Big Questions for GW4

What's on our minds going into the fourth week of the season?

The transfer window is slamming shut, with just a few more late surprises for good measure (Cole Palmer to Chelsea and Matheus Nunes to City were not on my bingo-sheet a fortnight ago, I don’t know about you). Setting aside Todd Boehly’s desire to never be upstaged by allowing any other club to have the limelight for more than a minute, there’s probably a few players worth talking about—we’ll save most of that for another day.

And that’s because we’re back on our preview game, looking at the things we’ve got our eye on in some of this week’s matchups. And boy are there some interesting things to look at. We’ve got:

• Some slow starters on the red half of North London

• A potential ‘get-right’ game for one of last season’s form teams after a tough result in GW3

• Everton looking to complete the ‘score a goal’ challenge

• Whether Jurgen will change his mind about his preferred forwards

• A Chelsea forward who looks set for a huge season

Lets go.

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Can the Arsenal players get back to their previous Fantrax level?

In the (admittedly small) sample of games we’ve seen of them this year, Arsenal have been fairly good. 7th in xG for and 3rd in xGA in the League. That’s a bit below what they were doing last year, but it’s not any reason to sound the alarm. They’ve also picked up 7 points in the process. So far, so good for Arteta. But so far, so middling for Fantrax managers. Of the players to start multiple games, they’ve got a total of two (2) players in double digit average Fantrax points in Bukayo Saka (19.5) and Eddie Nketiah (12.33). Nketiah almost definitely goes back to the bench after the International Break. For Fantrax, that is worrying. And it’s worth reminding that the three games they’ve played have been against Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and Fulham. These are the games we would expect bigger performances from the highly drafted names amongst this Arsenal group. Last season, Arsenal had a massive number of players that were not just in double figure points, but that finished top 20 in both WAR and xFpts. The worry, particularly with the likes of Gabriel Martinelli (26 points through 3 games) and Martin Odegaard (26.5 in the same period) is that both their actual and expected stats have been considerably lower in this small period than they were last year. Not far off halved, in fact. Given that both ran hot on xG last season anyway, it’s a worrying trend.

But if there’s ever a fixture to reset a narrative, it’s a prime-time Sunday matchup with Manchester United. It’s really tough to know what to make of United (other than to marvel at the wild consistency of Bruno Fernandes), and we probably will delve deeper into United soon, but it’s fair to say that they’ve managed to make hard work of all three games this year. They’ve taken 6 points from those struggles, which is to their credit, but it’s been ugly in defence. They’re 12th in the Premier League in xGA, despite a fixture schedule that included Wolves and Nottingham Forest. And they’ve lost their first choice left back to injury for at least the short term. We want to see Arsenal make a statement this weekend if we’re trusting them to recover the draft day values that many of their players held. Can they do it? Over to you Mikel…

Arsenal vs Manchester United - 4.30pm UK, 11.30am US kickoff, Sunday

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Which side can take the spoils in this weekend’s wounded animal tie?