Arsenal dispatched Manchester United at the death, but the score flatters the visitors, as expected goals ranged from 3-1 to 4-0. Despite dominating, Arsenal conceded first on a wondergoal by Rashford, his ninth in nine games. Arsenal equalized within a few minutes on a header by Nketiah assisted by Xhaka. Arsenal took the lead early in the second half on a superb Saka strike (his best ever, according to him, and to most experts) but Arsenal gifted a weird equalizer on a corner with a header by Lisandro Martinez, one of the shortest players on the field. Arsenal took over and kept pressing until the 3-2 game winner came on a Trossard-Zinchenko-Odegaard action nicely concluded by Nketiah. A key win that is the object of an article by Jonathan Liew in The Guardian that has been commented and debated on line ad nauseum. Jonathan Liew used to be a writer at The Telegraph (where he wrote a notorious anti-banter article about Reine-Adelaide) but is now with The Guardian, and his prose has evolved positively. He has many admirers, including Tim Stillman of Arseblog. I will just say that the promising title of "Arsenal strut past United with the aura of champions" is spot on and I was happily reeled in. But our mantra is: One game at a time!

Saturday started with a goalless draw between Liverpool and Chelsea followed by a 1-1 draw between Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest and yet another 2-2 draw between Leicester and Brighton. Southampton lost 0-1 late against Aston Villa before West Ham dispatched Everton 2-0, with Lampard being sacked as a consequence. There were also two more goalless draws, between Crystal Palace and Newcastle then Leeds versus Brentford, the latter on Sunday. Manchester City took care of Wolverhampton 3-0 thanks to a Haaland hattrick, his third of the season. Finally, on Monday, Fulham lost 0-1 to the noisy neighbors.

The twelve active participants (skinnejay was not able to post any predictions) combined for 98 points (for an average of 8 and 2/12 points per active participant) and there were 13 correct IKTS predictions. The ten games for the Week ended up with 3 home wins, versus 2 wins for visiting teams, and there were five draw. Overall, 18 goals were scored for an average of 1.8 goals per game.

Scores for the week:

Seidman 14 (3)

Geaux_HR 14 (2)

ben from portsmouth 11 (1)

hansdampf 10 (1)

luismamontes 8 (1)

AsemBuckets 7 (1)

billvacation 7 (1)

ClevelandJames 7 (1)

rswansont 7 (1)

Sonny from Suffolk 6 (1)

Purple & Proud 5 (0)

Ray from Norfolk 2 (0)