{"id":770554,"date":"2026-09-14T17:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/770554\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T17:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T17:00:09","slug":"premier-league-title-race-are-arsenal-and-man-city-the-only-contenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/770554\/","title":{"rendered":"Premier League title race: Are Arsenal and Man City the only contenders?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arsenal<\/a> and Manchester City<\/a> are the only two teams with 12 points from four games.<\/p>\n

They are already four points above third-placed Hull City<\/a> – who despite their brilliant early form may not consider themselves in any kind of title equation – and five above the rest.<\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/a> are the defending champions and pre-season title favourites.<\/p>\n

Under manager Mikel Arteta they ended a 22-year title drought last season with what was often perceived to be an attritional style of play.<\/p>\n

They started this season with a hugely impressive 3-0 victory over Manchester City<\/a> in the Community Shield.<\/p>\n

And they have carried on with victories over Coventry, Aston Villa<\/a>, Chelsea<\/a> and Sunderland<\/a> – plus Napoli in the Champions League. <\/p>\n

Including last season, they are now on a nine-game winning run in the league – and last lost in any competition in 90 minutes to City on 19 April.<\/p>\n

Unlike Arsenal<\/a>, City do not have the continuity this season with boss Pep Guardiola leaving after six titles, including a Treble, in 10 years.<\/p>\n

Enzo Maresca, once his assistant, has taken over and led them to four wins from four in the league after that loss in Cardiff to the Gunners.<\/p>\n

They have beaten Bournemouth<\/a>, Crystal Palace<\/a>, Coventry – plus Porto in the Champions League – before their controversial 1-0 success at Manchester United<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Erling Haaland scored the only goal, with the Premier League’s refereeing body later admitting a mistake as it should have been ruled out for offside<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite their 100% starts, the underlying numbers behind Arsenal<\/a> and City’s starts do not imply total dominance.<\/p>\n

Brighton<\/a> (13) and Chelsea<\/a> (10) have scored more goals than the eight that the top two have both netted.<\/p>\n

For shots, Arsenal<\/a> and City rank 10th and 11th and touches in the opposition box they are sixth and fifth respectively.<\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/a> have only conceded once and City have let in two goals – two of the best records in the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arsenal and Manchester City are the only two teams with 12 points from four games. They are already…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770555,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-770554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770554\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}