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EPL PL Talking Points Welcome to the fourth edition of The Alternative Premier League Table, where each Thursday, Anantaajith Raghuraman analyses the entire division through a specific lens. After looking how each team deals with taking penalties last time, this week we’re looking at each team’s start to 2025-26, comparing it with how they performed in the same fixtures in 2024-25. Advertisement This article is long but detailed, so either settle down and enjoy it all — or search for the team you want to read about. The first international break has provided some welcome breathing space after a busy transfer window and three rounds of fixtures. For this week’s Alternative Premier League Table, we decided to compare teams’ results in their first three games to their results in the same fixtures against those teams in 2024-25. It’s not a perfect comparison, of course, but it is certainly more insightful than simply looking at a team’s first three games of last season. Team strength remains roughly similar across Premier League seasons, after all. To address promotion and relegation, Leeds United, Burnley and Sunderland (first, second, and third in the 2024-25 Championship) have been equated to Leicester City, Ipswich Town, and Southampton (18th, 19th, and 20th in the 2024-25 Premier League) respectively, when assessing results. Also included in the table is Opta’s projected points model (as of September 3), making a return from MW1 to assess what has changed. Key takeaways include: The standout team in this week's comparison are Unai Emery's Aston Villa, who are a massive six points down on the equivalent fixtures from last season. In 2024-25, they won at Brentford, thrashed Newcastle 4-1, and drew 2-2 with Crystal Palace at Villa Park. Palace have emerged as their kryptonite since, winning each of their last three encounters 10-1 on aggregate. A lacklustre performance and Ezri Konsa’s red card meant they were lucky to draw against Newcastle on the opening weekend, and few predicted a defeat at Brentford Villa are the only team yet to score. Can deadline day arrivals Harvey Elliott and Jadon Sancho make a difference, or are Villa heading for a season of struggle? Opta project them to finish on 53 points, slap-bang in mid-table. After this start, that might be a relief. This time last year, Brighton's Fabian Hurzeler was the manager of the month for August. This time around, he has seen his team beat Manchester City at home again — the sort of result that can disguise flaws elsewhere — but drop five points from fixtures with Fulham and Everton. Advertisement Last season, Joao Pedro’s penalty in the eighth minute of added time saw Brighton beat Fulham 2-1, while they kickstarted 2024-25 with a 3-0 win over Everton at Goodison Park, but suffered a 2-0 defeat at the Hill Dickinson Stadium a year on. Brighton’s European hopes last season suffered due to an inability to beat the teams they were expected to. So far, 2025-26 has seen a similar tendency. Perhaps the headline act of the Premier League’s return on Saturday are Nottingham Forest after they parted ways with Nuno Espirito Santo late on Monday night. Forest have picked up four points from three matches, beating Brentford 3-1 before drawing 1-1 with Crystal Palace and losing 3-0 to West Ham United. The Palace stalemate was a repeat from May, but they lost 2-0 to Brentford at the City Ground and beat West Ham 3-0 there in 2024-25, also resulting in a four-point haul. New manager Ange Postecoglou’s first assignment will be a return to north London to play Arsenal. Liverpool remain top of Opta’s projected points rankings, boosted from 73. 1 before the season to 79. 1. They are also four points up in the real world, too. Last season, Arne Slot’s side beat Bournemouth at home but drew against Newcastle United at St James’ Park and Arsenal at Anfield. Wins in all three fixtures in August, courtesy of late interventions from Federico Chiesa and Rio Ngumoha respectively in the first two and a superb Dominik Szoboszlai free kick in the third, mark a four-point swing. Liverpool haven't looked perfect so far this season, but their start certainly has been. As much as social media reactionaries would have you believe, Arsenal’s campaign is not doomed after 270 minutes. Defeat at Anfield ended a 22-game unbeaten run against the league’s ‘Big Six’, with 13 wins. Even so, Arsenal are one point better off from these fixtures relative to 2024-25, when they drew at Liverpool but dropped two points at Old Trafford, where they won 1-0 this time. Wins over Leicester last season and Leeds in August cancel each other out, though this season's home victory against the Championship title holders was considerably more comfortable. Leeds have been backed to finish outside the relegation zone in Opta’s latest predicted points, after being consigned to 19th place before their opener. Four points in their opening three games is a three-point upgrade on Leicester. Advertisement Leeds’ 1-0 win against Everton at Elland Road was followed by a 5-0 hammering at the Emirates and a stalemate against Newcastle. Leicester drew with Everton at the King Power Stadium but lost the other two. Everton sit alongside their Merseyside rivals for the second-best improvement (+4). They were hammered 3-0 by Brighton at Goodison Park last August under Sean Dyche and drew 1-1 with Wolves in March under David Moyes. They have won both those games in 2025-26 courtesy of four Jack Grealish assists and a goal-of-the-month contender in each from James Garner and then Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. But it's Andoni Iraola's Bournemouth who are the division's most-improved side after picking up five more points than they did from their equivalent fixtures in 2024-25, despite a new-look defence. They showed bags of character in a 4-2 defeat to Liverpool, led by the brilliant Antoine Semenyo. Bournemouth lost 1-0 to Wolves at home in February courtesy of Matheus Cunha’s goal after Illia Zabarnyi’s red card. This time, Marcus Tavernier scored early before Toti’s red card for Wolves, giving Bournemouth their first win. Meanwhile, their win at Tottenham was more convincing than the 1-0 scoreline, with Bournemouth generating 20 shots and 1. 6x G. But for last season’s fourth-worst x G performers, scoring nearly seven goals fewer than expected, this was unsurprising. Before the Bournemouth defeat, Tottenham convincingly beat Manchester City 2-0, which meant this was the ninth consecutive instance of Spurs failing to win the next game after defeating City. Their best league performance under Ange Postecoglou in 2024-25 came at the Etihad in November when they won 4-0. They followed that up with a 1-1 home draw against Fulham before losing 1-0 at… Bournemouth. But Spurs' win over Burnley pushes their points improvement to two as they lost 2-1 to Ipswich Town, our proxy for Scott Parker's side, at home last season. The standard post-City malaise aside, there are reasons to believe Thomas Frank will lead them to an improved campaign. Advertisement Frank’s former side, Brentford, are yet to find form after losing him and his staff (along with captain Christian Norgaard, goalkeeper Mark Flekken and star goalscoring duo Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa). They edged Aston Villa 1-0 at home but have lost to Nottingham Forest and Sunderland away. Brentford beat Southampton 5-0 at St Mary’s last season, thanks to an Mbeumo double, with Wissa scoring. They lost 1-0 at home to Villa but beat Forest 2-0 at the City Ground in May. Striker Igor Thiago has scored two goals in three league games and is an early positive. Wolves, bottom of the actual Premier League table with no points, are in trouble. They collected four points from the equivalent fixtures in 2024-25, beating Bournemouth 1-0 at the Vitality and drawing 1-1 with Everton. Opta’s pre-season projections gave them 42. 5 points and a 17th-place finish. A difficult start has seen those drop down to 36. 7 and 18th. Vitor Pereira’s side need positive results from their next two fixtures (Newcastle away and Leeds at Molineux) before difficult matches away to Tottenham and at home to Brighton. Manchester City are off to another slow start with three points from three games after a flurry of transfer activity to correct the issues from 2024-25. City are one of four teams (alongside Burnley, Forest and West Ham) to post the same number of points from their 2024-25 fixtures. They lost to both Brighton and Tottenham and needed a late winner from John Stones to beat Gary O’Neil’s Wolves last October. Their start has seen them drop from third to fourth in Opta’s projected points tally (64. 4 from a pre-season figure of 69. 7). The Manchester derby is up next. While City’s points difference might surprise a few, Manchester United’s record will not. They are three worse off than in the corresponding fixtures from 2024-25 when they beat Fulham at Craven Cottage and Ipswich at Old Trafford while drawing with Arsenal at home. Advertisement United are ninth in the league standings, three spots higher than where they began Opta’s projected points table. Four points from three games haven’t moved the dial, and Opta’s latest table still projects them to finish 12th. The final ‘Big Six’ side, Chelsea, are second in the Premier League after three matches, with three points more than they managed in the same fixtures in 2024-25. The draw against Palace was their third meeting in a row to end in a stalemate. They lost at Fulham last season following a late Muniz winner, but the Brazilian helped stop them from going behind to a Josh King goal last month by accidentally stepping on Trevoh Chalobah’s foot. Joao Pedro and Enzo Fernandez then scored, the latter from a penalty call that did not do Marco Silva’s stress levels any favours, to turn that result around. The 5-1 thrashing of West Ham in between followed up a 3-0 win at the London Stadium last season. The Chelsea defeat aside, West Ham lost 3-0 to Forest at the City Ground in 2024-25, with Edson Alvarez picking up a red card. They won by the same margin this August, with Lucas Paqueta using his celebration after scoring to announce he was staying. West Ham beat Southampton 1-0 at St. Mary’s last season, but fell to a 3-0 defeat against Sunderland in their opener. Talking of Sunderland, they already have three points more than Southampton managed in the same fixtures and the same number of points – six – that Southampton had by the end of January after 23 matches. Southampton lost to West Ham and Brentford at home, while Paul Onuachu scored a late winner against Ipswich at Portman Road in February. Sunderland outclassed West Ham before losing 2-0 to Burnley at Turf Moor. They rebounded by edging Brentford 2-1 thanks to Wilson Isidor’s stoppage-time winner. Their projected points tally has improved from 31. 5 to 35. 9, but their predicted position remains 20th. For now, though, Sunderland are sixth in the Premier League and soaring. Burnley have picked up the same points as Ipswich did in these fixtures in 2024-25. Scott Parker’s side lost to Tottenham and Manchester United either side of a home win over Sunderland. Advertisement Ipswich lost to United and were one of only two teams (Everton being the other) to lose to Southampton all season. Kieran Mc Kenna’s side beat Spurs away from home, though. Crystal Palace’s start has seen them rise from seventh with 57. 5 points to fifth with 60. 5 in Opta’s latest projections. They have picked up five points in their first three matches, two more than in 2024-25's equivalent games. Draws against Chelsea and Forest replicated last season’s results, while the 3-0 win at Villa Park was sandwiched between qualification into the league stage of the Conference League and captain Marc Guehi staying at Selhurst Park on deadline day. Exciting times. Newcastle, who began life in Opta’s projections in fifth place, have dropped to sixth after drawing two of their first three games. That is two fewer points than their record from the corresponding games last season. Eddie Howe’s team lost 4-1 to Villa last season but drew 3-3 with Liverpool, with Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon scoring. Isak has since joined the champions, while Gordon’s first-half dismissal during their August encounter contributed to a 3-2 loss. Newcastle also beat Leicester 3-0 in April, but their match against Leeds before the international break ended 0-0. Fulham sit below Newcastle in the points table with two points from three matches, one fewer than they gleaned from their equivalent games in 2024-25. An otherwise quiet transfer window saw three attacking signings – Kevin for a club-record deal worth more than £34million ($43. 7m) from Shakhtar Donetsk, Samuel Chukwueze from Milan, and teenager Jonah Kusi-Asare from Bayern Munich (both on loan) – on deadline day. Fulham lost to Manchester United at Craven Cottage in January and at Brighton in March, but secured 1-1 draws in both games this August. Their record only turned due to a defeat at Stamford Bridge, having beaten Chelsea on Boxing Day. Opta have them finishing 15th, with their projected points falling from 47. 1 to 45. 5. With new signings through the door and league matches against Leeds, Brentford, and Villa up next, Fulham have the opportunity to change that. (Top photos: Alex Livesey/Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb) Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Anantaajith Raghuraman (or Ananth) is a tactics and data writer covering football. He covered Indian football for Sportskeeda and analysed teams from numerous European leagues outside of the top five for Total Football Analysis prior to joining The Athletic. He is currently based in London. Follow Anantaajith on Twitter @anantaajith