The Premier League Resumes This Week, and Here's Exactly What to Expect

After 21 days off, the blockbuster Premier League is back with a proper bang. A guilty club walks into the one stadium built to make them feel it, a champion-elect spent September discovering it isn't bulletproof after all, two self-styled giants return looking more vulnerable, and the division's newest member is somehow less of a concern than a club that finished in the top half three years running.

This weekend will answer some questions that really need answering, and nervous fanbases will be hoping to see whether their clubs can find some positive consistency.

Anfield Is About to Give Manchester City the Welcome They Deserve

Sunday sends Manchester City straight into Anfield days after a commission found them guilty on 114 of 115 charges, and if City's board thought the storm would mellow by the time the league resumed, they were wrong. 

Enzo Maresca's side arrive unbeaten and riding a 5-3 thriller over Sunderland, but nobody on Merseyside cares about the form guide this week. They care about watching a club that spent a decade buying its way past them finally get called what it is in writing.

Liverpool have more history with this particular grievance than any club in England. They were the runner-up to City's financial muscle in 2013/14; they've watched the gap in spending power warp an entire era of the league, and now they get to be the first stadium City's players walk into since the word “guilty” stopped being an accusation. 

Expect banners that make Sky's cameras visibly uncomfortable, expect a tunnel walk that feels like a perp walk, and expect City's players to spend ninety minutes pretending the noise doesn't exist.

It won't work. A club whose own CEO couldn't string together a coherent answer to a reporter this week isn't walking into the most hostile atmosphere in English football and coming out unbothered. 

We just can’t wait for this fixture.

Was Brighton a Wake-Up Call, or Did Arsenal Get Caught Coasting?

Arsenal's unbeaten start died in the ugliest way possible on September 19, as Brighton tore them apart 3-0 at the Amex, pressing them off the park from the first whistle. Pascal Groß, Charalampos Kostoulas and Chema Andrés all scored, and Arteta's own players looked like men who'd already mentally clocked out for the international break. 

For a team that had strolled through its opening five games without much resistance, it was the first real test of the season, and Arsenal failed it completely.

Four games against sides who never laid a glove on them had built a false sense of security, and the moment a team actually came at Arsenal with intent, the cracks showed instantly. 

Calafiori was caught ball-watching, Saka went missing for long stretches, and nobody in that dressing room looked like they'd prepared for a genuine fight. Arsenal were genuinely caught cold. 

Whether that defeat becomes the wake-up call Arsenal needed or the first crack in a title defence that was never as secure as five straight wins suggested will be obvious fast. 

Leeds away on October 10 isn't a glamour fixture, but it's exactly the kind of game a champion should win without drama. If Arsenal look sharp and ruthless again, Brighton was a one-off lesson learned the hard way. If they look passive again, the problem was never Brighton. 

Either way, it will be interesting to see how Arsenal set up

Manchester United and Chelsea Are Running Out of Road, and Both Know It

Twelfth place and one win from five games is not where a club with Manchester United's lofty ambition should be in October, and Michael Carrick no longer has the luxury of blaming bad luck. 

His squad will come back from the break with Bruno Fernandes carrying an injury he brought on himself during the build-up, Patrick Dorgu's hamstring giving out inside thirty minutes for Denmark, and Noussair Mazraoui collapsing, clutching his back, for Morocco. 

That's a squad so thin and so poorly managed physically that international duty is now actively making United worse. Tottenham arrive this weekend rock bottom of the table, and if United can't beat the worst team in the division at home, then some serious conversations around Old Trafford will start taking place.

Chelsea's situation is just as desperate, dressed up in slightly better clothing. Xabi Alonso's side sit tenth, have shipped 12 goals in five games, and were taken apart 3-0 at Brentford in the last match before the break, a performance that should have ended any lingering talk of Alonso building something sustainable this early. 

Five games into a punishing run against Bournemouth, Everton, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester United, Chelsea don't get the luxury of easing back in. 

Lose two of the first three, and this stops being a slow start and becomes a genuine crisis, with a manager who was supposed to represent stability now facing the exact kind of pressure Chelsea have made a habit of applying to anyone who doesn't deliver fast.

Tottenham Have Three Weeks of Breathing Room, and De Zerbi Knows It Won't Last

Reading relegation form in October is usually a mug's game, and most of the bottom half backs that up. Coventry lost four straight on their return to the top flight after 25 years away, then scraped their first win against Nottingham Forest right before the break, enough to suggest Frank Lampard's side have the stomach for a scrap even when the table says otherwise.

Tottenham are the exception, and the numbers don't leave much room for optimism. Roberto De Zerbi's side are rock bottom on two points from five games, with the worst attack in the entire division and a minus six goal difference that makes Coventry's early stumbles look almost polished by comparison. 

Their next fixture is away at a struggling Manchester United, a game Spurs would have fancied a month ago and now have to treat as a must-not-lose.

Nobody is writing Tottenham off for May this early, and De Zerbi deserves more than five games to stamp his ideas on a squad he inherited mid-crisis; although significant investment has gone in, he also needs time to bed in these signings and get them used to his high-intensity style. 

Will he get that time to implement is a completely different question, though.

The boardroom has already watched this club finish 17th twice in a row. Spurs have time to turn this around. De Zerbi might not have much of it left if October looks anything like September did.

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