Premier League standings: Leaders make it five wins from five as basement side stranded on two points

A perfect start at the summit

The top of the Premier League is already a one-sided affair after five matchdays, with the leaders boasting a flawless record of five wins from five and a maximum 15 points.

That run — five victories, no draws, no defeats, 13 goals scored and just five conceded for a goal difference of +8 — has opened a three-point cushion over the nearest challengers, who have taken 12 points from a 4-0-1 start and shipped only four goals so far.

The chasing pack's problem is not defence but the sheer consistency of the side above them: the second-placed club's only blemish is a single loss, and their form line reads W-W-W-W-L.

The division's most dangerous attack is not top

Third place belongs to the most prolific team in the league so far, a side that has scored 16 goals in five games and conceded just five, giving them the best goal difference in the division at +11.

Their three wins, one draw and one defeat have produced 10 points — a return that would ordinarily be enough to lead the table, and a reminder of how ruthlessly the early pacesetters have capitalised on their own fixtures.

A four-team bottleneck on nine points

Behind the top three, four clubs are locked together on nine points from five games, separated only by goal difference. All four have identical 2-3-0 records — two wins, three draws and no defeats — and are separated by a narrow spread of goal differences ranging from +6 down to +3.

Two more sides sit on eight points, one with a +2 goal difference and one level at 0 after scoring and conceding nine apiece. The final club in the top half has seven points from a 2-1-2 start.

Mid-table congestion and the European line

The European qualification places, as marked on The Athletic's standings page, stretch down through a congested middle section of the table. Clubs on six, five and four points fill positions 11 to 16, with goal differences ranging from -4 to -5.

Two of those sides on five points have identical 1-2-2 records, while three teams sit on four points with matching 1-1-3 records — a cluster so tight that a single weekend of results could shuffle the order dramatically.

The relegation picture

At the bottom, the situation is already uncomfortable. One club has three points from a winless 0-3-2 start, and another sits on three points despite having won a game — a 1-0-4 record that includes just one goal scored and 10 conceded, the worst attacking and defensive numbers in the division at -9.

Below them, two clubs are still searching for a first win of the campaign, each on two points from a 0-2-3 start. One has scored five and conceded eight (-3); the other has managed just two goals while conceding eight (-6).

How the table is compiled

The standings are published as part of The Athletic's dedicated Premier League section on nytimes.com, which hosts live scores, schedules, standings, fantasy football, newsletters and podcasts, alongside team-by-team pages for all 20 clubs.

The figures above are a snapshot of that live standings page after five matchdays of the 2026-27 Premier League season, and will shift with every round of fixtures.

Earlier-season context

For reference, The Athletic's separate performance-based Premier League table, published on 8 September 2026, ranked Arsenal top after week three of the 2026-27 campaign following a 2-1 comeback win over Chelsea, with Fulham bottom despite dominating Crystal Palace in a 3-2 home defeat. That ranking judged teams purely on how they played in their previous fixture and is not the same measure as the official points table detailed above.