In partnership with GOAL.com.
The end of the October international window is upon us, club football fans. Get ready for four more weeks of Premier League fun before we’re lulled back into the November break. Fortunately, there’s non-stop action before then to look forward to, beginning with some mouth-watering fixtures this coming weekend, including Manchester United’s trip to Liverpool.
Elsewhere, Chelsea have the opportunity to inflict more misery on a down-on-their-luck Nottingham Forest, while Manchester City welcome a Jack Grealish-less Everton to the Etihad Stadium and Arsenal look record a victory at Craven Cottage for the first time in three seasons when they face Fulham. The races for the title, European places and survival are hotting up before the clocks have even gone back.
There are so many different narratives to keep your eyes peeled for this weekend, and we at GOAL have picked out eight of the most intriguing storylines as we welcome the return of Premier League football:
Ange on the Forest clock
Ange Postecoglou quickly won over the English public when he went 10 games unbeaten to begin his Premier League career with Tottenham back in 2023. Seven matches into his Nottingham Forest spell, he is searching for his first win and on the verge of the sack already. How did Forest, the top-flight’s biggest overachievers last season, and Postecoglou, a serial winner all across the world, find themselves in this situation? There are multiple strands to explore.
If you were to zoom out and remove the managerial nonsense from the equation, the simple answer would be that Forest merely over-performed last season and are simply regressing back to the mean. Their expected goal difference for 2024-25 ended at a tally of -3.4 (per FBRef), which ranked 13th among Premier League teams, six lower than their actual position of seventh.
To merely go by those numbers is a disservice to what Forest achieved under Nuno Espirito Santo, however. The Reds became one of the Premier League’s meanest and toughest teams, while the playmaking of prime Morgan Gibbs-White and peak form of veteran striker Chris Wood ensured goals were never short in stock. Some of that hot-streak finishing has cooled off and the defence has been more disjointed due to injuries, but the problems lie deeper.
Fiery club owner Evangelos Marinakis brought unnecessary attention to Forest and their operations when he confronted Nuno on the pitch following a 2-2 draw with Leicester City in their penultimate home game of last season. Both men played down that this was tension boiling over and insisted the Greek was simply looking out for the welfare of the injured Taiwo Awoniyi, but the optics were far from fantastic. If anything, these assumptions became emboldened when Nuno admitted in August his relationship with the owner had deteriorated, while subsequent reporting put this down to the arrival of Edu Gaspar from Arsenal as the club’s new global head of football.
The decision to axe the universally popular Nuno for Postecoglou was baffling for several reasons. Marinakis boasted a positive relationship with the former Celtic boss and had dinner with him over the summer, so if this was a plan he had in mind for a while, it made little sense to wait until after the transfer window had shut to appoint him. The philosophies of Nuno and Postecoglou could hardly be more differing either, while the Australian’s tactics were sussed out by most of the Premier League by the end of his Spurs reign.
There is no longer a sense of unity at Forest. A united and spirited club has become a bitter pick and mix. Recent reports suggest if Postecoglou fails to chalk up his first win this weekend, with Chelsea visiting the City Ground in Saturday’s early kick-off, then Nottingham native Sean Dyche may replace him in another 180-flip of approach from upstairs. Make it make sense.
Caicedo hype hits overdrive
Is Moises Caicedo the best midfielder in the Premier League? In a word, no. Sorry, Chelsea fans. It makes for an interesting debate, however.
It took the Ecuadorian a while to find his feet at Stamford Bridge following his £115 million ($153.5m) move from Brighton in the summer of 2023. Part of that was down to the weight of expectation on his shoulder, part of that was down to the haphazard squad planning the club were keen on fulfilling, part of that was he was still a young player with kinks to iron out.
Two years on from that move, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone of a Chelsea persuasion who wouldn’t want to do that move over again. Save for Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali in accounts, most of them would be more than happy to give Brighton another £115m for their troubles. That no one even talks about the midfielder’s price tag anymore is the surest possible sign that Caicedo has been a success in west London, already winning two trophies and helping restore their Champions League status.
Caicedo’s rise this season hit a new peak prior to the international break, walking all over Liverpool’s own expensive set of midfielders and breaking the deadlock with a thunderbolt as Chelsea secured a 2-1 win. Only down this path will he cement his place among the world’s elite.
The best central midfielders in football all contribute with goals or assists on at least a semi-regular basis. These contributions are the garnish on top of the elite fundamentals. Jude Bellingham and Pedri are standout in this regard, but even Rodri, Declan Rice and Vitinha put up numbers despite being seen as ‘deeper’ players. To his credit, Caicedo already has three goals in seven Premier League games this season, a career-high for his time in Europe, and there is clearly appetite for him to continue improving in this area.
Haaland 2.0 carries City title hopes
Manchester City sit fifth in the table and only three points off top spot, and there’s only one real reason why they’ll be able to contend this season – the form of Erling Haaland. The striker has already scored 21 goals in 12 games for club and country, which is ridiculous even by his own alien standards.
The extra layer to Haaland’s form this term is that he’s managed to add, well, extra layers to his game. No longer is he the archetypal poacher just waiting in the six-yard box for a ball to come within his almighty radius. To be truthful, City have needed him to diversify his style in order to keep up with their rivals.
Haaland has scored 12 of City’s 19 goals in all competitions, providing the assist for one other. No one else on the team has more than Phil Foden’s two strikes, while Tijjani Reijnders, Rayan Cherki, Jeremy Doku, Savinho and Matheus Nunes have each found the net once. Omar Marmoush, Bernardo Silva and Oscar Bobb are among the players yet to get off the mark. Gone are the days where City had multiple free-scoring threats, rather now they have several guys who need to step up when called upon, with Haaland the only constant. He’s already being talked about as the Premier League’s greatest scorer.
If he keeps going at this current pace, Haaland will finish the season with 48 Premier League goals. That seems obscene and unthinkable even now, but it’s not exactly beyond the realms of possibility. Even becoming the first player in the competition’s history to break 40 feels achievable, such is how we take his prowess for granted.
Haaland was released early from Norway duty and so should come into Saturday’s meeting with Everton with an extra spring in his step. It could be a long afternoon for the Toffees.
Black Cats out to bury relegation fears
Of the three promoted sides coming into the Premier League this season, Sunderland seemed the safest bet to stay up. They had made a number of savvy signings, not least that of former Arsenal midfielder and Bayer Leverkusen title-winner Granit Xhaka, and the club appeared aligned in everything they were doing from boardroom to stands.
It’s a far cry from the Sunderland of the last decade or so, from the Sunderland who suffered successive relegations to find themselves in the third tier of English football for the first time since 1987. The Black Cats have shown a refreshing fearlessness upon their return to the Premier League and remain unbeaten at the Stadium of Light, which is where they will take on Wolves this weekend.
Despite the heroics of head coach Vitor Pereira to steer them away from relegation last season, Wanderers haven’t clicked in the opening seven rounds of games in 2025-26, losing five and drawing two. Their various new signings haven’t been able to replace Matheus Cunha’s magic or goals, while Jorgen Strand Larsen is feeling the after-effects of Newcastle’s £60m ($80m) pursuit towards the end of the summer transfer window and is still waiting on his first league goal.
Alarm bells are already ringing among the Molineux faithful, but evidently not in the boardroom after Pereira was handed a new three-year contract last month amid their winless streak. Defeat on Wearside could stir mutiny, but Saturday’s hosts are ready to revel in another scalp amid their fast start.
Arsenal with demons to slay
It feels like for every week Arsenal sit top of the table, their next game will be perceived as do-or-die. That’s the nature of a beast which has been living on their back for three years.
The powers at be inside the Emirates Stadium do not see Mikel Arteta’s job as under threat, instead recognising all he has done to restore the club as a powerhouse in England and beyond. The noise from outside will reach unprecedented decibels if he fails to deliver a trophy this season, though.
The Gunners have the opportunity to move four points clear in first on Saturday when they make the short trip across London to Fulham, though Craven Cottage hasn’t been a happy hunting ground in recent times, rather it has been the place where their dreams have started to shatter.
In 2023-24, Arsenal went to Fulham on New Year’s Eve off the back of a surprise 2-0 defeat at home to West Ham. Their misery was compounded with a 2-1 loss, despite taking an early lead through Bukayo Saka. After sitting top at Christmas, the Gunners went into the new calendar year in fourth place, and it was ultimately this run of form that most supporters blamed for finishing second, one point behind champions City.
Last season, Arteta’s troops’ trip to the River Thames came slightly earlier in December, but ended in disappointment all the same. They trailed to a Raul Jimenez goal before William Saliba equalised after the break, and Saka appeared to have won it late on, only for a VAR check to deny him for offside. At this point in the campaign, Arsenal were already third, the gap to leaders Liverpool was widening at an alarming rate and they failed to get within striking distance of the Reds.
It’s quite fitting the first place Arsenal will visit as leaders in 2025-26 will be Fulham, affording them a chance to slay some demons and avenge mistakes of the last two years.
Spurs’ dreadful home form in focus
Following on from the chaos of Ange-ball, Thomas Frank has made Tottenham a more adult outfit again. The matches are nowhere near as chaotic and there is a streetwise savviness about Spurs that has been sorely absent for several seasons. You have more trust in them against stronger opposition, which makes Sunday’s visit of Aston Villa all the more interesting.
There’s still a massive elephant in the room to address, and it’s Tottenham’s form at home. Their billion-pound stadium is a palace that can act as a genuine 12th man in the right circumstances, as best demonstrated by last season’s triumphant European adventures. Yet in 12 league games there in 2025, Spurs have won merely three of them – relegated Southampton, newly-promoted Burnley and Manchester United were their victims. The fear factor of facing Tottenham at ‘the Lane’ hasn’t returned quite yet, and it’s a point for Frank to address this term as he looks to turn a team perceived as soft misfits into a competitive outfit.
Tickets to Tottenham games aren’t cheap, and a fanbase disillusioned by the Daniel Levy premiership has grown weary. Home supporters lose their patience quickly because it’s been too long since they were treated to consistently good results. The tension and nerves are palpable whenever there is even a mild hint of danger.
“A very important thing is to make our home stadium a fortress,” Frank said at his unveiling press conference in July. “That can only be the fans and us together, so that needs to be an ongoing relationship. We need to build that because I want our home to be very, very difficult to come to. We can only do that together.”
Unai Emery’s Villa trek to north London with some wind in their sails at last, going seven games unbeaten following an opening to the season that saw them endure six matches without a win. England duo Ollie Watkins and Morgan Rogers are back in form following their own sluggish starts, too.
How do Liverpool solve their attacking problems?
If Tottenham have an elephant in the room, then Liverpool are trying to sweep one under the rug in the hope nobody notices. In the case of Florian Wirtz, it’s too late guys. We can all see him and his record of zero goals plus zero assists in nine matches.
Wirtz was subjected to the ‘007’ treatment a whole two games ago and still hasn’t made a direct scoring contribution. He ought to have had one last time out during the Reds’ defeat to Chelsea, coming off the bench and coming up with a deft flick to release Mohamed Salah, who uncharacteristically fired wide at point-blank range to continue his own slow start to 2025-26.
Germany international Wirtz has claimed he is still getting adjusted to the mile-a-minute nature of the Premier League, where the pressing never ends and every team is aggressively in your face at all times. That’s understandable, even at the price tag of £117m ($156m), while he has yet to find a consistent spot in Arne Slot’s XI, such is his unique skillset. But at what point do we start pointing fingers at £125m ($116.7m) Alexander Isak, who already has three seasons of English football under his belt and whose success will very obviously be measured in goals?
The striker missed effectively all of pre-season with Newcastle as he attempted to engineer a move to Anfield. In the end, that plan worked and he forced the Magpies into a situation they had hoped to avoid, while he has since used his first six Liverpool games to get back up to speed. Dig a little deeper, however, and a worrying trend emerges.
In his last 11 games across all competitions, for club and for country, Isak has scored only once, providing the opener in Liverpool’s narrow 2-1 win over Championship side Southampton in round three of the Carabao Cup in September. With the Swedish press on his back after two poor outings in World Cup qualifiers this month, you could argue that Hugo Ekitike should start up front when Manchester United come to Anfield on Sunday.
It’s natural that any team will have teething issues fitting so many new and expensive pieces into a functioning system, but the pressure is on Liverpool to deliver a second-straight Premier League title. Right now, Arsenal look streets ahead as a cohesive unit.
Amorim chasing back-to-back wins
Only Liverpool stand between Ruben Amorim and his first set of back-to-back Premier League wins as head coach of Manchester United. He’s running out of time to snap such a streak before celebrating (for lack of a better word) his one-year anniversary at the club.
There is a huge chasm between these two old rivals when it comes to their modern-day fortunes, their processes and quality in their squads. Yet somehow Amorim’s players will not fear Anfield, where they have earned two massively credible draws over the last two seasons, leaving their 7-0 hammering of 2022-23 consigned to the past. The next step is to go there and truly upset the applecart with an improbable victory.
Heading out of the September international break, United were preparing for a trip to rivals City, where they eventually lost 3-0 and the knives first came out for Amorim on a larger scale. Given the Red Devils are always one defeat away from an international crisis, expect a similar outcry if they fall at Liverpool even despite the blatant gap in standards. This is as good a time to play Slot’s Reds though, losing three on the bounce for the first time under the Dutchman and cracking up under the cosh at this stage of the season.
Spare a thought for Frank Ilett, also known as ‘the United Strand’, on Sunday, will you? The road to five straight wins begins with a single set of back-to-back victories.
