Matchday 2 of the 2025-26 Premier League season brought us more drama and we’re back to overreact to it all with our weekly dose of knee-jerk reactions.
The Premier League season is barely two games old, but that doesn’t stop our knee-jerk reactions from rolling in.
From Tottenham’s perfect start under Thomas Frank to Chelsea’s impressive performance without Cole Palmer, here are our (somewhat) data-backed reactions to Matchday 2 of the season.
Thomas Frank Was Spurs’ Most Important Summer Arrival
Mohammed Kudus has hit the ground running. João Palhinha has slotted back into Premier League football as if he never left. But Tottenham’s best summer acquisition was not a player at all. It was their new manager, Thomas Frank.
The Dane has started life at Spurs with back-to-back victories and clean sheets, seemingly bringing clarity and adaptability to a team that has too often lacked either in recent years.
Spurs have opened a Premier League campaign with two wins for the first time since 2021-22 which, coincidentally, was also the last time a new manager at the club began his tenure with successive victories (Nuno Espírito Santo). With six points and a goal difference of +5, this is Tottenham’s best start to a season across their first two games since 2014-15.
One of Frank’s greatest assets as a coach is his adaptability. In the UEFA Super Cup against PSG, his team operated in a back five, conceding possession (25.7%) and going long. In the opening game of the season against Burnley they switched to a back four, controlled 67.3% of the ball, and ran out convincing 3-0 winners.
The performance at Manchester City sat somewhere in between. Spurs had only 38.6% possession at the Etihad, but their approach was fairly balanced. They sent 17.5% of their passes long – more than against Burnley (8.2%) but fewer than against PSG (24.7%) – and Guglielmo Vicario’s pass map showed a team comfortable mixing short build-up with more direct play.
Vicario pass map vs Manchester City
Low possession figures are often associated with passive defending, but Tottenham’s high press showed how proactive they were without the ball. They made 152 pressures in City’s defensive third – more than any other side in any single match this season – and their second goal came directly from that intensity.
Having also beaten City with Brentford in November 2022, Frank is only the third manager to win away against Pep Guardiola in the league with two different clubs, joining José Mourinho (Real Madrid & Man Utd) and Antonio Conte (Chelsea & Tottenham).
For Spurs, his adaptability is already translating into a belief that they can beat anyone on their day.
Estêvão’s Performance Shows Chelsea Are Fine Without Cole Palmer
There is no doubt Cole Palmer is Chelsea’s most influential player, but their 5-1 victory at West Ham was a reminder that Enzo Maresca’s team are not defined by him alone.
Heavy recruitment, particularly in attacking areas, has left the Blues with a squad that can absorb the absence of key figures. On Friday night, it was Estêvão who showed us that.
The Brazilian teenager was thrust into the starting XI with only 10 minutes’ notice after Palmer withdrew with an injury in the warm-up. His first few moments could not have gone much worse after giving the ball away for West Ham’s goal. Yet he responded to that setback extremely well.
Direct and fearless, Estêvão both attempted (9) and completed (4) more dribbles than any Chelsea player on the pitch and it was his surging run down the right that led to the third goal that effectively killed the contest. At just 18 years and 120 days old, Estêvão became the youngest Chelsea player in Premier League history to register an assist.
Of course, there was also João Pedro, whose versatility allowed him to step in as a number 10 in Palmer’s absence. He looked great against the Hammers, contributing a goal and two assists, and now has six goals in just seven appearances for the club.
While Palmer remains central to their ambitions, Estêvão and João Pedro gave us a glimpse of a side that can still perform without leaning solely on him.
Jack Grealish Can Power Everton to a 50-Goal Season
When Everton announced Jack Grealish’s arrival on a season-long loan from Manchester City this summer, the lack of competition for his signature was a bit of a surprise. Yes, Grealish had slipped down the pecking order at the Etihad, but this was still a player with title-winning pedigree and plenty left to offer. With the market quiet though, Everton made their move, and on early evidence it could prove to be a real coup.
On their first outing at the new Hill Dickinson Stadium, Grealish starred in Everton’s 2-0 victory over Brighton. Operating wide on the left with Iliman Ndiaye stretching the play on the opposite flank, he gave Everton a balance and creative spark that has been sorely lacking in recent seasons.
Everton’s opening goal was vintage Grealish. He picked up the ball on the left, drifted into the penalty area, beat Mats Wieffer with ease before drilling g a low cross to the far post, where Ndiaye finished. His second assist came shortly after, laying the ball into the path of James Garner to smash in Everton’s second.
In just 52 minutes, Grealish had provided as many assists as he had managed across the past two Premier League campaigns combined at Manchester City. It was only the third time in his career that he had registered multiple assists in a single Premier League game, following his three against Liverpool in October 2020 and two against Leeds United in December 2022.
Everton were quick to recognise his influence too, funnelling over half (52.2%) of their attacking-third touches down the left flank to get the ball to him.
Everton attacking thirds vs Brighton
His touch map showed just how high and wide he was able to play, constantly probing the final third in advanced positions.
Jack Grealish heat map vs Brighton
Everton have long struggled for goals: they scored just 34 in 2022-23 (second fewest in the league), 40 in 2023-24 (second fewest) and 42 in 2024-25 (fourth fewest). Grealish offers them something different.
If he stays fit and engaged, he could be the player to finally push Everton beyond the 50-goal mark for the first time since 2018-19.
Could Max Dowman Be England’s Lamine Yamal at the 2026 World Cup?
Lamine Yamal had only just turned 17 when he lifted Euro 2024 with Spain. Max Dowman will be just 16 years and 200 days old on the day of the 2026 World Cup final.
Both are supremely talented, left-footed right wingers who thrive in one-on-one situations… we’re just saying.
England have never fielded a player under 17 in a major international competition, with Jude Bellingham – who played twice at Euro 2020 before turning 18 – the closest example.
The comparisons between the two players are tantalising, but it is important to remember context. Yamal already has more than 100 senior appearances for Barcelona and has already proved himself on the biggest stages of both club and international football.
Dowman, by contrast, has just 26 Premier League minutes to his name. Nobody is saying he is destined to replicate Yamal’s path, but this column is called Knee-Jerk Reactions, after all…
Dowman made his Premier League debut this weekend in Arsenal’s 5-0 win over Leeds. With the game effectively won, Mikel Arteta sent him on in the 64th minute, making him the second-youngest player in the competition’s history (15y 235d), behind only his Arsenal teammate Ethan Nwaneri (15y 181d). Leicester City’s Jeremy Monga (15y 271d) is the only other player to appear before turning 16.
Even in a short cameo, Dowman found a way to leave his mark, winning a late penalty that Viktor Gyökeres converted for his second goal of the match. It added to two penalties he won during pre-season against Newcastle and Villarreal, underlining that he isn’t just making up the numbers but genuinely influencing games.
He one was the players we tipped to have a breakout season in 2025-26, and if his rapid rise continues, a place in Thomas Tuchel’s World Cup squad may not be out of the question. From there, who knows?
Ramifications of Newcastle’s Defeat to Liverpool Will Be Long Lasting
Newcastle may have gone down as valiant losers against Liverpool on Monday night, but go down as losers they did.
Just one point from their opening two matches feels scant reward for performances full of effort and resilience, particularly given how well they’ve seemed to respond on the pitch to the noise surrounding Alexander Isak.
Yet the 3-2 defeat to Liverpool threatens to linger longer than a single result.
Anthony Gordon’s red card for a reckless lunge on Virgil van Dijk means he’ll serve a three-match suspension, depriving Eddie Howe of his first-choice stand-in for the absent Isak. Sandro Tonali was forced off with an arm injury in the 66th minute, Joelinton limped out 10 minutes after, and Fabian Schär had to leave the game after suffering a head injury. The fear is that those absences could stretch beyond the next few weeks.
Newcastle will expect to navigate Wolves at home after the international break with ease, but before then they could travel to Leeds with a depleted squad. After Wolves come matches against Bournemouth and Arsenal. Even with a fully fit XI, those games would have been challenging.
Without several key players, Howe faces a spell that could shape Newcastle’s season far more than their defeat at Anfield.
West Ham and Wolves Are in Big, Big Trouble
This year’s relegation battle already has a different feel to it. Just two games into the season, each of the three newly-promoted sides have already recorded a victory, something that didn’t happen until Matchday 11 last season.
Sunderland sit in seventh, Burnley 10th and Leeds 12th, meaning all are clear of the bottom three. The last time that happened was on the final day of the 2022-23 campaign, when Fulham, Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest all managed to stay up.
That early success for the newcomers heaps pressure on the more established strugglers.
West Ham and Wolves are both still searching for their first point, and the early signs suggest they cannot rely on the promoted clubs propping up the table this time around. The underlying numbers make for grim reading: West Ham (1.3) and Wolves (1.0) are bottom for non-penalty xG created, while they are also the worst two sides for open-play xG conceded (3.5 for West Ham and 3.8 for Wolves). That’s really not a healthy combination, and points towards two teams who are struggling at both ends of the pitch.
West Ham, in particular, have looked flat and devoid of ideas in their defeats to Sunderland and Chelsea, with little in the way of attacking spark or defensive resilience.
West Ham 1-5 Chelsea xG race chart
Premier League Stats Opta
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