Matchday 2 of the 2025/26 Premier League season is over, and it's fair to say it was a lively weekend of football action. Below we look at five taking points from the weekend's action
Hammers Hammered
Where do we start with West Ham? Friday’s showing was embarrassing - the sort of performance that gets a manager the sack.
Graham Potter should be safe for now. However, after an opening weekend 3-0 defeat away to Sunderland, the fans won’t stand for much more of this from Potter, and given that the board often come under pressure from the fans at West Ham, that spells trouble for the former Brighton and Chelsea boss.
West Ham’s defending was awful. The statistics show West Ham picked up no yellow cards and were penalised for just seven fouls. They didn't really show any fight at all.
Notable shoutouts have to go to Aaron Wan-Bissaka, who looked more like he was playing in a testimonial match, and also to goalkeeper Mads Hermansen, who had a shocker.
In the case of Hermansen, it can be argued that he hasn’t had much of a preseason. His inclusion at the moment is one that Potter has to carry the can for.
The Hammers finished Matchday 2 at the bottom of the table. After shipping eight goals in their opening two matches, they can have no complaints.
Still no goals for Villa
Aston Villa's poor start to the season continued with a 1-0 loss away to Brentford.
The defeat was Villa's second match of the season without a goal.
However, the loss to Brentford was a far better performance than what they produced in their opening fixture against Newcastle United.
Against the Toon Army, Villa managed just 39 percent of the possession along with just three attempts at goal, compared to Newcastle’s 16. A red card for Ezri Konsa on 66 minutes didn't help Villa's cause either.
Against Brentford on Saturday, Unai Emery’s team were more on song. The Villans had 77 percent of the possession, they dominated the match.
Villa also had 17 attempts on goal to Brentford's nine. Perhaps more worryingly for Villa was that both teams had two attempts on target.
Anyway, if Villa can perform like they did against Brentford, it won't be long before the goals start to flow again. They have too many good players.
However, they do need to stop whinging about FFP and start focusing on football.
Big Vik off and running
After being partially written off following an underwhelming debut against Manchester United, new Arsenal forward Viktor Gyökeres needed a performance against Leeds, and thankfully for the Swedish striker, the newly promoted Whites made life fairly easy for him.
Gyökeres opened his Premier League account with a trademark goal three minutes into the second half. Leeds pushed up and left a lot of room behind. This allowed the former Sporting Lisbon striker to run into space onto Riccardo Calafiori’s ball down the left touchline, cut inside Leeds’ defender Pascal Augustus Struijk and unleash a low right foot shot inside the near post.
It was a typical Gyökeres goal, and how he must wish he could play against Leeds every week if they are going to allow him that space and time. Sadly for Big Vik, not everybody will.
Anyway, Gyökeres did add a second from the spot in stoppage time and he now has two goals in two games.
The Swede did look a bit nervous in the first half of the match, and his brace should settle him down.
It may be a while before the Arsenal fans truly start to appreciate his runs in behind defenders, and it could be that others benefit from them more than Gyökeres does. But if the fans have patience, I believe he will be a huge success at Arsenal.
On a negative note, Bukayo Saka picked up another muscle injury and is set to be out for four weeks.
This seems to be becoming a bit of a recurring problem for Saka and Arsenal, and with Mikel Arteta such a stickler for attention to detail, we can only imagine questions are being asked behind the scenes.
Ruben can't watch
The statistics are damning. Under Ruben Amorim, Manchester United have an okay record against the big clubs and also regularly beat the relegation fodder. However, they seem to have an Achilles heel when it comes to facing midtable clubs.
United were the better team against Arsenal on Matchday 1, but were probably second best against Fulham at Craven Cottage on Sunday.
Few could argue the Londoners didn’t deserve their equaliser when Emile Smith Rowe levelled the match on 73 minutes, just two minutes after his introduction.
Prior to that we witnessed Bruno get upset after the referee accidentally barged into him as he was preparing to take his first half penalty. The United skipper was apparently annoyed not to get an apology.
Working on the assumption Fernandes isn’t a Grade A hypocrite, he must have high morals and spend a large proportion of his life apologising to people.
Fernandes didn’t attribute his spot kick miss to the ref’s shoulder, but we all know that was what he was trying to say, while denying he was saying it.
Another intriguing take from the match at Craven Cottage was Ruben Amorim’s reluctance to watch certain parts of the match.
We can kinda see why he might not have watched Bruno’s spot kick, but the sight of him unable to watch his own team defending a corner after just 55 minutes of the match was alarming.
Still no sign of Wirtz
A bit like it was a bit unfair for people to start writing Viktor Gyökeres off after just one match, it is also fair to say the same about new Liverpool signing Florian Wirtz after just two matches.
However, the German has been virtually non-existent in his first two Premier League matches for the Reds.
When Arne Slot was making all these wholesale changes to Liverpool in the summer, it did beg the question, why?
There was little wrong with the team. An addition here and there, yes, we understand. But Liverpool were sensational at times last season, so the partial rebuild did seem bizarre.
So far the signs would have to be a little worrying for Liverpool fans. Not only have they chucked away two goal leads twice in their opening two matches, they have also not fully asserted themselves in their opening two matches of the season.
Slot is in danger of becoming the manager who spent over £200 million on making his team worse.
The Reds can be forgiven their opening night slip up against Bournemouth. They recovered well to win the match convincingly, and it could have been put down to early season rustiness.
However, their 3-2 win over Newcastle was totally out of character. It took about 35 minutes in the first half and then about 25 in the second, for the Reds to gain any control in the match.
Fans can point to the result, and that's fair enough, but the signs don’t look great for Liverpool at the moment.
Slot was quick to question Newcastle’s tactics. But what did he expect the Magpies to do? Play fancy football like West Ham are trying to do and just roll over and let his team win?
That’s not how his team won the Premier League last season, that’s for sure.
We can only imagine what Slot says behind closed doors will differ from what he said on Sky Sports in the aftermath of their 3-2 win.
On a positive note, Slot’s team has shown a lot of resilience to win both matches late on. However, that can’t last forever and Liverpool need to sharpen up their act if they are to retain their title.