Go on, let Arsenal fans enjoy it, and maybe Man City aren’t so invincible after all – The Warm-Up

MONDAY’S BIG STORIES

Man City ain’t invincible, but Arsenal…

And so that was the third Premier League weekend that was (with the exception of a humdinger tonight that we’ll get to), and it’s safe to say that the Arsenal fan in your office has a wider smirk than most this morning, and will be chatting more than AJ throughout the day.

But you know what? Let them. By all means zone out, stick the headphones in or ignore the messages on the team chat, but football is about enjoying the fleeting highs when they come around, and Arsenal fans have every reason to be cheerful after maintaining their perfect start to the season on Saturday.

“Just wait until they face another Big Six side.” Well yes, there’s that – and it’ll come by the boatload soon when facing Manchester United in September, Tottenham, Liverpool and Manchester City in October, then Chelsea in early November – but it’s plain to see this Arsenal squad is an upgrade on the one that finished fifth three months ago. Whether that is enough for the top four come next May remains to be seen, but that’s exactly why you should cut the Arsenal fan some slack on Slack (or Teams or Zoom) when they have a little brag today.

And while their pursuit for a perfect 38-game season continues (please don’t take that seriously), the prospect of Manchester City picking up a maximum 114 points is over disappointingly early.

Naturally, the club who overturned a two-goal deficit on the final day of the season to win the title were not exactly overwhelmed by the scenario, but Newcastle exposed weaknesses, ones that will either get shut down by Guardiola or give future opponents a greater smidgen of hope than they perhaps had beforehand.

Game on.

What else?

Beyond the exploits of City and Arsenal, the Premier League continues to throw up plenty of surprises, and just three rounds down we are re-examining some of those pre-season predictions already.

Are West Ham and Leicester in trouble? Woah woah woah, it’s way too early for that talk, but it has been a disastrous start for the Hammers, losing their opening three, and only a point better from Leicester. Suddenly, the two sides that have been challenging the Big Six in recent years find themselves looking to navigate their way out of a rough opening few weeks. Time to alter expectations? Perhaps, although the words relegation candidates must be saved for the New Year.

And what of Aston Villa? Despite beating Everton last weekend, Steven Gerrard has suddenly emerged as favourite for the Premier League’s sack race after losing at Crystal Palace on Saturday. Those at Villa hope Ismaila Sarr gets over the line this week, but that will not solve all their problems, and the questions over whether Gerrard is tactically capable are beginning to mount – and are unlikely to go away.

Football friends!

Boeuf? Quel boeuf?

The words of mediator Sergio Ramos must have done the trick earlier in the week, and both Neymar and Mbappe did their best to show there is a united front at PSG. High 10!

So that’s Bayern, PSG and Arsenal – who’d have thunk it.

IN OTHER NEWS

The Big One

So, it’ll go one of three ways tonight at Old Trafford:

A Manchester United win and Erik ten Hag gets his first three points on the board. The imminent arrival of Casemiro adds to the feel-good factor of beating Liverpool, and suddenly things are looking a little bit rosier at United, with more signings imminent as well.

A Liverpool win helps them shake the cobwebs off and get their season going with a win at their fierce rivals. It is done without Darwin Nunez and eases any early-season concerns, and also sends United back to the bottom of the table, prompting Gary Neville and Roy Keane to find new angles to their downtrodden post-match analysis. So what if Casemiro is joining, it doesn’t change anything – or something like that.

A draw? Well. Who knows, really, but that doesn’t sound like too bad of a result for United, although at home to Liverpool their fans will expect more – those that don’t walk out, that is, which is something definitely worth keeping an eye on. Will 10,000 or more leave? At a guess, we predict 100s at most.

IN THE CHANNELS

Kick-off routines! More please. We wanted to save PSG’s EIGHT-SECOND opener for the “In the channels”, because it deserves to be singled out. What’s the opposite of American Football’s Hail Mary?

RETRO CORNER

It’s 18 years to the day since a 5-3 win over Middlesbrough helped Arsenal make it a record-equalling 42 games unbeaten. They would go on to reach 49…

Come back for 2041’s The Warm-Up when we Retro Corner Arsenal’s second Invincibles season, a season after the Amazon cameras were there to document everything.

COMING UP

Follow Manchester United’s match against Liverpool with our blog this evening, kick-off 8pm as per the Monday night norm. Elsewhere, Juventus and Roma are in Serie A action.