There was a nice symmetry to the first weekend of the Premier League season: 10 games, 10 wins, 10 losses. After what seemed like such a sloppy, stuffed-in, jagged match calendar over the past 18 months, it just felt good to see 20 teams play 10 games and have it all be wrapped up by Sunday afternoon. So, here’s 100 words, exactly, on all 10 matches.

Brentford are who we thought they were. My question for the Bees coming into the season was, “How will this attacking style port over to a bigger league”? Against Arsenal, the answer was, “Well, if you combine it with set plays, then it might be pretty good”. This wasn’t a dominant win by any means -- they were treading water from the 30th minute through the second goal in the 73rd, getting outshot 12-1 over that stretch -- but they played well enough to win against one of the richest teams in the world. Also, shoutout Tomas Gronnemark, Brentford’s former throw-in coach.

Turns out Paul Pogba and Bruno Fernandes can play together, huh? United are just a terrible match-up for Leeds. Plus, Marcus Rashford and Edinson Cavani didn’t play, and Jadon Sancho came off the bench. This won’t be United’s season-long set-up. That might seem like a potential problem, but I think this game speaks to the versatility of Pogba (four assists) and Bruno (three goals). When everyone’s back, why couldn’t Pogba slide back as part of a midfield three or Bruno push up as a pseudo-winger? Pogba can pick up some of Bruno’s creativity, and the latter can take more shots.

Also turns out Rafa Benitez might be a good manager, huh? It’s not gonna be beautiful, but Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison have pretty straight-forward, brute-force skillsets that fit nicely into the system of a manager who prioritizes structure and organization over all. The result on Saturday: Richarlison was second among all players in expected assists (0.8), while DCL was double the next-best player on 1.6 non-penalty expected goals. FBREF FOOTNOTEThis team is going to be above-average defensively no matter who you put out there, and at 24 years old, their two leading attackers are both just entering their primes.

Is there a new Adama out there? Despite the win, Leicester took just nine shots for a total of 0.8 xG. Adam Traore himself attempted six shots -- double his max from last season, across all competitions. He also registered six shot-creating actions -- more than all but three players -- and completed 12 dribbles -- way more than anyone else. I really don’t know how good an attack that's built around Adama Traore can be. Early returns are iffy -- 17 shots for just 1.1 xG -- but I think we’d all love to see Bruno Lage and Wolves give it a shot.

Watford might not be as bad as you think. The scoreline -- and the underlying numbers -- look a little closer than this one actually was. Elton John’s Lads went ahead, 3-0, by taking 12 of the game’s first 16 shots. A late flurry reeled things in a bit for Villa, but well, Watford were expected to be the worst team in the league before the season. That still could be true, but we’ve got one game of evidence so far: a deserved victory against a midtable team. The Ismailia Sarr and Emmanuel Dennis combo is gonna cause some problems this season.

The Duality of Being a Seagull. On the one hand, Brighton did the one thing they couldn’t do last season: parry the ball with any legal body-part into the net. A come-from-behind-win at Burnley is always nice. On the other hand, Brighton didn’t do a whole lot to convince me that they might actually finish in fifth this year. After conceding an opener in the second minute, they still managed to get outshout over the first 45 by Burnley, a team that literally wants to do anything other than shoot after it takes the lead. Where’d our beautiful losers go?

Chelsea’s attack, we still have some questions. I wouldn’t read into it too much yet, but only four teams created fewer expected goals than Chelsea (0.9) this past weekend: Leicester, Southampton, Leeds, and Crystal Palace. And as measured by non-penalty xG per shot, only three teams took worse shots: Southampton, Leeds, and Palace. As Palace’s presence on both lists suggests: Chelsea’s defense is still dominant. But the defining question for Thomas Tuchel is whether his team can score enough goals to challenge for a title. After one game and despite, you know, uh, three goals, the answer remains TBD.

Liverpool: we’re thinking we’re back. Despite a makeshift midfield, Liverpool cruised to an easy win, 3-0, away to Norwich. The real center backs returned; neither Nat Phillips nor Rhys Williams even made the bench. One thing to keep an eye on, perhaps: per Stats Perform, LFC conceded the most xG from set pieces and the highest percentage of their overall xG conceded (77 percent). Seems more likely to be a one-off than a persistent problem, though. Lotta high turnovers leading to shots, goals for three of the front four. Salah, in particular, looked unstoppable. Most importantly, no one got hurt.

Michail Antonio is the man. How was this guy playing fullback as recently as five years ago? On Sunday, despite missing a penalty, the 31 year old joined noted fascist Paolo Di Canio as West Ham’s joint-leading scorer in Premier League history. Eventhough he hasn’t broken 2,000 minutes in a season over that stretch, only 13 players have scored more non-penalty goals since the start of the 2019-20 season. After sixth place last year, West Ham were due to fall back some, but if Antonio can somehow string together a healthy seaon in his 30s, then maybe they won’t.

Manchester City is in transition. While City were missing a bunch of key players in Sunday’s loss to Spurs and were unlucky with the result, they were just awful in transitions. Per Stats Perform, Spurs created five shots from direct attacks[FOOTNOTE The number of open play sequences that starts just inside the team’s own half and has at least 50% of movement towards the opposition’s goal and ends in a shot or a touch in the opposition box.]  -- tied with Wolves for most on the weekend. On top of that, they only created three high-turnovers[FOOTNOTE The number of sequences that start in open play and begin 40m or less from the opponent’s goal.]  -- tied for fewest of any team. Liverpool, Chelsea, and United, meanwhile, all created at least 10. If City don’t win the title this year, I think we just saw why: an open defense, and an attack that can’t make up for it.