.
So when Vitor Pereira changed out almost the entire side humbled by Leeds for last week's third-round tie at home to Everton, most presumed he was giving his first-teamers a rest.
Not a bit of it. It was an audition – and one the stand-ins not only passed but were rewarded for.
Wolves' supposed second string beat Everton 2-0 and Pereira kept faith in them. And they repaid their manager's vote of confidence in a seriously decent effort at Tottenham to post their first point at the sixth attempt.
The Old Gold are no sort of value at 1-2 to go down after just six rounds, especially if Pereira's League Cup heroes can step up again.
Don't be so draft and stay on your feet!
I've always thought lying down behind a wall – the so-called draft excluder – was a risible waste of a player.
And so, hopefully, will Daniel Farke after Leeds' 2-2 draw at Bournemouth.
Brenden Aaronson was the Leeds man handed lying-down duties behind the Whites' wall after the Cherries were awarded a free-kick right on the edge of the box, only to watch as Antoine Semenyo's grasscutter fizzed under the wall, past him and into the back of the net.
It looks ludicrous because it is ludicrous. And it doesn't work.
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