The Premier League has stopped, and not gently. The 17 days up to and including Sunday’s cut-off delivered 30 matches and 79 goals, and the competition now disappears for 19 days, not resuming until October. For anyone who has spent the past fortnight mainlining it, the comedown is already arriving.
Five rounds into the season, the picture is oddly static. The goals have arrived in volume, but in terms of teams, styles, stars and likely outcomes, remarkably little has shifted. Roll back a year and the situation was much the same: a powerful team with a bald, irascible manager had won all five games while still looking defensively fragile, and the side that went on to win the title was second. That side was Arsenal.
The international break will generate its own running arguments, including the familiar debate about England manager Thomas Tuchel and what he can reasonably be held responsible for. None of it will fill the space left by a league that has been relentlessly entertaining for two and a half weeks.
The performance worth carrying forward is Brighton’s 3-0 win over Arsenal. It is rare to see a reigning champion not merely beaten but outskilled and outmuscled; for 90 minutes, only one of those teams looked like a genuine contender for every trophy on offer. Brighton sit third, which invites the obvious question: can they play like that every week?
The reasons to doubt it are straightforward. One outstanding display against an ambushed Arsenal is not a 38-game slog. Brighton have a good squad but also regular midweek football, and opponents will react and set about nullifying their strengths. Fabian Hürzeler, who is 33, will spend an hour on TalkSport on Tuesday being asked how he beat the champions and why his side are third in the table — an answer that says as much about the era as it does about him. The very good players at those middleweight clubs are auditioning for bigger clubs rather than dreaming of hauling them in.
That, in part, is what keeps the league so strong. There remains only one elite style — the Cruyff-Michels-Guardiola-Gegenpressing school — skewed in England towards physicality, and an increasing number of games are settled by duels, collisions and a greater sense of wanting it. With players at roughly the same technical level, sustained physical power and competitive will become the only real point of difference. It makes for a brutal, state-of-the-art, endlessly moreish product. Whether it can throw up another Leicester, or something close, is the question Brighton have just made worth asking.