Sport
Barcelona won a fifth match in five, Kylian Mbappé scored twice again, and the Premier League served up a Manchester derby played eleven against ten. Here is the European weekend.
Spain: Barcelona are not slowing down
Barcelona won 4-2 at Levante on Sunday. Xavi Espart opened the scoring inside five minutes, Lamine Yamal followed, and late goals from Iván Romero (79) and Roger Brugué (88) only made the final score look closer than it was.
Five games, five wins, 21 goals scored and four conceded: the reigning champions lead LaLiga on 15 points. In between they also beat Feyenoord 5-1 in the Champions League and won 5-0 at Valencia. This Barcelona side is not pretending.
Spain: Mbappé does the job
Real Madrid answered on Saturday, beating Rayo Vallecano 4-1. Mbappé converted a penalty in the 14th minute and added another in stoppage time; in between, Álvaro Carreras (17) and Jude Bellingham (35) did the rest.
Madrid have 12 points from five, three behind Barcelona. Their one blemish remains the 1-0 defeat at Real Betis on 4 September. Four days before the Rayo win they had beaten Inter 2-1 in the Champions League.
Premier League: Arsenal and City clear at the top
Neither of the top two has lost. Arsenal won 2-0 at Sunderland; Manchester City won 1-0 at Old Trafford despite playing more than an hour with ten men after Phil Foden’s dismissal. Twelve points each, with Arsenal ahead on goal difference.
Matchweek 4 in full
- Bournemouth 2 – 2 Brentford
- Aston Villa 1 – 2 Nottingham Forest
- Chelsea 2 – 2 Hull City
- Crystal Palace 2 – 3 Ipswich Town
- Liverpool 0 – 0 Fulham
- Tottenham 0 – 0 Everton
- Sunderland 0 – 2 Arsenal
- Coventry City 0 – 5 Brighton
- Manchester United 0 – 1 Manchester City
The stories of the weekend
Tottenham still have not scored. Four matches, no goals, two points. The goalless draw with Everton extended a run nobody at the club can explain.
Hull City are third. The promoted side took a 2-2 draw from Stamford Bridge and sit third on eight points. Chelsea’s chaotic start under Xabi Alonso, meanwhile, continues.
Ipswich win it at the death. Zian Flemming scored his first goal for the club in the 90th minute against a ten-man Crystal Palace.
Coventry ship five. Frank Lampard’s promoted side, also down to ten, were swept aside by Brighton, with a long-range Lewis Dunk strike the pick of the goals.
Liverpool stall. A third draw in four games, this time 0-0 at Anfield against a Fulham side that had not taken a single point all season.
What to take from it
In Spain the question is not whether Barcelona are good, but whether anyone can live with their pace. In England two teams have already pulled away — and the surprise is not that they keep winning, but how many big clubs still cannot.