By Daniel Cross | Football Writer, Sportspherearena
Goal difference decided it in the end. Manchester City went into the final Saturday before the international break knowing a point at Brighton would have kept Arsenal top of the Premier League. Arsenal lost by three. By the time Enzo Fernández curled in a free-kick at the Etihad the following day, City didn’t even need to win to go top — they just needed a draw with Sunderland and the goal difference Arsenal had just torched for them. They won 5-3 anyway, in a game that looked more like a training-ground finishing drill than a title-race statement, and City go into the break with a three-point cushion, a perfect record, and the division’s most expensive new midfielder finally starting to look like £116million well spent.
That’s the frame for this list. Six matchweeks in, this isn’t a ranking of reputations — it’s a ranking of who has actually made the season what it is so far. Some of the biggest names from May are missing. A few names Arsenal fans have never heard of six months ago are here instead.
Manchester City have won all five of their opening Premier League matches under new manager Enzo Maresca — the division’s only 100% record.
15. Charalampos Kostoulas (Brighton & Hove Albion)
Nineteen years old and already the finisher who put Arsenal to the sword. Kostoulas scored from range in Brighton’s 3-0 win over the champions on 19 September, the club’s second thumping victory of the week after a 5-0 rout of Coventry away. Brighton have scored 13 goals from an expected-goals total of 8.92 in their opening matches — comfortably the best overperformance in the league, according to Squawka’s data — and Kostoulas is a big reason why.
14. Brian Brobbey (Sunderland)
The forward Manchester City couldn’t handle. Brobbey’s hat-trick at the Etihad on 20 September — scored in the 11th, 32nd and 59th minutes — dragged Sunderland level three times in a game City ultimately won 5-3. Sunderland are a point above the relegation zone, but Brobbey has already shown he can hurt anyone in this division on his day.
13. Bruno Fernandes (Manchester United)
United’s captain scored a hat-trick and added an assist as Michael Carrick’s side recovered from two goals down to beat Ipswich Town 5-2 in August, still their highest-scoring result of the campaign. Fernandes remains the one United player capable of imposing himself on a match from a standing start, even in a season that has otherwise been stop-start for his team under a first-year manager.
Also Read: [PLACEHOLDER — link to Manchester United season preview when published]
12. Alexander Isak (Liverpool)
A second season at Anfield that started where the first was cut short by injury. Isak has scored three goals in his first four matches this term, including two well-taken finishes in a 2-0 win away at Ipswich, and has started every game so far under new head coach Andoni Iraola. For a £125million striker who managed only two Premier League goals in an injury-hit debut campaign, that’s the platform his manager wanted.
11. Emiliano Martínez (Chelsea)
Xabi Alonso’s first-choice goalkeeper wasn’t even at the club in May. Martínez arrived from Aston Villa in the summer and has gone straight into Chelsea’s XI ahead of Robert Sánchez, a call that looked eccentric in August and now looks like one of the shrewder pieces of business in west London.
10. Marc Guehi (Manchester City)
Signed from Crystal Palace in January for £20million after City’s centre-back injury crisis, Guehi has become one of the calmer figures in a City back line that has still shipped three goals twice already this season. He started City’s five straight wins to open the campaign and is one of four leadership-group captains Maresca has named at the Etihad.
9. Pascal Gross (Brighton & Hove Albion)
Thirty-five years old and still directing traffic. Gross scored in Brighton’s win over Arsenal, his third goal in as many matches, and has been central to a Brighton side sitting third after six weeks — level on points with the champions they just beat.
Also Read: [PLACEHOLDER — link to Brighton & Hove Albion 2026-27 season hub when published]
8. Rayan Cherki (Manchester City)
The most watchable player in a watchable City side. Cherki set up both goals in City’s opening-weekend comeback win over Bournemouth, scored twice in a 4-1 win at Crystal Palace, and was on the scoresheet again against Sunderland. Signed from Lyon for around £34million last summer, he is delivering a return City could not have priced in for that fee.
Rayan Cherki has been directly involved in a goal in four of Manchester City’s first five Premier League matches this season.
7. David Raya (Arsenal)
The one Arsenal player who came out of Brighton with credit. Raya has been directly responsible for keeping Arsenal in touching distance of the top through their four-match winning start, and his penalty save away at Sunderland earlier this month was the difference between two points and none. Brighton’s press finally got the better of him on 19 September — a rare off day in an otherwise composed campaign.
6. Kai Havertz (Arsenal)
Two goals in Arsenal’s opening five matches from a player Mikel Arteta increasingly uses as the axis of his attack rather than a conventional number nine. Arsenal’s summer signings have taken longer to bed in than expected, which has made Havertz’s consistency, rather than any new arrival, the most reliable part of their front line so far.
5. Riccardo Calafiori (Arsenal)
Arsenal spent the summer working out how to get more from Calafiori, and the early answer is: push him further forward. The Italian left-back has combined defensive solidity with genuine goal threat from wide areas, and remains one of the few Arsenal players whose form survived the Brighton defeat with reputation intact.
4. Antoine Semenyo (Manchester City)
Bought from Bournemouth for around £62.5million in the same January window as Guehi, Semenyo has had to wait for his City career to catch fire. It finally did against Sunderland: two goals and an assist in the best 90 minutes of his City career to date, after two earlier assists against Crystal Palace and Coventry. If that performance is closer to his level than his first few months at the Etihad, City just got significantly more dangerous.
3. Elliot Anderson (Manchester City)
£116million is a number that invites scrutiny of every touch, and Anderson spent his first weeks at City living with that scrutiny rather than escaping it. He is starting to look like the midfielder Nottingham Forest built their season around. City are unbeaten with him in the side, and alongside Enzo Fernández he is beginning to give Maresca the control in midfield that Rodri’s continued fitness issues have taken away.
Manchester City paid a British-record £116million for Elliot Anderson in the summer, surpassing the fee Arsenal paid for Declan Rice in 2023.
2. Enzo Fernández (Manchester City)
Fernández moved from Chelsea to City in the summer specifically to work under Maresca, and the early signs are that the bet has paid off for both parties. His free-kick opened the scoring against Sunderland — his first City goal — and he has looked like the reliable tempo-setter in midfield that City have missed. For a player some considered a peripheral figure at Stamford Bridge, this is as convincing a start to a new chapter as he could have hoped for.
1. Erling Haaland (Manchester City)
Still the widest margin at the top of any power ranking in England. Haaland has scored five goals in five appearances this season and, according to ESPN’s coverage of City’s win over Sunderland, has now scored against every one of the 25 Premier League teams he has faced in his career. His late strike against Sunderland — his first-ever goal against the club — settled a game City led three times and were pegged back in three times. New manager, same conclusion: City are hard to beat with Haaland finishing their chances, and right now nobody else in the country is finishing theirs at the same rate.
Erling Haaland has scored against all 25 different Premier League opponents he has faced across his Manchester City career.
What’s next for the Premier League title race?
With Arsenal’s goal difference now behind City’s, the two sides don’t meet again until later in the season, meaning the September international break arrives with City holding the only remaining perfect record in the division. Brighton’s start suggests Fabian Hürzeler’s side should not be written out of the European conversation either.
FAQ
Who is top of the Premier League table after six matchweeks in 2026-27? Manchester City are top on goal difference after five wins from five, three points clear of Arsenal, following Arsenal’s 3-0 defeat at Brighton on 19 September 2026.
Who is the Premier League’s top scorer so far this season? Erling Haaland leads the race with five goals in the opening five Manchester City matches of the 2026-27 season.
How much did Manchester City pay for Elliot Anderson? Manchester City paid a club-record, British-record £116million to sign Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest in the summer of 2026.
Why did Arsenal lose to Brighton? Arsenal were beaten 3-0 away at Brighton on 19 September 2026, with goals from Pascal Gross, Charalampos Kostoulas and Chema Andrés — Arsenal’s heaviest defeat since a 3-0 loss to the same opponent in May 2023.
