Tottenham Hotspur bottom? Where the Premier League title, relegation battles stand at the first international break

A 38-game Premier League season is long, so it’s critical not to overreact to the first five weeks of matches. Especially in the middle of the table, it’s quite likely that teams’ positions will vary widely from week-to-week, and it’s still possible that a surprise team could challenge for the title or be relegated. It’s highly likely, in fact, that at least one team in the current bottom three will stay up.

Still, no team outside the top eight after the first five matches has ever won the title in the 20-team Premier League era, so any insights gleaned from the season’s first five matches certainly don’t mean nothing.

With the league now on pause for the next three weeks as players go off on international duty, it’s worth looking at the state of affairs after the first five matches in an early look at the title and relegation races, especially with some surprise teams near the top of the table and one marquee club at serious risk of suffering the drop.

Premier League Table through Matchweek 5

The Title Contenders

• Arsenal (+100)
• Manchester City (+125)

Despite the early stage of the season, relatively slow starts by other would-be contenders in Liverpool, Chelsea, and Manchester United have left this as a two-team race. That’s not a surprise; Arsenal and Manchester City have each finished in the top two in four of the last five seasons, with a seven-point gap separating the Citizens from Manchester United in 2025/26. This season, Manchester City is seven points clear of Brighton in third, and the Gunners have a two-point edge over the Seagulls.

Prior to slipping up against Brighton, Arsenal had looked like the clear best team in the division, allowing no more than 1.1 xG from open play in any of its first four matches. The Gunners still shouldn’t hang their heads too low; even in the loss to the Seagulls, they still managed more expected goals, and they should only get better once star center-back William Saliba returns from injury. With the sixth-most effective attack and the best defense by pretty much any metric, Arsenal should be in the title race until its conclusion. The Gunners could arguably benefit from bringing in a more lethal striker during the January transfer window, as they rank just sixth in conversion rate, but they’ve been the best and most well-rounded team overall.

Similarly, the Citizens have hardly missed a beat after replacing Pep Guardiola with Enzo Maresca over the summer. It hasn’t always been pretty — City required a late winner to edge out Bournemouth in Matchweek 1, only picked up a 1-0 result against Coventry, and needed a controversial winner to beat Manchester United — but five wins is five wins. Sure, Liverpool was also 5-0-0 at this point last season before finishing a distant fifth, but the 2025/26 Reds were even less convincing. The Citizens have produced the second-best chances and finished clinically (having Erling Haaland helps), and with the exception of a 5-3 win over Sunderland in which the Black Cats managed 3.57 xG, their defense has been solid enough. New acquisitions Enzo Fernández, Elliott Anderson, and Iliman Ndiaye should only get better as they continue to jell.

Brighton shouldn’t be overlooked. Arsenal and Manchester City have the two most valuable squads in division and the Seagulls merely rank eighth, but no team has scored more goals, produced better chances, or controlled more possession than Brighton, which has already faced three of last season’s top five in addition to the Blues, who were widely projected to join them in 2026/27. None of the Seagulls’ players are household names, unlike Haaland and Bukayo Saka, but Charalampos Kostoulas, Luka Vušković, Malick Yalcouye, Chema and Jack Hinshelwood are all 21 or younger, and they’ve combined for 10 goal contributions. Manager Fabian Hürzeler previously managed St. Pauli to promotion after taking over the club when it was at risk of relegation to the 3.Bundesliga, and he’s finished eighth in each of his first two seasons on England’s south coast.

The matches between Arsenal and Manchester City on November 28 and January 30 will probably decide the title, but the Seagulls could easily produce their first top-three finish.

Premier League Title Race Pick, Best Bet

The Pick: Arsenal (+100)
Dark Horse: Brighton (+5000)

The Relegation Fodder

• Coventry City (-200)
• Hull City (-150)
• Ipswich Town (+110)
• Crystal Palace (+200)
• Fulham (+225)

In both the 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons, all three of the newly-promoted sides went straight back down to the Championship (and Luton Town and Leicester City have each suffered subsequent relegations to League One), and the three promoted teams still have the three shortest odds. However, Sunderland (seventh place) and Leeds (14th) broke that streak in 2025/26, and two of the three promoted teams are off to excellent starts. Hull City was the last team to concede, and the Tigers are on eight points after their comeback attempt against Newcastle came up short. The Tractor Boys have attracted fewer headlines, but late winners against Sunderland and Crystal Palace have them three points above the drop zone so far, and their xG differential is only narrowly negative.

Only Coventry hasn’t remotely looked the part of a Premier League team. The Sky Blues didn’t score in any of their first five matches, suffering a 3-0 defeat to Arsenal and a 5-0 result against the Seagulls, and while they did pick up a 1-0 result against Nottingham Forest after goalkeeper Carl Rushworth’s long pass ahead to Jay Dasilva, they still managed fewer shots and xG than the Foresters did in that match and got fairly lucky that Nottingham managed to put only three of its 24 shots on target. Unlike Hull and Ipswich, Coventry doesn’t have any young talents who might improve as the season goes on other than Caleb Yirenkyi, and the Sky Blues have already lost to the Tigers. Coventry has produced the second-fewest expected goals while conceding the ninth-most.

That leaves two of Hull, Ipswich, Crystal Palace, and Fulham to join Frank Lampard’s side back in the second division, unless Sunderland or Bournemouth struggles mightily with its European obligations. The Eagles have allowed the most expected goals’ worth of chances and the second-most goals, with the Tractor Boys and Cottagers joining them in the bottom four. The Tigers rank fourth-to-last in expected goals, and Aston Villa (+1200 to go down) actually ranks dead last in xG and fifth-to-last in xG conceded. Of the teams in the relegation fight, I’m most confident in Villa (thanks to Unai Emery) and Hull (thanks to its relentless defense and five-point head start to this point).

Then there’s Spurs. Tottenham shouldn’t be at the bottom of the table on paper, as it has the sixth-most valuable squad in the Premier League and a long history of top-half finishes, but after Spurs finished 17th in the table in each of the past two seasons, they have been even worse so far in 2026/27. Their attack has been pitiful, ranking third-to-last in xG and seventh-to-last in shots on target, and they’ve allowed the 10th-most xG from the seventh-most total shots. Perhaps Omar Marmoush’s shooting improves (he’s put just one of his seven shots on target so far) and perhaps youngsters Archie Gray, Mathys Tel, Mateus Fernandes, and Sávio take leaps, but there’s no reason to believe Tottenham is capable of a top-half finish, especially without its home crowd behind it. The Halloween match against Crystal Palace already looks like a relegation six-pointer.

At this point, I’d still pick Spurs to stay up, but I don’t feel confident about it. If they haven’t clawed their way out of the relegation zone by Christmas, I’d take the Eagles to stay in the top flight at their expense.

Premier League Relegation Battle Pick, Best Bet

The Pick: Coventry City (-200), Crystal Palace (+200), Fulham (+225)
Dark Horse: Tottenham Hotspur (+700)