Accepted footballing wisdom and cliché dictates that the Premier League table takes shape after 10 matches. As the clocks go back this weekend and the numbers in the games played column ticks over into double figures, any talk of good performances and patience becomes increasingly unconvincing. With winter drawing in the early kick-off on Saturday represents the last opportunity for Sunderland and Arsenal to add some gloss to the first quarter of their campaigns.It'll take something pretty special to raise the beleaguered Black Cats' spirits, though, and it's hard to imagine that many Sunderland supporters will have delayed their soul searching this long. On the wrong end of an offside goal at West Ham last time out, still winless in the league and already languishing five points from safety, you've got to wonder if the cycle of great escapes is finally taking an existential toll on the boys from Wearside.Like a frail old man at death's door, only being kept alive by the wonders of modern medicine, have Sunderland grown tired of their daily cocktail of pills and emergency Di Canio, Advocaat and Poyet injections? Now that Newcastle aren't around to hand them six points, and their only semblance of joy, maybe it's finally time to accept that there's a better, less painful place where you will actually win a few games. Turning off the Premier League life support machine might be best for everyone involved.
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While David Moyes continues to carry himself with all the verve of a man who lived in a low-grade hotel when managing Real Sociedad, and Jermain Defoe has admitted that his team have gone backwards since last year, Arsenal have cause for optimism. Or rather, a very Arsenal sort of optimism: an optimism with caveats. Set to progress deep into the League Cup, sitting joint-top of the Premier League and their Champions League group, things are going as well as they generally do in October.Yet as Arsène Wenger celebrated his 67th birthday last weekend by hypothesising about encounters with God and then drawing 0-0 at home to Middlesbrough, he seemed more like the man who kept faith with Abou Diaby for almost 10 years than the one who'd won nine major trophies in his time at the club.After laboured victories against Burnley and Swansea the Gunners failed to capitalise on a largely tepid weekend of football that saw only two top-half sides pick up three points. The teams in question? Liverpool and Chelsea, who moved to within touching distance of the top and, like Leicester last season, aren't involved in European competition. And lo, those familiar doubts resurface and a narrative begins to blossom.Arsenal can ease concerns over a repeat of recent seasons with a win against a team who'd bite your arm off for one, but a Groundhog Day situation for both in May wouldn't come as a surprise. Big Sam, anyone?@JackHarry