Credit : Premier League's X
LONDON, November 10, 2026 – Arsenal have 27 points after 10 Premier League matches and a five-point lead over their nearest challengers, Brighton and Hove Albion, the league said on Tuesday. In a post on its official X account, the Premier League asked where that start ranked among the best in the competition’s history, and set out the answer on its website.
According to the Premier League, the reigning champions have recorded their joint-best start to a Premier League season after 10 matches, with nine victories and only one defeat giving them 27 points from a possible 30. That total is the seventh-best start in Premier League history.
How the start compares
Four teams have reached 28 points from their opening 10 matches by adding a draw to nine wins, the league said: Manchester City in 2011/12 and 2017/18, Chelsea in 2005/06 and Liverpool in 2019/20. Arsenal’s 3-0 defeat to Brighton in September left them short of that mark.
Three teams have collected 27 points from their first 10 matches. Newcastle United in 1995/96 had a goal difference of +19 and finished second. Arsenal in 2022/23 had a goal difference of +14 and also finished second. This season’s Arsenal side have a goal difference of +10, the lowest of the three, the Premier League said.
The league also noted a clear historical split at this mark. All four of the teams that reached 28 points from 10 matches went on to win the title. Neither of the two previous teams that had 27 points after 10 matches, each after a single defeat, was crowned champion; both finished as runners-up. Mikel Arteta’s side will aim to stop that trend this season, the Premier League said.
What a lead after 10 matches has meant
Being top after 10 matches has been no guarantee of the title in recent years. In the past six completed seasons, the team in first place at that stage missed out four times, the league said: Tottenham Hotspur finished seventh in 2020/21 and fifth in 2023/24, Chelsea finished third in 2021/22, and Arsenal finished second in 2022/23. In each of the last two campaigns, however, the early leaders did finish the job, with Liverpool in 2024/25 and then Arsenal in 2025/26 going on to lift the trophy.
History also suggests that Arsenal’s five-point lead is significant. Across the Premier League’s 34 completed seasons, there have been only nine occasions on which a team trailing by five points or more after 10 matches has come back to win the title, the league said. That includes three comebacks from six points, which is the present gap between third-placed Manchester City and Arsenal. Manchester City themselves accounted for two of those three, in 2013/14 and 2020/21.
Only one team has come from further back than six points at this stage: Blackburn Rovers were eight points behind leaders Nottingham Forest after 10 rounds in 1994/95, the Premier League said. On that basis, it added, any side now lying outside the top three would need to achieve something no club has done in the last 31 years to be crowned champions.
The figures were published after Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Hull City, which took them to 27 points, and after the rest of Matchweek 10 had left Brighton second, five points behind the leaders.
Source: https://x.com/premierleague/status/2120172804771545373
About The Author
