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Premier League roundup: Biggest stories from Matchday 6

Erling Haaland. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters

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Premier League roundup: Biggest stories from Matchday 6

By Alyssa Clang | Last updated Oct 12, 2026 6:54 PM ET

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The English Premier League wrapped up its sixth weekend of action on Monday after breaking for several weeks to allow for a window of international competition.

Manchester City is the league's surprise leader with a perfect 18 points from six games, while Fulham has fallen into last place with just two points from its opening fixtures.

Here are the key storylines from a heavy weekend of EPL action:

Love it or hate it, Manchester City is on a tear

The Premier League's long fall break was dominated by one conversation and one conversation only: Manchester City being found guilty of 114 of 115 charges of financial malfeasance committed between 2009-2018. It's a shocking ruling that could change the very foundation of the league. Will City be punished? Yes, almost certainly. But will that punishment be a slap on the wrist, a heavy fine, a demotion? Or will it involve the club being stripped of its titles and dropped out of the English professional league system altogether? Nobody knows, least of all City itself, and all that flux means that things are a little shifty and spiky in Manchester these days.

This City obviously isn't the same City that ran roughshod over the Premier League's financial rules. Its trio of attacking stars—Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki—were all under the age of nine when City's first breaches took place. But it's still hard to watch City win, still painful to root for a team that climbed to the top on the back of flagrant rule-breaking. When it lined up to face Liverpool at Anfield on Matchday 6, the vitriol against it was real and present and vicious.

City did the only thing it could do in that moment: it pulled together a bravura 3-0 win capped off with a stunning team goal. It might be hard to stomach given the circumstances that birthed it, but this City side is truly exceptional—exceptional enough to snatch the headlines back from its clear and present illegalities. Love it or hate it, City is powering through this transitional season.

@premierleague Running out of words to describe Rayan Cherki… @Manchester City ♬ original sound - Premier League

Rodrigo Bentancur used his head...but not in the way you'd hope

Headbutting is illegal in this sport, but it has a long and undignified history within it all the same. (Think Zinedine Zidane's World Cup-altering headbutt against Marco Materazzi in 2006.) Tottenham Hotspur's Uruguayan midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur wrote a new chapter in that lore on Matchday 6 when he attacked Manchester United's Luke Shaw like a rutting deer in the 78th minute of their 1-1 draw. He received a red card for his troubles, and rightfully so—and Spurs, still mired within the relegation zone, will now have to face high-flying Coventry City without one of its most experienced players. When people asked Spurs' players to start using their heads, they didn't want them to use them like this.

@nbcsports After Luke Shaw shoved Bentancur to the ground, Bentancur's retaliation saw him get sent off. #premierleague #manchesterunited #tottenhamhotspur #bentancur ♬ original sound - NBC Sports

Arsenal played ugly but won clean

The mark of a true championship contender is whether it can bring results over the line on days when it can't get anything going—and that's exactly what Arsenal did in its Matchday 6 game against Leeds United. It won 2-1 on the back of an inspired Bruno Guimaraes substitution even though Leeds was the far better team on balance.

"We didn't capitalise on the spaces, the situation, the overlaps that we had to attack the ball and the box much better," said Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta. "So that left the game a little bit open."

It did—Leeds got eleven shots off against the defending champions—but Arteta's Arsenal prevailed all the same. And that's no small feat: Leeds, perhaps surprisingly, entered this match undefeated in the league and riding high at the top of the table. It was a stellar way for Arsenal to bounce back from its shocking 3-0 defeat to Brighton on the other side of the international break.

The Premier League will return to action with Matchday 7 on Saturday.

Alyssa Clang

Alyssa is a Boston-born Californian with a passion for global sport. She can yell about misplaced soccer passes in five languages and rattle off the turns of Silverstone in her sleep. You can find her dormant Twitter account at @alyssaclang, but honestly, you’re probably better off finding her here

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