David Raya and Bruno Guimaraes were Arsenal's heroes as the Gunners maintained their 100 per cent start to their Premier League title defence with a hard-fought win at Sunderland and went top of the table.

The result hinged on a 121-second spell in the second half, when Raya brilliantly saved Enzo Le Fee’s penalty before Guimaraes – formerly of Sunderland’s bitter local rivals Newcastle United – opened his Arsenal account in style with a stunning 25-yard strike.

“It is a very good place [to score the goal],” Arsenal’s marquee summer signing said of his deadlock-breaking contribution. “Everyone knows my amazing history at Newcastle, but now I’m trying to create a new history here. I’ve started on the right foot.”

Just as he did last season en route to claiming a third straight Premier League Golden Glove award, Raya has kept three clean sheets in the first four games of the season, with Mikel Arteta’s men boasting the best defensive record in the league so far (only one goal conceded).

Guimaraes’s glorious goal had all but got the job done, but Arsenal made absolutely sure of the points through Bukayo Saka’s penalty deep into stoppage time. Arsenal have now won nine straight league matches, going back to the last campaign, for the first time since March 2004.

For Sunderland, who finished with 10 men after Reinildo received a second yellow card for the foul leading to Arsenal’s spot-kick, it was a familiar story: they’ve not won any of their last 18 league meetings with the Gunners, going back to November 2009.

Hull City continued their hugely impressive start to the season with an entertaining 2-2 draw at Chelsea thanks to Mohamed Belloumi’s first-half brace, moving to eight points from their first four games of the campaign.

Only two promoted sides have taken more points from their first Premier League matches: Nottingham Forest in 1994 and Bolton Wanderers in 2001 (both 10). The two teams finished the season in third and 16th place, respectively.

The Tigers could even have taken all three points. They continued to push for the win even after Joao Pedro had cancelled out their half-time lead and might have won if not for goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez, who denied substitute Mohamed-Ali Cho late on.

Only once in their Premier League history have Hull gone five games unbeaten – early in 2008/09, their first campaign at this level. They’ll head to Newcastle United next Saturday looking to replicate that, and to keep on showing that they’re determined to do more than just avoid relegation.

Meanwhile, Xabi Alonso’s Chelsea are proving to be the Premier League’s great entertainers so far this season – thanks in no small part to their potent attacking trio of Cole Palmer, Morgan Rogers and Joao Pedro, who continued their highly productive start to the campaign in the 2-2 draw with Hull.

The Blues have racked up a league-high 10 goals in their first four games and at least one of those three players has been involved in nine of them, with Pedro playing a part in six (three goals, three assists).

But they’ve also conceded nine goals, with their matches producing an average of almost five goals and seeing both sides score at least twice.

And Alonso would be relieved to see a 1-0 victory by the sound of it. “I hope one day you appreciate a boring game and we win,” he said, acknowledging that “it will take time to fix the moments” which are causing Chelsea to leak goals.

Alvaro Arbeloa picked up his first point in charge of Fulham, leading them to a draw against Liverpool – where he made 66 Premier League appearances as a player – which leaves the Reds still looking for their first home league win of the Andoni Iraola era.

In a contest of few clear-cut chances that produced only 1.84 Expected Goals (xG) between the teams, Liverpool kept their first home Premier League clean sheet since New Year’s Day – incidentally, also the last time they failed to score at Anfield in the competition.

Liverpool's best chance of the match was a Victor Munoz header midway through the first half – which looked on track to hit the crossbar before goalkeeper Bernd Leno intervened – while both Gonzalo Garcia and Josh King went close for Fulham.

Having suffered 3-2 home defeats to Chelsea and Crystal Palace, Fulham showed much greater defensive grit this time out, much to the delight of Arbeloa, who said: “After the Crystal Palace game, my players realised where the problem is and we fixed it. Today we were more balanced and played really, really well and we controlled the counter-attacks of Liverpool.

“We played well against Chelsea and Crystal Palace and we lost, but we did many things well and we have to keep doing these things well. Today, against a really good team, we improved and have been working really hard this week.

“I know it's really difficult when you aren't winning games to tell the supporters that we're doing things well and deserve more. We can be a very difficult team to beat.”

Oliver Glasner has quite a hold over Unai Emery: he has faced the Aston Villa boss eight times in all competitions (seven in charge of Crystal Palace, one in charge of Nottingham Forest) and never lost, recording six wins.

But more importantly for Glasner, he’s now earned his first win as Forest boss, watching his side build on back-to-back draws against Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, and seeing Liam Delap score his first goal for the club with a ferocious long-range strike.

With Igor Jesus also on the scoresheet for the visitors, history dictated that there wasn’t going to be any other result: the Brazilian, who came off the bench to score the decider two minutes from time, has seven Premier League goals for Forest in seven separate matches - and they’ve won all of them.

For the second successive season, Villa have failed to win any of their opening four Premier League games.

Last campaign Emery’s men recovered to ultimately finish fourth. But, for now, the only real positive on Saturday was Alysson’s first goal for the club as Villa scored for the first time in 2026/27.

Ipswich Town have already won half as many games as they did in their previous Premier League campaign of 2024/25, when they were relegated.

They earned their second victory of the season thanks to Zian Flemming’s 90th-minute goal against a Palace side who nearly clung on for a draw despite playing almost two-thirds of the match with 10 men after Axel Disasi’s first-half red card.

Palace started well and took an early lead through Anan Khalaili, but headers from Emersonn and Leif Davis turned the game on its head before the break either side of Disasi’s straight red card for a high tackle on Jack Clarke.

Jorgen Strand Larsen looked to have salvaged a point for Palace's 10 men with an equaliser after 75 minutes, only for Flemming to fire home Ipswich's late winner after left-back Davis hit the bar.

“Plenty of positives,” stressed Ipswich boss Gary O’Neil. “There is lots we need to improve, but in terms of character, there were some big pluses.”

For Palace, after their own double positive of Pierre Sage’s first wins at the helm – against Fulham in the league and Middlesbrough in the EFL Cup – longstanding concerns were laid bare at Selhurst Park, where they have won only four of their last 21 league matches.

While Disasi's dismissal was a big factor on Saturday, Palace have also conceded more goals than any other Premier League side so far this season (11), while only Spurs and Newcastle have let in more at home in the competition this calendar year.

There must have been a profound sense of deja vu for AFC Bournemouth as, for the fourth time in four Premier League games this season, they led but failed to win.

Bournemouth were stopped from getting their first league victory under Marco Rose by a player who seems to love playing them: five of Kevin Schade’s 24 Premier League goals for Brentford have come against the Cherries, more than against any other side he’s faced in the competition.

It briefly looked like it might be a different story for Bournemouth – who, for the first time in the league this season, didn’t score first, Schade breaking the deadlock for the visitors after 34 minutes before Justin Kluivert equalised four minutes later.

The hosts flipped the game on its head early in the second half through Marcus Tavernier’s third goal of the campaign – only for Schade to hit back within four minutes to equalise.

Brentford are now six matches unbeaten in the Premier League, going back to last season. Only once have they gone longer without losing, after a 12-game sequence between October 2022 and March 2023.

The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium had staged 139 Premier League games prior to this encounter – and never seen a goalless draw, but that epic run came to an end as Everton became the first visiting team for nine years to hold Spurs to a 0-0.

While Spurs’ wait for a Premier League goal in 2026/27 goes on – they’ve failed to score in their first four games of the season for the first time in the top four tiers – they have at least made themselves harder to score against, keeping consecutive clean sheets for the first time since New Year’s Day – after shipping five goals in beginning the campaign with 3-0 and 2-0 defeats to Brentford and Newcastle.

As we’ve come to expect, David Moyes set his Everton side up to be hard to beat – and they managed to restrict the hosts to just 0.64 xG from 14 shots, while accumulating 1.17 xG from 12 attempts themselves.

Everton could have nicked a win, but Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall didn't make the most of a great chance gifted to him by Antonin Kinsky’s loose pass – yet they can be satisfied with their first away league shutout since last December. In doing so, Jordan Pickford became the fifth English goalkeeper to keep 100 Premier League clean sheets. (premierleague.com)