Things You Might've Missed in the PL This Weekend - (16-19 Oct)
Matchweek 7 ran from Saturday lunchtime to Monday night, and on paper it was a fairly normal one.
Here's what was actually going on.
The Crowd Said Shoot
Brighton against Crystal Palace is meant to be a grudge match. Somebody forgot to tell Palace, because by the 10th minute on Sunday it was already over.
Jaydee Canvot got the ball rolling in the 4th minute, heading a Pascal Groß free kick into his own net.
3 minutes later, Diego Gómez picked the ball up on the halfway line, clocked that Walter Benítez had wandered off his line, and went for it. Benítez turned, sprinted back, dived, and watched it drop in just under the bar. Opta had it at 51 metres. Shay Given, a goalkeeper and therefore contractually obliged to defend other goalkeepers, said on Match of the Day that he didn't blame Benítez. Generous, Shay.
For a sense of how rare that is: you have to go back to Wayne Rooney's 58-metre effort for Everton against West Ham in November 2017 to find a Premier League goal scored from further out. Nearly 9 years.
Yasin Ayari then finished off a Charalampos Kostoulas backheel in the 10th minute, making Brighton the quickest side to 3 goals in a Premier League game since Newcastle against Spurs in April 2023.
Kostoulas got one himself 4 minutes into the second half, Jack Hinshelwood made it 5 on 84, and Palace, who hit the post through Jefferson Lerma and the bar through a returning Jean-Philippe Mateta, have now shipped 17 league goals this season. That's their worst start since 1980/81. For Brighton, it's the biggest win over their rivals since a 5-0 in January 1956, back in the old Division Three South.
Welcome Back
The last time Dejan Kulusevski played a competitive game was 11 May 2025, against Crystal Palace. He picked up the knee injury that ruled him out of the Europa League final ten days later.
On Monday night, against Coventry, he came on with about 5 minutes left. 526 days out. Whatever you think of Spurs, you don't get through a year and a half of knee rehab without some very dark days, and it's genuinely nice to see him back on a pitch.
The game itself had a bit of a theme. James Maddison, making his first competitive start since May 2025, against the club where his career began, curled one into the top corner on 14 minutes.
Jack Rudoni equalised for Frank Lampard's side 4 minutes into the second half. Omar Marmoush then struck from just outside the box on 58 for his first Spurs goal, with Carl Rushworth getting a touch but not enough of one.
And in the 96th minute, Ben Davies finished it off with a cheeky trivela from outside the box.
3 goals from outside the area in one game. The last Premier League side to manage that was Fulham, against Leicester, in May 2023. Lampard reckoned Coventry deserved more and had a grumble about an arm in the face before the second, which is fair enough.
Nonetheless, De Zerbi has his first league win of the season at the 7th attempt, and this is a Spurs side that has dropped more points from winning positions at home than anyone since the start of 2024/25. For once, they didn't. Small mercies.
The Game Might Be Gone But I Also Might Be Being Harsh
Leeds 1-1 Manchester United on Sunday was a perfectly decent game of football. Bryan Mbeumo scored in the first half, Dominic Calvert-Lewin equalised in the 51st minute for his 4th Premier League goal of the season, and it finished 1-1 at Elland Road for the second time running. United are now 5 league games without a win, which is its own story.
This one is about what the cameras didn't show. Leeds' own behind-the-scenes write-up from the day reveals that, lined up in the tunnel alongside the usual crowd of nervous kids in oversized kits, was Elland Road's first ever referee mascot. I have no idea how you get picked for that, maybe losing a bet, but fair play to them, it was the bravest walk anyone made all weekend.
I also understand it's likely an initiative to promote becoming a referee to the younger generation, I get it.
Just in such a tasty game, a referee mascot? Idk man...
Somebody Has to Score First
Some players are big-game players. Some player are super-subs. Marcus Tavernier is a first-goal player, and as of Sunday he has the numbers to prove it.
His 6th-minute opener against Sunderland means 14 of his 22 Premier League goals have broken the deadlock. Of every player to score at least 20 in the competition's history, nobody has a higher share. It's a gloriously niche stat, and also a weirdly useful one: if Tavernier scores, Bournemouth are probably winning.
Sunderland's Danso was sent off in the 17th minute. Then, just after the break, Omar Alderete rolled a backpass about half as far as it needed to go and Evanilson nipped in to make it 2-0. Goal number 100 of his career. Gifted rather than earned, but nobody is giving it back.
Between them, Tavernier and Evanilson have now been directly involved in 7 of Bournemouth's 9 league goals, and Marco Rose finally has his first Premier League win as their manager.
Sunderland, meanwhile, drop into the bottom three, and they've now conceded 5 goals from errors this season, more than anyone else. At some point that stops being bad luck.
Still on the Concourse
If you're an Everton fan who was still queuing for the toilets when the second half kicked off on Saturday, we have bad news.
It took Chelsea 43 seconds after the restart at the Hill Dickinson Stadium. João Pedro and Jorrel Hato got the move going down the left and Pedro Neto finished it. According to the Premier League, that's the third time this season that Chelsea have scored in the opening minute of a half, which suggests Xabi Alonso's team talks are either very good or very short.
Neto got his second in the 90th minute, pouncing when a Chelsea free kick hit the wall and seeing his shot take a nick off Mykolenko on the way past Jordan Pickford. His first Premier League brace, and an away win Alonso was happy to call a mature performance.
That's Matchweek 7. Seen something we haven't? Stick it in the comments, there's always one that gets away.
