Premier League Early Insights: Hull's Strong Start and Chelsea's Chaos

The Premier League table is barely dry and already the division is splitting. Hull are snarling, Chelsea are swinging, James McAtee is quietly rewriting his job description – and Spurs and Liverpool are discovering that some problems run far deeper than any one shiny new signing.

This is what the early-season sorting hat looks like.

Hull: structure, sweat and a flying start

Hull have walked into the Premier League and immediately started kicking down doors.

They’re only the fourth promoted side ever to win their first two games in the division. Two of the previous three stayed up. The other was Hull in 2016/17, which does slightly kill the omen, but that doesn’t make this start any less impressive.

Most expected them to be the latest punchline. Another promoted team whose progress would be measured against Derby 2007/08, destined to pull away from that infamous points total but still slide back down without much resistance.

Instead, the Tigers are halfway to that Derby benchmark already with 36 games to go, powered by a plan so simple it feels almost old-fashioned: structure, organisation, teamwork, repetition.

A solid keeper. Three big centre-halves in a back five. A hard-nosed midfield. Width everywhere. And more attacking firepower still to come before the window closes. Sergej Jakirovic isn’t reinventing the game, he’s just drilling his side to stay in every contest and then pounce on transitions and set pieces.

Stay competitive. Wait for the moment. Strike. Hull are doing it better than anyone thought they would.

Chelsea: chaos, goals and the Keegan echo

Chelsea under Xabi Alonso are not subtle. They are not calm. They are, for now, tremendous fun.

Alonso’s only real brush with Kevin Keegan as a player was 90 minutes in a 3-0 Liverpool win over Newcastle in 2008, but something from that era clearly stuck. This Chelsea side play with a faint echo of “we’ll score one more than you” ringing in their ears.

Last season, they won just one Premier League match in which they conceded two or more. This season, they’ve already won 3-2 and 4-3, threatening to implode each time before finally remembering how to manage a game.

The attack is the point. Fluid, interchangeable, varied – it looks like it will create chances against almost anyone. The question is whether the defence can grow up fast enough behind it.

Some of that should come with time. Emi Martinez needs to settle into a new back line. Romeo Lavia needs to stop being the lone grown-up in a midfield pivot. Those are issues that should ease as the weeks pass.

Right now, Chelsea feel – very tentatively – like Arsenal four years ago, mid-process and slightly unhinged. A team clearly going somewhere, but not always in a straight line. Arsenal at the Emirates next week will be the first real measuring stick. And there is, of course, absolutely no recent history of Chelsea being hailed as title contenders after a big result against Mikel Arteta’s side and then collapsing in hilarious fashion.

One thing we still haven’t seen: Chelsea chasing a game from behind. Fulham and Brighton allowed them cushions. When that disappears, we’ll learn something more serious about Alonso’s side.

The smart buyers: Brighton’s midfield trick and City’s wildcard

Every club in Europe has watched Brighton’s recruitment for years. Few seem to have learned the obvious lesson.

Malick Yalcouye is the latest example. At this point, if Brighton sign an obscure midfielder and you don’t at least try to hijack it, you’re basically committing negligence. They keep finding them. Everyone else keeps watching.

Manchester City, meanwhile, have gone the other way and embraced the chaos.

Rayan Cherki cost less than a whole list of forwards who joined the Premier League in the past year: Savio, Yoane Wissa, Jamie Gittens, Anthony Elanga, Brennan Johnson, Kevin, Emile Smith Rowe, Dan Ndoye, Dilane Bakwa. All of them moved for more than City paid for Cherki.

Cherki, in just 109 minutes this season, already has more combined goals and assists than any of those players managed across the entire 2025/26 campaign.

He’s been described as “chaotic”, a player who doesn’t always respect Enzo Maresca’s safe zones. City, who have been accused of being too automated, might need exactly that kind of disruption.

McAtee and Forest’s quiet succession plan

Nottingham Forest lost Anthony Elanga and, before his pay-off from Evangelos Marinakis, Morgan Gibbs-White from their attack. James McAtee arrived looking like one of several pieces to fill that void.

Twelve months later, he’s nudging into a far grander conversation: the internal answer to a £116m midfielder’s departure.

Oliver Glasner, as ever, has zigged while everyone else zagged. “It’s not target No. 1 to replace Elliot because maybe we can do it from our own squad and spend the money on other positions,” he said. The in-house solution he had in mind was McAtee.

Signed from Manchester City in 2025, McAtee’s path only truly cleared when Anderson made the reverse trip in 2026. Two games into this second season at the City Ground, Glasner has already given him 164 Premier League minutes – more than any of his previous four Forest managers managed, and almost as many as Nuno Espirito Santo (50), Ange Postecoglou (77) and Sean Dyche (43) combined.

The tweak is simple: play the Etihad academy graduate deeper, give him more of the ball, and let his brain run the game. At Anfield, if you squinted and imagined a surprise backflip, he looked strikingly like an Adam Wharton type.

Forest might just have solved a huge problem without spending a penny more.

Everton, Brentford, Leeds and Le Bris: different routes to relevance

Everton have returned to their natural state: all-out civil war.

For a brief spell, everyone at the club appeared vaguely aligned. That has now been sacrificed at the £40m altar of Harrison Armstrong. The boardroom and fanbase are back to despising each other, which feels oddly on-brand.

They will be one of the most fascinating clubs to watch as the window closes. In theory, an attack that currently features Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Iliman Ndiaye, Lewis Barry and George could, in a matter of days, morph into something built around Richarlison and Folarin Balogun, with Jack Grealish drifting behind them.

And yet, even amid the chaos, a David Moyes side still finds ways to grind. Everton sitting in the European places early in a season is one of the Premier League’s most enduring traditions. There’s a reason for that.

Brentford need no such drama. They are simply a bloody good team run by a bloody good manager. No noise, no fuss, just a relentlessly competent club.

Leeds have rediscovered an old truth: if you can’t win, don’t lose. One defeat in 11, and that came on the final day at already-relegated West Ham in a match that barely counted. It’s not spectacular, but it’s the kind of rhythm that drags you up the table.

Regis Le Bris has already written his name into the season’s trivia: the first manager to see two substitutes combine for a goal – one assisting, one scoring – in the Premier League this year. You’ll never sing that, but it speaks to a coach who knows how to change a game from the bench.

United’s redemption loop and Rashford’s route back

At Manchester United, the redemption arc has become a genre in itself.

“Marcus has been part of a rough ride for Manchester United, and when that happens and the team doesn’t deliver, players get dug out and he was one of them at that stage,” said Harry Maguire. “I’ve been through it. Everyone’s been through it at this club.”

Maguire knows the drill. He’s the former captain that multiple managers have tried and failed to quietly move on. He’s watched Luke Shaw, Kobbie Mainoo and even Bruno Fernandes ride out storms that looked terminal, only to emerge as key figures again.

Rashford’s situation felt worse than all of them. Under Ruben Amorim, the relationship between boyhood star and club looked close to severed.

Yet sometimes the road back starts with something as basic as a sprint and a tackle. A proper track-back, a committed challenge – those are the moments that start to repair trust. Rashford has taken that first small step.

Spurs: money spent, mentality missing

Spurs have thrown a fortune at the transfer market. The one thing they really need isn’t on sale.

Roberto De Zerbi nailed it: “You can’t find the right mentality in the transfer market.” For a club about to push the all-time spending record for a single window, that’s a brutal truth.

“It’s the biggest problem, it’s the biggest challenge and the biggest target is to find the right mentality,” he said. “After the goal we conceded, I think we lost the confidence. The reaction was not good enough, not the reaction I want to see on the pitch… the solution is not to put down the head, but to react, because we had 20 minutes again to score one, two or maybe three goals.”

Harsh? Maybe. De Zerbi has been in charge for four months. If mentality was the glaring issue from day one, he’s had time to move the needle.

Yet Spurs have spent lavishly. Against Newcastle, five new signings started. Two are Premier League champions. One is a Serie A winner. This is not a squad short on pedigree.

And still, they looked the least prepared team of the weekend. At home. Against a side they raided for a £92.5m midfielder. Managed by a coach appointed less than a month ago.

Money has bought Spurs talent. It hasn’t yet bought them a backbone.

Crystal Palace: 60 good minutes, then the lights go out

Crystal Palace keep playing like a team with a one-hour battery life.

Pierre Sage admitted he was “frustrated” his players “gave up a little” and couldn’t “do it for the duration of the game” against Everton. In his first match, they “played well during the first half” but the second-half drop-off was “not normal”.

Against Manchester City, they lasted about an hour again before fading. If the pattern holds, Fulham are in for a brutal 75 minutes next week, followed by a very different final stretch.

Palace have been hit harder than most by a messy summer. A squad heavily involved at the World Cup, punished by UEFA squad cost rules, and stripped of key players and their manager at the end of a cycle. It’s no surprise they look half-built.

Oliver Glasner joked he would have “a pint of beer and celebrate the transfer window being closed”. His successor will probably raise the same glass. So will most managers in the league.

Liverpool: Barcola can’t fix everything

Liverpool have been here before.

Back in January 2016, they beat Norwich in a wild game that showcased their attacking potential and defensive chaos in equal measure. The question then was whether they could fix their issues with a mid-season signing like Alex Teixeira.

They chose not to. They waited, coached, evolved, and built something more durable in the summer.

The comparison with Bradley Barcola isn’t perfect. Barcola is a better player and a more compelling opportunity, especially if Cody Gakpo is on the way out. But the core point stands: one forward, however gifted, will not solve problems that run right through the rest of the team.

Against their latest opponents, Liverpool conceded from a goalkeeper’s long punt and a penalty given away from a quick throw-in. They responded with slick, well-constructed equalisers, which only underlined the imbalance.

The performance screamed for investment before the deadline – but not in attack, and certainly not £123m on a single player. The holes are elsewhere. Andoni Iraola needs more to work with across the pitch, not just another option in the front line.

Bournemouth, O’Neil and Coventry: early pain, deeper questions

Bournemouth have drawn the short straw twice already.

They’ve managed to tick both the “Struggle To Defend Set Pieces” and “Lose Points From Winning Positions” clichés in just two games. They led in the 83rd minute of one match and the 90th minute of the other. They have one point.

All three goals they’ve conceded have been scored by defenders. Both equalisers came from corners. That’s not bad luck. That’s a problem.

Gary O’Neil, now at Ipswich, has his own unwanted statistic. A heavy defeat at Old Trafford was one thing. But he remains the only manager to lose a Premier League game to Frank Lampard since October 2022. Lampard has overseen 19 league matches in that time. Only O’Neil has walked away beaten.

Coventry’s long-awaited Premier League return has been just as bumpy, on and off the pitch.

The club look undercooked behind the scenes and underprepared on it. The fixture list hasn’t helped: opening away at the champions, then straight into what should be their easiest home game of the season against the Championship play-off winners. No other side has had to lurch so violently between extremes in their first fortnight.

Next up? Manchester City away. It might get uglier before there’s even a chance to steady themselves. Lampard has talked about moving on from “The Basics” to “the details”. The evidence so far suggests his players haven’t fully grasped either.

The season is only just beginning, but the patterns are already emerging. Some clubs have found clarity in structure or chaos. Others are discovering that money, history and big names can’t fix a broken mentality or a flimsy game plan.

The real question now: who adapts fastest before the window slams shut and the excuses run out?