Five things we learned this weekend in the Premier League as Arsenal get first win and Liverpool go top

Unai Emery got his first win as Arsenal manager as Liverpool, Chelsea and Watford maintain winning starts to the Premier League

Liverpool, Chelsea and Watford maintained their winning start to the Premier League as Manchester City slipped up against newly-promoted Wolves.

Unai Emery got his first win as new Arsenal manager at the expense of West Ham, who prop up the table having lost all three of their matches.

Fulham clinched their first win since promotion while Cardiff and Huddersfield played out a forgettable 0-0.

It may not have been a vintage Premier League weekend, but it certainly had it's talking points.

Here’s five things we learned from the Premier League this weekend

1. Manchester City may not be the unstoppable force that we expected

Hands up, how many people expected Manchester City to put around five goals past Wolves? Everything was gearing up for an emphatic win for Pep Guardiola’s world-beaters, given they had put six past Huddersfield – scoring high against lesser sides was often a struggle last season. However, Wolves rose to the challenge and held City to a draw which will give confidence to the other 18 Premier League teams watching on.

Wolves prided themselves on being fearless in the Championship and Nuno Espirito Santo says he has no plans to change their brave attitude in the top tier, despite failing to beat Everton or Leicester. However, playing without fear is integral to stopping Manchester City. Last season Crystal Palace did this at Selhurst Park and were unfortunate not to win, Liverpool played without the handbrake on four occasions and won three times. It can be done.

Wolves were clever with their play and employed the kind of skulduggery that City often use to give them a competitive edge. Ryan Bennett hurled himself in front of Ederson to stop the goalkeeper launching a quick-counter attack and Joao Moutinho was channelling his inner Fernandinho with a few nudges off the ball here and a tactical foul there.

Teams will now have to decide whether they want to sit back like Huddersfield and watch City walk all over them as they ease their way towards a second Premier League title, or to follow the Wolves model of being brave and getting at their fragile defence.

Wolves were rewarded for their brave play (Getty Images)

2. New manager but same defensive shortcomings at Arsenal

Unai Emery’s arrival at The Emirates brought a new hope. No longer would Gary Neville lose his head tearing into the back four, no longer would fans be leaving wanting more, or some oddly dressed man on Arsenal Fan TV be shouting down a camera: ‘this isn’t what I’m paying for! Blud.’

It is a hard situation to judge just three games into Emery’s first Premier League season; look how long Manchester United haven taken/are taking to move on from Sir Alex Ferguson, but some of the problems he is tasked with addressing have not been fixed.

West Ham looked the better side for long periods at The Emirates and Marco Arnautovic’s 25th minute goal was certainly not against the run of play or a shock. Before slotting the ball beyond Petr Cech from range, he twice came close as a result of individual defensive errors.

Inside Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis Papastathopoulos there are good defenders, there must be. Emery needs to find a defensive system that prevents them from being frequently exposed, perhaps an upgrade on Granit Xhaka and Matteo Guendouzi - who is not the answer to Arsenal’s problems, might be a start.

The former Sevilla and PSG manager is staying rigid to his philosophy of playing out from the back, you imagine that Bernd Leno will be replacing Cech shortly to ease some teething problems with this, and there are some encouraging signs. Arsenal showed glimpses of some really good attacking play and Henrikh Mkhitaryan was at the centre of a lot of this. The process is in motion and you sense that once it clicks Emery will begin to restore some pride at Arsenal.

Arsenal got their first win under their new manager (Getty)

3. Chelsea’s lack of transfer planning is harming English talent

There’s a good reason that Gareth Southgate and Steve Holland avoided St James’ Park on Sunday. If they had made the journey north ahead of naming their next England squad on Thursday, they will have been very disappointed to see no English players in Chelsea’s starting team for the first time this season.

Ross Barkley was replaced by loan-signing Mateo Kovacic and Ruben Loftus-Cheek made the bench but remains low in the pecking order at Chelsea.

Failing to shift Thibaut Courtois early in the transfer window meant that Chelsea were second fiddle to the Spanish clubs in the negotiations and had to take Kovacic on loan, at the expense of their existing English talent.

Maurizio Sarri said that Loftus-Cheek might be able to leave in January, however by then it seems it will be several months too late. “I have spoken with him twice this week, after I spoke to the club, so I think that Loftus-Cheek will remain with us,” said the Chelsea manager. “We can speak again about his situation, but only in December.”

Kovacic started his first game for Chelsea in place of Barkley (Getty)

4. Referees fall for player antics

Let’s not delve deep into the so-called ‘good old days’ of Vinnie Jones scything his opponents in tackles that would only be shown nowadays after the 9pm watershed, but things have gone too far.

Four red cards were shown on Saturday, two for violent conduct, one for deliberately denying a goal scoring opportunity and one for two yellow cards. Richarlison and Jonathan Hogg were dismissed for putting their head towards an opponent and according to the law, that is a red card, but both managers felt aggrieved. Marco Silva summed it up nicely and said Richarlison had been “naive,” while David Wagner said Hogg’s red card was “soft”.

Eddie Howe said Adam Smith had “brushed” Theo Walcott which sent him tumbling towards the ground to earn him a red card. All this talk of soft decisions comes after Mohamed Salah controversially won a penalty against Crystal Palace after receiving a faint touch from Mamadou Sakho.

This really is not a go at referee, but the players. We want to see 11 players playing each other and for the talk and analysis after the game to be insightful comment on the two teams. But instead we, through the dramatics and exaggerations from players in order to gain a competitive advantage, are given highlight reels of refereeing decisions on Match of the Day with Gary Lineker teeing up the punditry and analysis with “there were some interesting decisions in that game”.

The whole process of frequently giving soft decisions means that referees are more inclined to reach for their whistle in fear that they may have missed something. A clear example of this is the penalty at Chelsea which Marcos Alonso won at St James’ Park.

Richarlison put his head towards an opponent and saw red (Getty Images)

5. Burnley are in trouble

It’s becoming a bit of cliché that playing in the Europa League is detrimental to Premier League form, but for Sean Dyche and Burnley, it’s becoming a real issue. Burnley have already played seven more hours of football than any other Premier League side and have at least another 90 minutes again this week in the second leg of their qualifying match against Olympiacos.

Dyche has maintained that he will not use Burnley’s European commitments as an excuse for shortcomings in the Premier League. “The fitness here is unbelievable, the players’ mental and physical fitness is absolutely fantastic,” he recently said.

Sean Dyche has a problem on his hands (Getty)

The fixture calendar had been kind to Burnley, handing them Southampton, Watford, Fulham in their first three games, but they have only picked up one point. These are ominous times for the Clarets who will have tougher tests to come.