Four rounds of the Premier League are gone and two clubs still haven’t dropped a point. Arsenal came back from Sunderland with a 2-0 on 12 September 2026. A day later City took the derby at Old Trafford 1-0, and they did two thirds of it with ten men. Twelve points from twelve apiece. The routes there have almost nothing in common, and that is the part worth looking at rather than the table.
Raya saves a penalty
It started badly for the visitors. Sunderland got a penalty, Enzo Le Fée took it, David Raya saved it.
Two minutes later Arsenal scored. Bruno Guimarães picked the ball up outside the box and hit it from range. Bukayo Saka got the second later on. A 2-0 away, four wins from four, not a point dropped.
I’d argue a save like that is worth more than a goal in a game of this shape. At 1-0 down away from home, the evening probably goes somewhere else entirely. Raya took that version of the night off the table before Sunderland had settled into anything.
The derby with ten men
Old Trafford ran a different script. Foden caught Bruno Fernandes on 23 minutes and walked for it, a straight red. That left City two thirds of a derby to play a man short. On any sensible reading of it, that should have gone badly.
It didn’t. Erling Haaland scored the only goal, Joško Gvardiol with the assist. Flagged offside first, given after VAR.
Waiting on the referee is part of watching football now. The replay loops, the commentator talks to fill the gap, a minute or two goes nowhere. A whole slice of the entertainment business lives off exactly these pauses. Spinchester Casino at https://spinchesteruk.bet/ runs slots and live dealer tables where a round can be over quicker than the VAR check you are sitting through, which gives you something to do while the officials make up their minds. Haaland’s goal stood in the end, and 1-0 was how it finished.
That was the Norwegian’s ninth in Premier League Manchester derbies – a record for the fixture. Four goals in four league games this season, top of the scoring charts too, and he managed it in a match where his team spent over an hour defending.
Two routes to 12 points
Same line in the table, completely different stories behind it. Arsenal have got there steadily, no drama, helped by a goalkeeper who saves a penalty at the moment it counts. City won the biggest game of the weekend with ten men, having lost a first-team player to a red card and scored a goal that was disallowed to begin with.
Moments like that tell you more about a side’s nerve than goal difference does. They show up the weak spots just as plainly. With Foden on the pitch that derby is a far calmer afternoon, and a red card on 23 minutes of a 38-game season will cost something once the ban kicks in.
Manchester United have four points from the same four games. Eight behind the neighbours in September isn’t fatal. It isn’t comfortable either. Three of those eight went at home, to a team playing with ten men.
September doesn’t hand out trophies
There are 34 games left, and the September table says very little about any of them. Markets move before supporters do, mind you. After a start like this the title odds usually squeeze down to two names, and the price on a meeting between the top two shifts quicker than the rest. Backing a side on September form is still a gamble, because the sample is tiny.
Four games is roughly a tenth of the season, and both perfect runs have leaned on single moments: a penalty saved in Sunderland, a VAR call in Manchester. Take those two out and the table reads differently.
The next few rounds will say more. For now the Premier League has two clubs on 12 from 12, a Manchester derby record holder with four league goals this season, and a United side facing an autumn of chasing.