The Women's Super League table is taking shape for 2026-27. The defending champions, Manchester City, have five wins from five games but more intriguing stories lie elsewhere. Why are Arsenal struggling, who is performing better than results suggest, and in which way are two promoted teams smashing expectations? Andrew Beasley has the answers:

Chelsea have announced that Reece James has undergone "successful" and "minor" surgery on a knee injury sustained in training. "Reece has already begun his road to recovery and will be supported by the club's medical department at Cobham during this rehabilitation phase," the club wrote on social media.

Newcastle head coach Matthias Jaissle says he is uninterested in dwelling on what might have been when highly-rated Aston Villa midfielder Johan Manzambi visits St James' Park this weekend, .

Manzambi looked set for a switch to Tyneside over the summer but the deal was hijacked as Villa swooped in to sign the Switzerland international, who has flourished during his short time in the midlands.

The 21-year-old opened the scoring in Villa's 6-0 Champions League rout of Fenerbahce in midweek and he could rub salt into his former suitors' wounds when Newcastle welcome Unai Emery's side on Saturday.

But while Jaissle, who succeeded Eddie Howe after Manzambi snubbed a move to the north-east, is a fan of the youngster, the German side-stepped the question of whether he would have liked him in his ranks.

"He is a really good player," said Jaissle, who will be looking for a response after Monday's 4-1 loss at Coventry. "But I'm not here to talk now about players, about rumours, about potential signings. The pure focus is on our players. We have many things to do, many things to improve, and that's the approach to not get distracted by anything else."

Joelinton is poised for his first start of the season for Newcastle on Saturday while Dan Burn looks set to be on the bench again, with Anthony Elanga and Jacob Ramsey poised to return to light training next week.

Is there a correlation between running more and winning more in the Premier League, I wonder? We have the answer for you! And it is, to summarise, um, kind of but not really but maybe a bit. Read about it, with graphs and everything, here:

Hello world, and happy Friday! Yes, we are all one day closer to finding out if there are any new depths for our teams still to plumb, which is certainly an exciting prospect for my fellow Watford fans. In unusual coincidence news, this Premier League weekend sees all four English teams who were in action in Europe last night play each other on Sunday – Bournemouth v Sunderland, Brighton v Crystal Palace – while the two Scottish teams who played in Europe last night also play each other on Sunday, with Hearts heading to Celtic. Meanwhile table-topping, relegation-bound Manchester City host Ipswich and second-placed Arsenal head to Nottingham Forest, while Fulham and Spurs, like Bournemouth winless in the league this season, seek those magic three points at home to promoted teams, Fulham v Hull on Saturday and Spurs v Coventry on Monday.

But we get the ball rolling with an apology, after Lisandro Martínez begged forgiveness not for what he said about the shambles at Manchester United, but for the fact that the "time and place … perhaps were not the right ones", which the way I read it is very much a partial climbdown rather than the fulsome version that some are interpreting it as. Anyway, read all about it!