Premier League Results: Hull City Stun Manchester United
Hull City beat Manchester United 2-0 at the MKM Stadium, Arsenal began their title defence with a 3-0 win over Coventry City, and Brentford handed Tottenham a 3-0 defeat on the opening Saturday of the 2026-27 Premier League season. Six matches were played on August 21 and 22, six more follow on Sunday and Monday, and the first weekend of the new campaign has already produced the biggest upset of the autumn calendar.
Here are all the Premier League results from matchday 1 so far, every scorer, and what each result actually tells us.
Premier League results: matchday 1 so far
- Arsenal 3-0 Coventry City (Havertz 15', Saka 23', Odegaard 49')
- Hull City 2-0 Manchester United (Ajayi 17', Mendy 38')
- Everton 2-0 Crystal Palace (Dewsbury-Hall 42', Barry 53')
- Ipswich Town 2-1 Sunderland (Emersonn 24', Clarke 90'; Angulo 39')
- Nottingham Forest 0-1 Leeds United (Stach 88')
- Brentford 3-0 Tottenham Hotspur (Lewis-Potter 12', Janelt 33', Kayode 49')
Promoted clubs won twice, all three promoted sides scored first in their matches, and Manchester United, Tottenham and Crystal Palace start the season on zero points. Four of the six winning teams kept clean sheets.
Hull City 2-0 Manchester United: the anatomy of an upset
Semi Ajayi will not score an easier goal all season. A 17th-minute corner was not cleared, the ball dropped inside the six-yard box, and the centre-back buried it from close range to put the Championship play-off winners ahead against the side that finished third last May.
The second goal was a blueprint of its own. Regan Slater delivered from a set piece situation on 38 minutes and Nobel Mendy arrived at the near post to head past the United keeper into the bottom right corner. Two set pieces, two goals, and a lead Hull never looked like surrendering.
The numbers describe a classic smash-and-grab that was never a smash-and-grab in feel. Manchester United monopolised the ball with 71.5% possession and out-shot their hosts 21 to 8, yet generated almost nothing in genuine high-value positions. Hull's four shots on target carried more threat than United's five. Michael Carrick's side ended the afternoon misfiring, a word that will sting a squad that had been the most efficient attacking team in the division across the 2026 calendar year.
History bent in three directions at once. Hull had been winless in all ten previous Premier League meetings with United, two draws and eight defeats, one of only two clubs they had faced that often without ever winning. Sergej Jakirovic became the first Bosnian to manage in the Premier League and won his first match, snapping a pattern that had seen none of the last eight managers to become the first representative of their country in the competition win their opener. And United lost their opening fixture of a league season in consecutive campaigns for the first time since 1972-73 and 1973-74, having gone down 1-0 to Arsenal on day one last year.
Carrick's response was measured, telling his players to keep calm and carry on after what he called an unacceptable afternoon in front of goal. The club had agreed a 65 million pound deal for Brighton midfielder Carlos Baleba on the eve of the match, a signing that underlines where the hierarchy thinks the team needs reinforcing. Eighteen-year-old Socceroos forward Lucas Herrington came off the bench for his Premier League debut and described himself as buzzing after a win he will retell for decades.
The wider lesson is the one the data kept whispering all summer. Hull's promotion came with the second-worst expected goal difference in the Championship, and teams that outrun their process over 46 games usually get found out. On Saturday, in their first game back in the top flight, set-piece efficiency and a roaring MKM Stadium were worth more than any model. Over 38 matches the regression argument remains strong. Over one afternoon in August, Hull were full value.
Arsenal 3-0 Coventry City: the champions roll on
The gap between the champions and a promoted side has rarely looked this orderly. Kai Havertz turned in the opener on 15 minutes, Bukayo Saka doubled the lead on 23, and Martin Odegaard killed the game eight minutes after the restart. Three different scorers, three goals from open buildup play, and a 3-0 scoreline that flattered nobody.
Arsenal recorded 64.5% possession, took 20 shots to Coventry's four, won eight corners to two, and held their visitors to a single shot on target in front of 60,098 at the Emirates. Mikel Arteta's team lifted the title last season with 85 points, seven clear of Manchester City, and they opened this defence the way champions usually do: quietly, controlled, and without a single anxious minute after the first goal.
The new signing Ezri Konsa, added from Aston Villa late in the window, watched from the stands as the back line kept a clean sheet anyway. Arsenal's opening statement was simple. The floor of this team remains the highest in the division, and the ceiling is the same one that delivered the title in May.
Arteta's deeper problem is the one every champion carries into August: the fixture list does not care about statements. The run of fixtures through September includes meetings with three of last season's top five, and the margin that decided last season's title, seven points over City, was built across the whole year rather than in rounds like this one. What Arsenal needed from matchday 1 was exactly what they got, three points, three goals, zero alarms, and a clean sheet to protect the goal difference that could matter in May.
For Coventry, the consolation is arithmetic. One defeat at the Emirates was always the expected outcome for a newly promoted side, and their four-shot, one-on-target output is the profile they will carry into the fixtures that actually decide their season: the home games against the teams around them. Their next two matches are against sides that finished in the bottom half last season, and six points from those would make this trip a footnote.
Brentford 3-0 Tottenham: De Zerbi's brutal verdict
The evening kickoff at the Gtech Community Stadium produced the weekend's most scathing post-match reaction. Roberto De Zerbi, taking charge of his first competitive away match as Tottenham head coach after a summer of heavy spending, watched his side concede three times inside 49 minutes and then delivered a verdict that will dominate the highlights reels for days: this is not a team yet.
Keane Lewis-Potter started the rout on 12 minutes, Vitaly Janelt added the second on 33, and Michael Kayode, one of the stories of last season, sealed it four minutes after half-time. Brentford finished ninth last season with 53 points and retain the set-piece edge that makes them the most awkward evening out in the division. Tottenham finished 17th with 47, and the 85 million pound arrival of Savinho from Manchester City has so far changed the transfer column but not the table.
De Zerbi's complaint was about fight, about running, about the basics of collective structure when the ball turns over. He is right that the sample is one match, and right that none of it is permanent in August. But Spurs have now lost their last four competitive away fixtures stretching into last season's collapse, and the fixture list does not forgive slow starts for clubs with top-four wage bills.
The Saturday 3pm games: Everton, Ipswich and Leeds deliver
Everton 2-0 Crystal Palace. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall opened the scoring on 42 minutes with a left-footed finish into the top right corner, assisted by Harrison Armstrong, and Thierno Barry headed the second on 53 from an Iliman Ndiaye cross after another set piece situation. Everton were 13th last season, Palace 15th, and this had the feel of a mid-table fixture decided by the better organisation on the day. Palace have now failed to score in four of their last five away league matches.
Ipswich Town 2-1 Sunderland. The pick of the 3pm games for neutrals. Promoted Ipswich, back in the top flight after their relegation in 2025, beat the side that finished seventh last season through Emersonn's 24th-minute opener and a Jack Clarke strike in the 90th minute, moments after the visitors had threatened to steal a point. Nilson Angulo's free-kick on 39 had pulled Sunderland level, and the young playmaker Julio Enciso ran the game in spells for the home side. Portman Road will take some settling for visiting teams this season.
Nottingham Forest 0-1 Leeds United. Oliver Glasner's first league match on the City Ground bench ended in defeat when Anton Stach curled in an 88th-minute free-kick for Leeds, souring the Austrian's new dawn and continuing a pattern Forest fans know too well: 16th place last season was built on home form that keeps flickering rather than burning. Leeds, 14th in May, arrived with a compact shape and left with three points their game management fully deserved.
Premier League table after matchday 1
Six teams begin the season with three points. Arsenal and Brentford lead on goal difference, both plus three, followed by Everton and Hull on plus two, with Leeds and Ipswich on plus one.
- Arsenal, 3 points, GD +3
- Brentford, 3 points, GD +3
- Everton, 3 points, GD +2
- Hull City, 3 points, GD +2
- Leeds United, 3 points, GD +1
- Ipswich Town, 3 points, GD +1
Coventry, Crystal Palace, Sunderland, Forest, Tottenham and Manchester United round out the early order on zero. The table means nothing after one round and everything to supporters who waited three months for it.
What's next: Sunday's triple header and Monday's finale
Round 1 concludes with four fixtures that carry more narrative weight than a normal August weekend.
Brighton vs Aston Villa (Sunday, 16:00 CEST) pairs the eighth-placed finishers against the side that ended last season fourth. Manchester City vs Bournemouth (Sunday, 16:00 CEST) is Enzo Maresca's first competitive home match in charge of the post-Guardiola era, against the club he succeeded from, of all people, the current Liverpool manager. Bournemouth finished sixth last season and will provide an immediate test of how far the rebuild has come. Maresca spent the week talking about finding a new Rodri, which tells you where City's biggest question sits.
Newcastle vs Liverpool (Sunday, 17:30 CEST) is the headliner: Alexander Isak's first competitive return to St James' Park since his move to Anfield, Andoni Iraola's first Premier League match in the Liverpool dugout, and a fixture the markets already expect to produce goals. We have a full prediction piece on it.
Fulham vs Chelsea (Monday, 21:00 CEST) closes the round with Xabi Alonso's first Premier League match in charge of Chelsea, days after Joao Pedro signed a new contract to stay at Stamford Bridge.
The fantasy football takeaway from opening Saturday
The opening-day scorers list is already crowded at the top, and the early data matters for fantasy managers who spent the weekend staring at blank gameweeks. Fourteen different players found the net across the six matches, and the standout names for asset value are the ones whose goals came inside structured team performances rather than chaos.
Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard both scored in the same fixture for Arsenal, the classic double-up pattern that makes champions' attackers the backbone of every winning template. Michael Kayode's goal in Brentford's rout of Tottenham came with an assist-shaped performance around it, and Keane Lewis-Potter's opener makes him the cheap enabler of the weekend at a price that will not survive two more goals like it. At the other end, Hull's Semi Ajayi is the set-piece defender play of the round: a centre-back who scores from corners in a team whose entire attacking plan routes through dead balls. Jack Clarke's 90th-minute winner for Ipswich is the mirror image, a finish that flatters a performance and should not move your transfer plans.
The window for acting on opening-day data closes quickly. Prices move after every gameweek, and the managers who captured Arsenal and Brentford assets this weekend will bank two matches of value before the crowd catches up.
What matchday 1 actually told us
Three things are worth carrying into next week. Set pieces decided two of the six matches, which is a larger share than a normal weekend and a reminder that dead-ball work in pre-season matters more than any friendly result. Promoted clubs took six points from a possible nine across the three matches already played, an opening-round return that history suggests will not last but that buys all of them breathing room. And three of last season's top seven, Tottenham included, start the campaign with problems that are structural rather than cosmetic.
One round is a sample of one. It is also the only table that exists until next weekend. Follow every remaining matchday 1 fixture, Newcastle vs Liverpool included, with live scores, real-time stats and lineups the moment they drop at iscore.ai.