Another gameweek done. Nineteen goals across six matches, with Arsenal's 4-1 demolition of Spurs grabbing the headlines and leaving the rest of the weekend looking rather pedestrian by comparison.

Nottingham Forest's 3-0 dismantling of Liverpool was the week's genuine shock. Murillo opened the scoring, Gibbs-White added a second, and Savona sealed it late on, with the assists flowing through N.Williams and Anderson. It was the sort of performance that makes you wonder what Liverpool's defensive shape was doing, though Forest's pressing clearly had them rattled from the first whistle. Over at the Emirates, Arsenal made light work of their North London neighbours with Trossard and Eze combining for four goals between them. Eze's hat-trick was the standout individual performance of the gameweek, though Trossard's assist for one and goal for another suggested the attacking fluidity was genuinely there rather than a one-man show. Chelsea won 2-0 at Burnley through Neto and Enzo, a comfortable afternoon that underlined their title credentials. Brighton scraped past Brentford 2-1 with Thiago and Hinshelwood scoring, while Welbeck added a late third. Crystal Palace beat Wolves 2-0 with Muñoz and Yeremy on the scoresheet. Across The Premier Pundits, managers averaged 34 points, a respectable if unremarkable haul that masked significant variance in how individual squads performed.

Eight of the ten managers captained Haaland this week. He returned 4 points. That's the entire story. A captain choice so uniform it bordered on compulsory, yet it delivered nothing beyond the baseline. The Manchester City forward blanked on the pitch, meaning his only return was the 2 points for playing, doubled to 4 by the armband. Nathan McBannister and Rachel Moore both made the same call and both got the same reward. Tom Anderson did too. There was no differentiation here, no edge, no reward for conviction or punishment for deviation. When eight of ten managers make an identical decision and it yields identical returns, the league clusters. That's precisely what happened. The consensus didn't just fail to separate the field; it compressed it.

Bench points ranged from 3 to 13 across the league, a 10-point spread that tells you everything about squad construction variance this week. Tom Anderson left 13 points unused, the highest bench total in the league. That's a costly mistake in a gameweek where the average bench contribution was just 6.1 points. Rachel Moore managed 4 points on the bench, suggesting tighter squad selection or better luck with who actually played. Nathan McBannister sat with 6 points, right at the league average. The difference between Anderson's 13 and Moore's 4 is nine points, a gap that could easily swing a season-long race. In a gameweek where the highest score was 44 and the lowest 25, bench management became a genuine differentiator. Anderson's 25-point gameweek was dragged down partly by what he left unused; had those 13 bench points translated to active minutes, his total would have looked considerably healthier.

Four managers made transfers this week at no cost. Rachel Moore swapped Enzo for Gravenberch, a move that cost her 10 points when Enzo returned 11 and Gravenberch managed 1. It's the sort of transfer that looks poor in hindsight, though the logic at the time may have been sound. The mid-table pack averaged 0.9 transfers per manager, suggesting most squads were deemed fit for purpose. No chips were activated, meaning no one felt compelled to deploy Bench Boost, Wildcard, or Triple Captain. It was a week of steady hands, which in a gameweek where the average was 34 points, meant steady returns rather than breakout scores.

Nathan McBannister leads on 682 total points, having climbed from rank 3 to rank 1 this week with a 44-point gameweek. Rachel Moore sits joint first on 682 points, though her rank remains at 1, suggesting the overall ranking system favours her slightly. Tom Anderson holds rank 7 on 648 points, 34 points adrift of the leaders. The spread at the top is tight enough that a single strong gameweek could shuffle the order, yet the consistency required to maintain a lead suggests both McBannister and Moore have built squads capable of sustained performance.

Brentford face Burnley in a fixture that should favour the hosts, while Manchester City host Leeds in what shapes as a straightforward assignment. Sunderland welcome Bournemouth, Everton face Newcastle, and Spurs take on Fulham in a London derby. Crystal Palace's trip to Old Trafford against Manchester United rounds out the fixture list. The schedule offers few obvious differential opportunities, though Bournemouth's away trip to Sunderland could prove interesting given their recent form. Managers should monitor team news closely; with no international break immediately following, fixture congestion remains manageable, but squad rotation remains a consideration for the larger clubs.