Five Knee-Jerk Reactions to Matchday 7 of the Premier League 2026-27 Analyst

We return with our summary of the weekend'sPremier Leagueaction with a bunch of knee-jerk reactions to the nine games played over Saturday and Sunday. Every week, we round up the Premier League matchday by jumping to some hasty conclusions based on a single round of fixtures.

This isn't what we normally do. Usually, we plump for larger data sets, and think a little deeper about what we're going to write.

But we also like to have a bit of fun with this weekly column, and anyway, these knee-jerk reactions can prove to have some truth to them. So, here are our five knee-jerk reactions to this weekend's action.

Brighton Are in the Title Race Seven games into the season and Brighton are still going strong. A5-0 battering of rivals Crystal Palaceon Sunday made it four wins in a row, each without conceding a single goal, which has ensured they are keeping pace at the top of the table with leaders Manchester City and reigning champions Arsenal.

Their defence is remarkably good - they have the joint best defensive record in the Premier League this season (five goals conceded) - but it is in attack where they are standing out most (23 goals scored). Across the top five European leagues this season, only Barcelona (39) have scored more than them.

Own goals are not included as they have no xG value And looking back over Premier League history, only three teams have ever scored more goals in their first seven games of a season than Brighton this term: Arsenal in 2009-10 (24), Manchester United in 2011-12 (24), and City in 2019-20 (27). Interestingly, not one of those three teams went on to win the title.

They each set off too quickly out of the blocks and could not keep up the pace for the marathon that is an entire season. In truth, the same will probably happen to Brighton.

The expectation is that they will fall away, too. They surely don't have the resources to maintain a proper title challenge, especially given they are also in Europe this season.

But any team capable of scoring at a rate of 3.3 goals per game at this level over a not insignificant period of seven games surely has to be taken seriously. On the evidence of the first couple of months of this season, Brighton look like they could spring a surprise.