Fireworks in Frankfurt

Remember when Aston Villa couldn’t score a goal and sat mired in the relegation zone? Yeah, that was only last month. But that’s old news. They’re now eighth and climbing.

Remember the imperious Liverpool who were romping their way to a stellar title defence? That’s September’s news. They’ve lost six of their last seven, falling to seventh, now seven points behind leaders Arsenal.

Bayern Munich still have a 100% record, and remain the only unbeaten team across Europe’s Top 5. Whilst Bayern are doing everything they can to wrap the Bundesliga title up by Christmas, Arsenal and Real Madrid are building out a lead at the top of the Premier League and La Liga respectively. But we’ve got a tasty title-race brewing in Serie A, and we may have a title race brewing in France, here’s hoping!

Sunderland continue to stun the Premier League.

Let’s jump in.

🧨It’s crazy in Frankfurt

Eintracht Frankfurt continue to have their own particular brand of fun this season.

Their games have been mad. Their 13 games this season have featured 64 goals. That’s an average of 4.9 goals per game. An average! Eintracht Frankfurt have scored 34 of those and conceded 30. Both of those numbers are ridiculous, allow me to illustrate just how ridiculous.

Only the rampant Bayern Munich have scored more goals than Eintracht Frankfurt’s 34 this season (Top 5 leagues, all competitions).

No other team has conceded more goals than Eintracht Frankfurt’s 30.

What is going on?

Some are big wins, some are big losses, and some are just goalfests. Here’s a sample of their highest scoring games so far:

Eintracht Frankfurt 4 : 1 Werder Bremen

Eintracht Frankfurt 5 : 1 Galatasaray

Eintracht Frankfurt 3 : 4 Union Berlin

Borussia Mönchengladbach 4 : 6 Eintracht Frankfurt

Atletico Madrid 5 : 1 Eintracht Frankfurt

Eintracht Frankfurt 1 : 5 Liverpool

Long may the madness continue.

🥐 Ligue 1 is too competitive

PSG are fallible this season. They’ve dropped nine points through the first ten games; last season it was the end of January before they’d squandered that many points. They’ve already lost a Ligue 1 game too, which didn’t happen until matchweek 31 last season. Nonetheless, they still sit top of Ligue 1.

But it’s not because of a lack of quality elsewhere in the league. PSG have a strong chasing pack of seven clubs on their coattails this season, which is precisely the problem. They’re all taking points off each other.

Monaco, currently second just a point behind PSG, have dropped points to Lille (L) and Nice (D) already. Marseille, lead by Roberto De Zerbi and spearheaded by the prolific Mason Greenwood, are the only team so far to best PSG, but they’ve also suffered defeats to Lyon and Lens. Lyon themselves lost to Nice, Nice have drawn with Monaco, Lens suffered defeat at the hands of Lyon. Lille have lost games against Lens, Lyon and Nice and Strasbourg have also already suffered three defeats at the hands of their closest rivals; Monaco, Marseille and Lyon. However, a draw against PSG and six wins from six against lower-table opposition is enough to see Strasbourg sitting fourth, just two points off top spot.

PSG have struggled against these challengers so far, picking up just one win from four encounters. The others - a defeat and two draws - have opened the door at the top to a competitive season. They’ve got ties against Nice, Lyon and Monaco to come in November, here’s hoping for some dropped points.

🍒 Bournemouth, Sunderland and Como are killing it

We’re almost a quarter of the way through the season (I know, scary!) and Bournemouth sit 2nd in the Premier League, Sunderland 4th and Como 5th in Serie A. They’re 4, 5 and 5 points off top spot respectively. This is a team that had its defence dismantled in the summer, a team newly-promoted to the Premier League and a team in only its third Serie A campaign this century. Bournemouth, Sunderland and Como shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing according to the rules set by the ‘big’ clubs, which is why we all love it.

Bournemouth in particular are proving to be a delightful antidote to the embarrassingly inept Manchester United’s and Barcelona’s of the modern game. Promoted to the Premier League for the first time in the club’s history in 2015-16, they’ve weathered a relegation and the loss of star personnel Eddie Howe, Nathan Aké, Callum Wilson and Dominic Solanke over their eight seasons in the Premier League. This summer it was four of their back five departing that had people sounding the death knell, but far from being an issue it seems to have catapulted them to the next level.

Sunderland have shown they’re capable of scoring goals, keeping clean sheets (how about Robin Roefs, eh?) and standing toe to toe with anyone in the league. Fixtures against Everton, Arsenal, Fulham and Bournemouth in November provide a great litmus test.

Como have built upon their impressive top-half finish last season, demonstrating they’re in Serie A to stay. They’ve proven difficult to beat (just a single defeat so far), defensively sound (only Roma have conceded fewer than Como’s 6 goals through the first 9 games) and capable of mixing it with the best (victory against Juventus, draw against unbeaten Atalanta).

🔴Just how good are Stuttgart?

Stuttgart have had an eventful decade. They’ve been relegated to 2. Bundesliga twice, promoted straight back up twice, avoided having to play in the relegation playoff in 2021-22 by goal difference, played (and won) the relegation playoff in 2022-23, immediately rebounded from almost being relegated to finish 2nd the next season (losing out on what would have a Leicester-esque title triumph to a once-in-a-generation season from Bayer Leverkusen). Undeterred, they went looking elsewhere for silverware (goldware), winning the DFB Pokal the very next season.

Which brings us to today. Stuttgart are currently third in the Bundesliga having won six of their first eight. But they’re not going to win the Bundesliga, not even if they prove themselves in the coming weeks against fellow title pretenders Leipzig and Dortmund, because Bayern Munich are monstrously destructive and looking like a sure thing for the crown. Just two slip-ups already puts Stuttgart six points back.

November’s fixtures will go a long way to shaping Stuttgart’s season. Leipzig and Dortmund are huge tests in the league and two winnable fixtures in the Europa League will help them get their European campaign back on track. If not the Bundesliga, why not the Europa League?

🐦‍🔥 Will the Liverpool demise continue?

Liverpool are on a skid right now. A serious skid. And I won’t lie, The Armchair Ultra is enjoying it after Liverpool’s unpalatable transfer business over the summer.

Through the last seven fixtures (fully half of Liverpool’s games so far this season) Liverpool’s form is worse than Nottingham Forest’s, West Ham’s and Wolves’. That’s bad! The only teams from Europe’s Top 5 with worse form are Fiorentina, Verona and Mainz. And the schedule isn’t offering a reprieve…

November brings fixtures against Aston Villa (6 wins from 7, fresh off a win against City), Real Madrid (12 wins from 13 this season), Manchester City, Forest, PSV (recent 6-2 victors over Serie A leaders Napoli) and West Ham. It’s going to be fun.