Six Weeks In, the Premier League Table Has a Shape: City Perfect, Arsenal Chasing, Brighton for Real

LONDON

Six matchweeks into the 2026/27 Premier League season, the table has stopped pretending to be polite. Manchester City have won all six of their games, Arsenal are chasing with five wins of their own, and Brighton — Brighton — own the best goal difference in the division. Matchweek 6, played across October 10–12, sharpened every one of those storylines, and the table — the Premier League's official table and ESPN's standings alike — is the clearest picture yet of who is real, who is riding their luck, and who is already in trouble.

Start at the summit, because City keep making it the only place to start. Their 3–0 win at Anfield on Sunday — second-half goals from Erling Haaland on 65 minutes, Jérémy Doku three minutes later and Rayan Cherki on 78, recorded on ESPN's scoreboard — was the statement result of the season so far. It made City 6-0-0 with 18 points, 16 goals scored and only five conceded. The Premier League's official table and ESPN's standings agree on the shape of the start: nobody else is perfect, and nobody else is particularly close to perfect. Previously's match report from Anfield covered the night itself; the wider point is what it did to the race. Liverpool, who began the weekend as part of the chasing pack, are now down in ninth on nine points — nine behind City after six games.

Arsenal are doing everything a challenger is supposed to do except the one thing that matters: catching them. Saturday's 2–1 win over Leeds United at the Emirates — James Justin put Leeds ahead on 55 minutes before Riccardo Calafiori levelled on 62 and Bruno Guimarães won it on 70 — made it five wins from six and 15 points for the champions. They have conceded five goals all season. They are, by any honest measure, having an excellent autumn. They are also three points behind a team that has not dropped a single point, which is the quiet cruelty of chasing City: Arsenal's margin for error is already gone, in mid-October.

Then there is Brighton, the team the table loves most after the top two. Saturday's 2–0 win at Sunderland — Maxim De Cuyper on 53 minutes and a stoppage-time clincher from Jaouen Hadjam — lifted the Seagulls to third on 13 points with four wins, a draw and one defeat. Their numbers are startling: 18 goals scored — the division's most productive attack — only five conceded, and a goal difference of +13 that is, remarkably, two better than City's. Fabian Hürzeler's young side were the story of September; six weeks in, they are simply one of the best teams in the league, and the Premier League front numbers back it up.

Chelsea kept themselves in the leading group with the weekend's loudest result: a 5–1 demolition of Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge. Jordan Henderson scored after two minutes and again on 70, Morgan Rogers added a third-minute goal, and João Pedro struck either side of half-time on 46 and 67, with Evanilson's 51st-minute reply the only blemish. Chelsea are sixth on 10 points with 15 goals scored — but 13 conceded is the worst defensive record in the top half, and it is the flaw that keeps them a level below the top three for now.

Below the leaders, the table splits into the overachievers and the anxious. Ipswich Town are the season's surprise package, tenth on nine points after Dara O'Shea's stoppage-time winner sealed a 2–1 comeback against Fulham on Saturday — Abdoul Ouattara had levelled on 88 minutes after Ryan Sessegnon's opener. Brentford and Everton, both 2-4-0 and still unbeaten, sit fourth and fifth on 10 points — Brentford after a 2–2 draw at Aston Villa, Everton after a 2–2 draw at Hull City: hard to beat, hard to love, impossible to ignore. Hull City hold nine points, while Crystal Palace — 3–1 winners over Nottingham Forest on Sunday — have seven; Leeds, Liverpool and Ipswich are bunched on nine.

Coventry deserve their own paragraph, because Monday night was theirs. Their 4–1 win over Newcastle United at the Coventry Building Society Arena — Jack Rudoni's sixth-minute penalty opened the scoring, Sidiki Cherif doubled the lead on 48 minutes, and late goals from Ellis Simms and Stephen Mfuni turned a win into a rout, with Sven Botman replying for Newcastle — was the promoted side's second victory of the season and the result of the weekend outside Anfield. Newcastle, by contrast, slide to 11th on eight points with 13 goals conceded, a share of the leakiest defensive record in the division. For the full numbers, the Premier League stats hub carries every club's record.

And then, the bottom — where the season is already turning cruel. Tottenham Hotspur are 19th and still winless: Dominic Solanke's 92nd-minute equaliser rescued a 1–1 draw at Manchester United on Saturday after Bryan Mbeumo's opener, but 0-3-3, with three goals scored in six games, is a crisis by any name, and it follows the worst Big Six start Previously documented in the Tottenham rewind last week. Manchester United, 13th on six points with one win in six, are drifting rather than sinking. Above Spurs sit Sunderland, 17th on four points; below them are Bournemouth — 18th, winless, three points, 13 conceded — and Fulham, bottom on two points and the only side in the division without a win alongside Bournemouth and Spurs.

Six weeks is not a season. But it is a shape. City's perfect start, Arsenal's relentless chase, Brighton's emergence and Brentford's unbeaten stubbornness give the Premier League a top four with four distinct personalities, and Chelsea's chaos is not far behind, and the relegation fight already has five clubs looking over their shoulders. Matchweek 7, which begins Saturday, puts City at home to Ipswich and sends Arsenal to Nottingham Forest — the race, and the reckoning, continue. Keep up with every twist on the Premier League front.

Correction (October 13, 2026): An earlier version of this story carried a table built from one round of results too many. Six matchweeks have been played, not seven: the October 10–12 round was Matchweek 6. The standings figures, records, positions and matchweek label have been corrected throughout against the verified Premier League table. The match reporting was unaffected.

Correction (October 14, 2026): An earlier version of this story also garbled two of the weekend's 2–2 draws, pairing Brentford with Everton in a fixture that was never played and siting it at Aston Villa's home ground. Brentford in fact drew 2–2 away to Aston Villa, and Everton drew 2–2 away to Hull City. Both clubs' records (2-4-0) and positions (fourth and fifth, on 10 points) were correct as published.