The 'Tiger Mauling' continuation, impressive Brighton and an overlooked player of the matchday: Premier League Matchday 4 Recap (2026/27)

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Full Results (Matchday 4)

  • Bournemouth 2–2 Brentford 

  • Aston Villa 1–2 Nottingham Forest

  • Chelsea 2–2 Hull

  • Crystal Palace 2–3 Ipswich

  • Liverpool 0–0 Fulham 

  • Tottenham 0–0 Everton

  • Sunderland 0–2 Arsenal

  • Coventry 0–5 Brighton 

  • Manchester United 0–1 Manchester City

  • Leeds 4–1 Newcastle 

Game of the Matchday 

Aston Villa 1–2 Nottingham Forest

The game of the matchday took place at Villa Park in my opinion, perhaps to a surprise for many people considering the matchups and the results matchday 4 had. Nottingham Forest were able to claim their first win of the season in an engaging watch against Aston Villa.

Unfortunately for Unai Emery, the same can't be said about the home side though. They have started the season like they did the previous season — with a huge deficiency of goals. They scored for the first time in the league against either side of Forest's goals.

This match had so much, standout performers, splendid goals and unbelievable saves.

Biggest Surprise

Chelsea 2–2 Hull

Still undefeated! The Tigers from Hull are not willing to taste defeat just yet! The story heading into this match was a free-flowing Chelsea attack taking on a Hull side that had been the only team yet to concede a goal after the first three matches even though they had generated an xGC (expected goals conceded) of 5.05 which indicates their willingness to defend even against high quality chances.

Chelsea kicked off the game in a familiarly quick fashion, scoring in the 7th minute. However, only two more shots would follow that shot as Hull had not only frustrated Chelsea defensively, Mohamed Belloumi scored a quickfire brace in 6 minutes for the away side which totally flipped the script in London.

Chelsea had a better 2nd half and scored through João Pedro, though it still wasn't enough to complete the comeback. Who would have thought Hull being #4 in the table after 4 games played, including against the likes of Manchester United, Aston Villa and Chelsea?

Mauled by the Tigers or what!?

Best Team Performance

Coventry 0–5 Brighton

Coventry have now gone the first four games in the league without scoring a goal and the latest team to prevent them from doing that is Brighton. Not only did they prevent that from happening, they pounded a lot more misery on Frank Lampard.

A remarkable away day for Brighton began well as they lead 1-0 at the break. Another goal followed and 2 minutes after that Coventry's day would go from bad to worse as Taiwo Awoniyi was shown a red card with about 40 minutes still to play. The Seagulls smelled blood and went for the kill, scoring another 3 goals before the game ended.

Brighton took 22 shots, had a whopping 70% possession of the ball and massively outperformed their xG of 2.81, all this while having fewer touches in the opposition box interestingly as they had 26 touches to Coventry's 29. What made a huge difference was what they did with those touches.

Player of the Matchday

Morgan Gibbs-White (Nottingham Forest)

It may seem somewhat of a surprise to see Morgan Gibbs-White in this category, with numerous other candidates having fantastic showings. However, I do think he had an immense impact at the game against Aston Villa, maybe more than anyone had against anyone this matchday.

Up against a weakened Villa side away at Villa Park, Gibbs-White was a creative beast. He created 7 chances for his teammates, of which 3 were recognized as big chances. Add to that he generated the most amount of xA (0.91) of anyone over the entire matchday.

It is a must for Forest to keep someone of his quality for as long as possible with them, and if Gibbs-White keeps performing like this, it will be only a matter of time before a big club gets him.

Honorable mentions -  Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Leeds), Pascal Groß (Brighton) & Elliot Anderson (Manchester City)

Moment of the Matchday

David Raya's penalty save leads to a Bruno Guimarães rocket against Sunderland

Skip to 0:17 to watch the moment here

The moment of the matchday this time around took place over a period of 120 seconds.

Closing in on an hour, it was a tense night so far, the score being 0-0. And then out of nowhere, Sunderland were awarded a penalty. Enzo Le Fée stepped up to give The Black Cats an invaluable lead — only for it to not happen because of David Raya's brilliant save. 

Then exactly 120 seconds later, Bruno Guimarães, former Magpie, scored an utter belter of a goal from outside the box. He took one touch to and receive and control the ball in a shooting position and his next touch was the strike that hit the underside of the crossbar and went in. For some reason it always looks way more satisfactory when the ball hits the woodwork and goes in. 

Two outstanding actions occurring 120 seconds apart from each other at the opposite side of the field. Incredible from Raya. Incredible from Guimarães.

Looking Ahead – Matchday 5 Fixtures (IST Kick-Offs)

Saturday, 19 September (IST)

    • Brentford vs Chelsea - 12:30 am

    • Tottenham vs Aston Villa - 5:00 pm

    • Brighton vs Arsenal - 7:30 pm

    • Everton vs Ipswich - 7:30 pm

    • Newcastle vs Hull - 7:30 pm

    • Nottingham Forest vs Coventry - 10:00 pm

    Sunday, 20 September (IST)

    • Bournemouth vs Liverpool - 6:30 pm

    • Leeds vs Crystal Palace - 6:30 pm

    • Manchester City vs Sunderland - 6:30 pm

    • Fulham vs Manchester United - 9:00 pm

    by ShotBlogged


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