Three games into the season, and the Premier League has already sorted itself into two piles. Pile one: Manchester City and Arsenal, both perfect, both on nine points, treating the rest of the division like a formality. Pile two: everybody else, who spent the weekend trading two-goal leads back and forth like a grenade nobody wanted to be holding when the whistle blew.

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Liverpool didn’t waste much time reminding everyone why they were supposed to be in pile one. Alexander Isak had the game at Ipswich decided inside nine minutes, a quickfire brace, both goals teed up by Cody Gakpo, and Andoni Iraola picked up his first win as Liverpool manager at the third time of asking. It was over almost before it started. Turn the game on at minute ten looking for the drama, and you’d already missed it.

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City did the same businesslike thing at home to Coventry, needing just the one goal to make it three wins from three. City and Arsenal sit level on nine points with identical plus-five goal differences; City lead only because they’ve scored one more goal than Arsenal has. That’s the entire gap between the two best teams in the country right now, and it isn’t much of one.

Everyone else, meanwhile, seemed determined to make their Saturday harder than it needed to be. Brentford and Sunderland traded a goal each and left it there. Brighton and Leeds did the same. Newcastle gave you a bit more, mostly because Bournemouth spent most of the afternoon looking like the better team and still didn’t get the three points: Marcus Tavernier and a Malick Thiaw own goal had the Cherries up 2-0 inside 35 minutes, Harvey Barnes pulled one back before the break, and Newcastle needed substitute Jacob Ramsey popping up in the 88th minute to rescue a point at St James’ Park. Newcastle stay unbeaten. Bournemouth are still winless. Neither team looked thrilled about how they got there.

The best entertainment of the day was at Craven Cottage, where Fulham somehow found a way to lose a game in which they were, statistically, the better team. Josh King put the hosts up inside eleven minutes. Tyrick Mitchell leveled it. César Palacios restored Fulham’s lead three minutes before halftime. Mitchell leveled it again early in the second half, because apparently nobody informed either back line that defending was still allowed this season. How do you lose a match you controlled for the better part of seventy-five minutes? Ask Alvaro Arbeloa, whose answer arrived in the 74th minute, when Ben Chilwell, on his second debut for the club after rejoining from Strasbourg, came off the bench and won the game with his first touch three minutes later. Pierre Sage got his first win as Palace manager. Arbeloa is 0 for 3 as Fulham boss, and with Liverpool and Manchester United coming to Craven Cottage next, the schedule isn’t doing him any favors.

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Up at the City Ground, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham played out a scoreless draw that was somehow more interesting than the scoreline suggests. Neco Williams thought he’d won it late for Forest, until VAR chalked the goal off for handball. Tottenham escaped with a point, which under new manager Roberto De Zerbi currently counts as progress: they still haven’t scored a Premier League goal this season, the first time that’s happened to them through three games since 1980, a stat that’s a lot more fun to read than it apparently is to live through.

Then there was the actual headline. Arsenal hosted Chelsea in what was always going to be the game of the weekend, and Chelsea made a statement early: Morgan Rogers, playing against the club that reportedly tried to sign him over the summer, put the visitors ahead just 77 seconds in. Arsenal didn’t blink. Kai Havertz leveled it in the 25th minute, his third career Premier League goal against his former club, which at this point feels less like a coincidence and more like a hobby, and Martin Odegaard put the champions ahead five minutes into the second half. Arsenal are three for three, level with City on nine points, and one of only two teams in the league that haven’t dropped a single point all season. Plainly: this is a two-team race right now, and it isn’t especially close to being one.

Sunday closed with exactly the kind of chaos pile two had been threatening all weekend. Manchester United led twice at Everton, first through Bryan Mbeumo a minute into the second half, then through substitute Benjamin Sesko’s header in the 88th minute. Both times, Everton clawed it back. Tyrique George answered Mbeumo with a thunderous strike of his own, and then, in the sixth minute of stoppage time, deadline-day signing Ainsley Maitland-Niles came off the bench to make his club debut and curled a 25-yard shot into the top corner, the first player to score on his Everton debut since Richarlison in 2018. That’s a loud way to introduce yourself to a new fan base. United, who have now conceded twice in every league match this season, dropped to 11th.

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Pile one had a business trip. Pile two had a bar fight that somehow ended in a group hug. Three games in, you already know which one you’d rather watch again.

2. After the Liverpool paragraph — Alexander Isak celebrating one of his two goals at Ipswich, ideally with Cody Gakpo. Getty: https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/alexander-isak Suggested caption: “Alexander Isak, Liverpool FC. Justin Setterfield/Getty Images” — this credit is confirmed for a photo from this specific match.

3. Alongside the Fulham–Crystal Palace paragraph — Ben Chilwell’s celebration after his 77th-minute winner at Craven Cottage. Getty: https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/fulham-fc-v-crystal-palace-premier-league Suggested caption: “Ben Chilwell, Crystal Palace. James Fearn/Getty Images” — credit as it appeared via a republished use of the photo; double-check it against the actual Getty listing before publishing.

4. Closing image, with the Everton–Man United paragraph — Ainsley Maitland-Niles celebrating his stoppage-time debut goal at Hill Dickinson Stadium. Getty: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/ainsley-maitland-niles Suggested caption: “Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Everton. [Photographer]/Getty Images” — pull the exact credit from your chosen photo.

I kept it to four. Newcastle–Bournemouth and Forest–Tottenham got lighter treatment in the piece itself, so a dedicated photo for either would be filler rather than a real fit.