Premier League roundup: Biggest stories from Matchday 8

Tottenham Hotspur achieved the unthinkable

It's been a rough old season for Tottenham Hotspur. New coach Roberto De Zerbi has spent the past eight matchdays squaring up to the club's demons in his signature short-tempered style. While he's got a lot more of that sort of thing in his future, he did (finally) manage to vanquish one of those demons for good.

The demon in question? Stamford Bridge. Spurs has a shameful record there against London rival Chelsea. It entered this matchday with just one win — a 3-1 victory in 2018 — in its previous 34 attempts at the ground. It left the matchday with a 2-0 victory and its first clean sheet at Chelsea since December 1986. 

Was it a vintage performance from Spurs? No, not at all, but it was one that proved De Zerbi and his men have a little more fight in them than we previously imagined. It's slow progress, but it's progress all the same.

Bournemouth had one of its greatest weeks ever...

Up the Cherries, right? A 3-0 midweek win over AC Milan in the Champions League begat a 3-0 win over Manchester United in the Premier League. Just like that, Bournemouth's 2026-27 season is starting to look like a mouthwatering prospect.

Don't tell coach Marco Rose that, though. He's keeping cool amid Bournemouth's impressive rise. 

"It suits us to stay humble," he said after his team's Champions League victory. "We know we are good. We know if we have the whole squad we can compete with everyone everywhere, but the season is long."

...while Manchester United had one of its worst

While Bournemouth was busy winning on all fronts, poor, sad Manchester United was busy losing on all of them in turn. It fell 4-1 to Como in the Champions League before getting hammered 3-0 by the Cherries in the Premier League. The one-two punch of those results might just be enough to convince the board to sack coach Michael Carrick.

Another thing that might lead to Carrick's sacking? His alleged falling out with club captain Bruno Fernandes. Fernandes lost patience with Carrick's tactics after the Como game and blamed his lack of pressing philosophy for the loss. 

"If you don't run, and you don't run forward, and you don't run back, you aren't going to win," Fernandes told the media.

Carrick responded to that public remark by dropping Fernandes for the Bournemouth game, calling it a "pure football" decision. 

"It's always a difficult decision," he said. "We have to make what we feel is the right one for the team to get the performance that we want."

United is a ship adrift, and ships don't come back to port without their captains leading the way. Carrick's decision to bench Fernandes looked petulant in hindsight — and while his results as United manager are questionable enough to begin with, this kind of man-management looks like his real failure as a leader.

Fulham found a second wind

It's back! After a frankly brutal six-game stretch in the Premier League, Fulham has finally found some consistency (and pulled itself out of the relegation zone). It beat Coventry City 1-0 to string together two league wins in a row and lift itself up into 15th place. Long-serving Nigerian midfielder Alex Iwobi led Fulham's ascent in both games, and it's wonderful to see him back to his best.

The Premier League will return to action with Matchday 9 on Saturday, Oct. 31.