The Recap: Gameweek 1

Tottenham drew 1-1 with Leicester City at the King Power stadium on Monday evening to bring the curtain down on a delightful first weekend of football. The EPL is back baby, and this is The Recap, where the team at The False Nine reflect on what happened in the last gameweek of EPL football.

I hate Pep Guardiola. At every turn in the road he always somehow has an answer to the questions asked of this City team. With Rodri out injured, I left Haaland out of my FPL team because I expected City to struggle, especially against Chelsea. Just look at their games last season, it was high-octane affairs all through.

But Pep did some tactical tweak magic with Rico Lewis, and Kovacic rolled back the years and filled in wonderfully for Rodri as City cruised to a 2-0 win. Honestly, I couldn't believe my eyes as I watched Kovacic play. I've always rated the guy, but I didn't think he had Sunday's performance in him anymore under this pressure. I was wrong.

Three things are certain in life: Death, Taylor Swift hit songs, and Jamie Vardy scoring in the Premier League. My favourite stat at the moment is the amount of goals scored in the Premier League by players aged 30 and over. Jamie Vardy leads the pack of course and Monday's goal takes him to 103 goals post-30 in the EPL. 10 goals more than Ian Wright in second with 93. I can only see that gap getting wider as the season goes on.

Do you know what I would have loved? For Arsenal's comfortable 2-0 opening win to have been at the King Power stadium. So this section could have read something like: "King Kai Reigns At The King Power." Corny, I know.

Coming into the season there were many doubting Havertz again. I admit his performances at the EUROs were not the greatest, but come on, don't you know the drill by now? This is not an aesthetically pleasing center-forward. He is no Robin van Persie or Thierry Henry on the ball, silky smooth forwards with the ball from Arsenal's past.

What he is though, is a nightmare for center-backs and a German who never stops running, tackling, pressing. Would I have loved a center-forward in the summer? Absolutely. A Gyokeres or Sesko would have been great I think. But I daresay that is not Arsenal's most pressing problem at the moment, and that Havertz will do the job just well again this season. Buy your Kai stocks now.

Brighton got off and running under Fabian Hürzeler with a 3-0 win over Everton, cool as you like. Every summer something happens and it seems like the end of the Brighton project. A manager leaves, some key players depart, something. But they always find a way to kick on.

And it does indeed look like they are kicking on just fine right now. They've made a couple of savvy buys in the likes of Mats Wieffer and Yankuba Minteh, and, of course, manager Fabian Hürzeler who is now the youngest in the league at 31. It seems like Brighton will be just fine once more.

Another Dutch, bald coach came into the Premier League a few years ago and boldly proclaimed that, "eras come to an end," speaking about the two dominant clubs at the time. And his team has been in shambles since that statement.

Arne Slot has been more humble and measured in his entrance into the league. Nevertheless, filling in Klopp's shoes at Liverpool is no easy feat. And for a while in Liverpool's season opener, it seemed like he wouldn't get off to the best of starts. And then, Salah.

I mean, it's Salah. What can I say? What can you say? Who knows how many times we're going to say "and then Salah," this season? It bodes well for Slot though. With no incomings at Anfield over the summer he really needs the big boys to step up. 2-0 win, Salah got a goal and an assist, a nice clean sheet, and we are off and into the Slot era. Kom op!

The reason they're tricky is that they play god-awful football for 90 minutes and somehow pull a miracle to win the game late on. You know how your parents always warned you about the consequences of bad behaviour? Watching Manchester United is like watching someone escape the consequences of their actions time and time again.

They've bought a number of players and strengthened the squad significantly over the summer. But, what will this club produce? I have no idea. Honestly, I do not have the slightest idea what will happen this season. However, I suspect that if they keep approaching games the way they did against Fulham for the rest of the season, there will certainly be some consequences down the line.

There were several excellent chances for Tottenham to put the game beyond reach at the King Power before Jamie Vardy scored a header to level Leicester City. But, if I'm a Tottenham fan, that's not my gripe with the goal. My gripe would be that Vardy shouldn't be in space and unmarked for a free header in the Tottenham box at any point in time.

In our essay looking at Tottenham's defence we identified one major concern for Tottenham going into the season: can they stop shipping goals?

Based on Monday's performance, the answer to that question seems to still be a very firm no. And that is a worry. Something needs to change at the back. As Ange has stated on numerous occasions, he has no intentions of tweaking his tactics, only demanding that his players get better at executing his tactics. Will this work? The early signs seem to suggest that it might not work as well as he imagines. But I guess we'll see.