Manchester United missing Paul Pogba at Liverpool, Arsenal can't blame referee and Chelsea facing biggest test

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The Premier League is back after the international break and it answered a lot of questions that were left unsolved when it stepped aside for World Cup qualifiers two weeks ago.

Can Chelsea cope with injuries? No. Can Arsenal continue their march up the table? Also no. Will Manchester United be able to shut down Liverpool’s attack? Yes. Are Manchester City the team to beat? Emphatically yes.

Here are seven things we learned from this weekend’s action…

Last season, Chelsea’s lack of European football meant that Antonio Conte was allowed to play near enough an unchanged side week in, week out, on the way to convincingly sealing the Premier League title. They were allowed the mental and physical rest that comes with playing only one game a season.

However, the Blues are now back up to their full quota of games and their squad – and the depth of their squad – is being tested for the first time. And they’re coming up short. Alvaro Morata and N’Golo Kante are both injured, with Victor Moses also limping off with a hamstring injury, and Conte now has to patch together his squad to maintain a title challenge. Can he do it? The evidence from Saturday’s defeat suggests it will be tough.

Arsenal’s resurgence after a poor start to the season was halted dead in its tracks at Watford with the 2-1 defeat leaving the Gunners already nine points off league leaders Manchester City. The thrust of Arsene Wenger’s frustrations after the loss though were aimed towards the referee and Richarlison.

Richarlison did undeniably dive to win the penalty that Troy Deeney tucked away but a team like Arsenal should not have allowed that to derail them as much as it did that it became the turning point in the game. Their – as Deeney later put it – lack of “cojones” is what allowed the penalty to become the turning point and thus gave Watford the win. A combination of poor tactical substitutions and players’ heads dropping ultimately saw the game, and the points, slip away.

Manchester United showed their first signs that they were missing Paul Pogba during their dull, lifeless and goalless 0-0 draw with Liverpool. There was no spark, no creativity and no midfield thrust as Liverpool dominated the game, leaving Jose Mourinho to just park the metaphorical bus. Pogba hadn’t seemed to be missed initially but he did on Saturday, by his good friend Romelu Lukaku, more than most.

Lukaku was left isolated and took 17 minutes to get his first touch of the ball, and that tells you all you need to know about United’s performance. He had his chance to score, United’s only effort on target, but squandered it. The Frenchman could be back by the end of the month and Lukaku probably cannot wait.

Yes, Salah completed more successful dribbles (7) than any other player. Yes, he was a threat on the counter attack. Yes, his play was great on the eye. But too often an end product is absent, and that was evident in a tight game on Saturday when United suffocated the Reds of clear-cut chances.

He did get one though, but missed. A chance to take the lead after picking the ball off the laces of Philippe Coutinho and firing at David De Gea’s goal after a stunning save by the Spaniard… but firing wide. You don’t get many chances like that against the top teams and although Salah’s goalscoring has been regular on his Premier League return, these are the chances that win you games and you have to take them.

Too often he would work an opportunity for himself or a teammate but fail to meaningfully test the goalkeeper. Perhaps against less defensively stubborn opposition Salah’s goals return will be more fruitful, but in the big matches his end product needs to be better.

There can now surely be no doubt about it. Kevin De Bruyne’s performance in the thrashing of Stoke was sublime and could not even be ignored by the Potters’ social media team who lavished him in praise. De Bruyne played passes which most players only make once or twice in their entire careers and made it look effortless. The balls for Gabriel Jesus’ second and Leroy Sane’s goals were perfect, as was his reverse pass to set up Raheem Sterling’s strike.

He got two assists but was directly involved in five of the seven goals. De Bruyne has all the attributes to become the best player in the world one day and with Pep Guardiola – who has a history of cultivating Ballon d’Or winners – behind him, you wouldn’t bet against it.

Yes Tottenham got their first Premier League win at Wembley against Bournemouth on Saturday, but it wasn’t pretty, thrilling or even particularly interesting. But they are learning to win in an unfamiliar setting, on an unfamiliar pitch.

Part of the problem is the space. The Wembley pitch is eight per cent larger than White Hart Lane. You might think that would give them more room to stretch the game, to put their combinations together, to express themselves, but in fact it seems to be having the opposite effect.

And so unlike at White Hart Lane, where the crowd is almost on top of you, and the ball pings back into your area as quickly as you can clear it, Wembley is a place of space and time. Time for Tottenham to build. Time for Tottenham to move the ball. Time for Bournemouth, meanwhile, to set themselves, close down, shift across. With 10 men on the edge of your area, you will still get attacked, but you will almost certainly see the shot coming.

On an afternoon where Michy Batshuayi, playing in place of the injured Alvaro Morata, failed to find the net, another Chelsea striker was doing just that to take his tally to five goals in 10 games. Tammy Abraham scored twice in Swansea’s 2-0 win over a sloppy Huddersfield side.

The forward showing the goalscoring hunger to chase down Jordan Ayew’s goal-bound chip after giving the Swans the lead with a well-taken effort from 15 yards in South Wales. Meanwhile, back in south London, his employers were struggling to break down a Crystal Palace defence which was conceding 2.42 goals a game on average.