Premier League report card - One year on

Chris Hughton will be delighted with Brighton's start

8th (N/A): Brighton & Hove Albion

Wins: 4 | Draws: 3 | Losses: 4 | GD: 0 | Points: 15

Chris Hughton’s side has adapted to the Premier League like a duck to water especially considering they were tipped by many to have an absolute stinker but they continue to prove the doubters wrong.

Their home form is up there with the best, having only lost once at the AMEX this season and that was to runaway leaders Man City, in addition to that, they’ve picked up two valuable away wins at West Ham and Swansea on their last two excursions.

The biggest question mark will be whether they can maintain it throughout the whole season because all it will take would be a couple of results to go against them and they’ll be right amongst the bottom three. Hughton will certainly have the players believing they can stay up and at the moment, it is so far, so good.

7th (+2): Burnley

Wins: 5 (+1) | Draws: 4 (+2) | Losses: 2 (-3) | GD: 1 (+5) | Points: 19 (+5)

There has been some real improvement with what the Lancashire club have done so far, particularly with their away form and as you can see from above that they’re turning what would have been defeats last year into draws this year.

Andre Gray left to move down to Watford and he was replaced by New Zealander Chris Wood who seems to score every time he has a shot. Meanwhile Gray is struggling to get into the Watford starting line-up, so that was a shrewd piece of business by the Dyche.

Burnley aren’t one of those teams who are going to win a game by three or four goals but when they do something well, they do it very well. If they can keep it up for the next 27 games, could we see Turf Moor hosting European football next year?

6th (-2): Arsenal

Wins: 6 (-1) | Draws: 1 (-2) | Losses: 4 (+3) | GD: 4 (-9) | Points: 19 (-5)

Arsenal have once again faltered in the big games

There was a lot of talk in the summer about Wenger, whether he was going to stay or go and then out of nowhere, he was ‘rewarded’ a new two year deal much to the dismay of many Arsenal fans. As is evident from the stats, things are worse than they were at this point last year meaning that tension is yet again running high at the Emirates Stadium.

One positive in an otherwise dismal start to Wenger’s new deal is the signing of Lacazette who really has hit the ground running. They need to get some more wins under their belt before the new year as you’d imagine that it'll be another window disrupted by the Sanchez and Ozil sagas. Surely the board won’t tolerate another year outside the top four?

5th (-4): Liverpool

Wins: 5 (-3) | Draws: 4 (+2) | Losses: 2 (+1) | GD: 4 (-12) | Points: 19 (-7)

The Anfield side are yet to really get going and a lot of the blame could be aimed in the direction of Barcelona’s pursuit of Philippe Coutinho. However, the bigger issue of Klopp not properly addressing their defensive frailties could be argued as the sticking point so far.

On the bright side, it could be said that Mohammed Salah is the signing of the summer, chipping in seven goals in the first eleven games. So he is a huge plus point, however, Klopp will be under no illusion that there is a lot of work to do if they want another season of Champions League football at Anfield.