Szoboszlai’s late thunderbolt edges Arsenal as City falter again: Premier League picture jolts in August
Liverpool needed a spark. Anfield knew it, Arsenal knew it, and so did Dominik Szoboszlai as he stood over a set piece eight minutes from time. The Hungary international, deputizing at right back, rifled a long-range free kick off the post and in to snatch a 1-0 win on Sunday—one of those strikes that bend a heavyweight contest to a single shimmering moment.
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The roar told you what it meant. Three wins from three, nine points, and victories already over Newcastle and now Arsenal. Defending champions or not, Liverpool are acting like it.
“The game needed a moment of magic,” Liverpool manager Arne Slot said afterward, crediting a player who has become an instant cult figure for his energy and tactical flexibility. Szoboszlai, smiling and a little breathless, noted that with Trent Alexander-Arnold now in Madrid, someone had to assume dead-ball duties. “Now I could finally take one,” he said, a line that felt as much a shrug as a challenge to the new order.
Liverpool seize early control, Arsenal rue slender margins
Arsenal’s annual pilgrimage to Anfield has long resembled a lesson in fine margins, and Sunday stretched the theme. The visitors lost William Saliba to a leg injury inside five minutes and still kept the game tight, organized and wary. Since 2012, the Gunners have not found a league win here; the old myths persist even as Mikel Arteta’s team tries to write new ones.
“At a high level where the margins are minimal, they can be decided by a magic moment,” Arteta said. “We needed that moment for us and we didn’t have it.” It read as both diagnosis and lament. For 82 minutes, this was a modern classic of angles denied and transitions muted. Then one swing changed the table.
You could sense the wider tremor. Early-season wins against direct rivals are the currency that often buys spring confidence. Liverpool under Slot are not just winning; they are taking shape, with Szoboszlai’s cameo at right back—covering for the injured Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong—an early emblem of a squad willing to shuffle and solve.
City’s aura flickers in Brighton breeze
Not far down the coast from Liverpool’s cheer, a different sound: the muffled thud of Manchester City dropping points again, 2-1 at Brighton, a second straight league defeat that invites a question English football hasn’t asked in years—are City vulnerable?
“This is the reality—we are not at the level from a long time (ago),” admitted midfielder Rodri, newly restored to the XI after a long injury layoff and introduced for his first start since last September. Pep Guardiola’s side actually led through Erling Haaland’s first-half finish—his 88th in 100 Premier League games since 2022, numbers that read like a cheat code—before the game unraveled.
A Matheus Nunes handball handed James Milner a 67th-minute penalty, which the 39-year-old buried to become the second-oldest scorer in Premier League history. It was his second trip to that page in the record book; he’s also the second youngest, thanks to a precocious strike for Leeds as a teenager. Then came the late twist: Brajan Gruda—surging through a City defense that seemed to-open like a zip—rounded James Trafford and tucked in the 89th-minute winner.
“We forgot to play,” Guardiola said, a line that felt stark because it was so simple. It has been City’s confounding theme of late: passages of control punctured by lapses of concentration, the kind that turn title races.
A week ago, after a 4-0 opening-day rout at Wolverhampton, the analysis was easy: same old City. Now, with back-to-back defeats—to Spurs at home and Brighton away—the early ledger is less forgiving. City are below Manchester United in the table and—more crucially—below the standards they built for themselves. Every dynasty, in sport or otherwise, eventually feels the tug of gravity. Is that what’s happening here, in late August, or merely a stumble?
West Ham find relief, and a little late swagger
If Sunday’s late goals bruised City, they offered West Ham a balm. Under pressure after consecutive league losses and a midweek League Cup exit, Graham Potter’s side erupted with three goals after the 84th minute to win 3-0 at Nottingham Forest.
Jarrod Bowen darted in for the opener; Lucas Paquetá added a penalty with the panache his game so often promises, then mimed an answered phone and tossed it aside before kissing his badge—an unmistakable nod to swirling transfer chatter linking him to Aston Villa. Callum Wilson capped it off in stoppage time as Forest’s resistance crumbled. It was a scoreline that looked comfortable only on paper. But sometimes results matter more than performances, and for a manager trying to bed in ideas and stop the noise, this was the kind of afternoon that can steady a room.
Villa’s cloudy day, Palace’s crisp finish
Speculation, the constant hum of the modern game, turned up to a buzz at Aston Villa as World Cup winner Emi Martínez was left out of the squad for a 3-0 home defeat to Crystal Palace. With reports linking the goalkeeper to Manchester United before Monday’s transfer deadline, Unai Emery opted for Marco Bizot in goal. It was a choice that did not calm things: the Dutchman conceded a penalty in the 21st minute, converted by Jean-Philippe Mateta, and Villa never found their rhythm.
Palace were ruthless. Captain Marc Guehi, a name in Liverpool’s notes according to reports, curled a lovely finish into the top corner on 68 minutes, and Ismaïla Sarr added a third before limping off—an efficient away performance steeped in defensive structure and clean counterattacks. For Villa, the question is less about one game and more about the week ahead: will Martínez still be theirs come Tuesday morning?
What the weekend whispers
It is early, yes. But the league’s opening weeks have a habit of planting seeds that flower later. Liverpool’s sense of collective purpose, Arsenal’s fragile relationship with Anfield, City’s fading invincibility, West Ham’s late jolts of belief—each note fits a larger chart.
In an era where set pieces are coached like chess openings, Szoboszlai’s free kick will be clipped and replayed in meeting rooms across the league. In a time when even the richest squads carry injury scars into autumn, City’s rotation and rhythm feel like more than a scheduling issue. And with transfer windows extending the drama beyond the touchline, Villa’s and Paquetá’s Sunday stories felt more like chapters than conclusions.
Global audiences have grown to expect a certain inevitability at the top of the Premier League table. The past few seasons seemed to present a sprint where only one runner truly had gears to spare. But football remains gloriously human—subject to mood, form, and the thousand tiny decisions that separate clean sheets from scrambles. As the year turns to September and fixtures thicken, the question is simple: who will own the moments that decide games like these?
For now, Liverpool answered with a thump off the post and in, and the message that echoed around Anfield was not complicated. It was, in fact, the clearest kind of early-season statement: they will not wait for the title race to find them.
By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
