The Euro XI: Arsenal close the gap, Real Madrid get battered, Serie A title race heats up thanks to Christian Pulisic's heroics

The first thing that needs to be established is that Crystal Palace are a really good football team. They haven't lost in their last 18, and won the FA Cup last year. Selhurst Park is a tough place to go, and the Eagles are flying high.

But Liverpool are reigning champions, and if they want to win again, they have to get it done in the tough ones. Well, that didn't go to plan. Palace won 2-1 on a last-minute Eddie Nketiah volley. In truth, it really should have been five or six.

The problem with Arsenal last year was that they couldn't capitalize on others getting it wrong. Call it mentality, quality, or even bad luck - the Gunners just didn't make up gaps. Well, it's a new season with a revamped squad.

And they appear to mean business. They ground out a gutsy 2-1 win over Newcastle, and were good value for it, too. Just like that, we have a title race on our hands. 

Fun stat for you: Ruben Amorim has now nearly lost as twice as many games as he has won as Man United manager. You read that right. This club is in shambles at the moment. That's not news, of course.

United have been varying degrees of bad for nearly a decade now. And the misery piled on this weekend. The hope was that a win over Chelsea might galvanize something. Instead, United were comprehensively beaten by Brentford. Bruno Fernandes missed a penalty, too. In a word: yikes. 

Is this Chelsea's vibe now? Do they like the challenge of playing with 10 men? It certainly seems so. For the second week running, they had someone sent off - and deservedly so. And for the second week running, it was enough to see them throw a game the really should have won.

This time it was Trevoh Chalobah, who dragged an opponent down as he ran through on goal. Stonewall red. Chelsea have, like, one centerback for *checks notes* Liverpool next week. Nice. 

When we all make our pretty arbitrary predictions at the start of the year, one thing is pretty much a consensus: all three promoted teams will go straight back down. And that may yet happen. Burnley have struggled, largely thanks to a tough schedule but also for committing the cardinal sin of trying to play good soccer.

The other two, Leeds and Sunderland, look pretty good. More broadly, all of them have shown plenty of fight thus far. Will it be enough? TBD. But the early signs have been good. 

The common gripe against Real Madrid was as follows: They might be bad because they have not played anyone good. Don't you just love nuance? Well, there may be a grain of truth to that.

Heading into Saturday's Madrid derby, Xabi Alonso's undefeated men were yet to be truly tested. What would happen when they played a good soccer team? Well, the haters were proved right. They got drilled, 5-2, by Atletico Madrid.

Atletico Madrid put five past their cross city rivals. Back to the drawing board for Xabi Alonso. 

We all got a bit angry at Luis De la Fuente and Spain a few weeks ago. Lamine Yamal was injured, yet they forced him to play in a meaningless game. He missed a couple fixtures for Barca as a result, and no one really knew when he would be back.

Turns out that he returned pretty quickly, and that he can still play. Yamal's first act after coming off the bench against Real Sociedad was netmugging a defender. His second was a simply outrageous assist. Yeah, he will be just fine.

We really could do without the Pulisic world-class argument. Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. For now, what we have is a pretty damn good footballer working his way into the real world. He scored one and assisted another to lead Milan to a 2-1 win over Napoli. That's not bad for someone who was public enemy No. 1 for the USMNT critics in June. 

The result of Pulisic's heroics? Serie A now seems a legitimate contest. Sure, Milan will probably crumble. Yeah, Inter are too old for this stuff. Yet simultaneously, there is every chance Antonio Conte could issue public threats towards his team or something (which wouldn't be new territory). Point is, Milan's early season form has them top of the table. And that's not a bad thing. 

Meanwhile, we're back to regularly scheduled programming in the German league. That Bayer Leverkusen of Alonso now seems so long ago. Bayern are making this league seem laughably easy at the moment. Luis Diaz has been a revelation of a signing. There isn't a more in-form striker in Europe than Harry Kane. Sure, their league lead is only two points. But they won't squander it. 

Here's the next two games for Kazakhstan Premier League side Kairat Almaty: Real Madrid, Zhetysu Taldykorgan.

One of these is not like the other.

You'd be forgiven for not keeping up with the KPL. But a truly wonderful thing will happen Tuesday when Kairat host (yes, host!) Real Madrid in the Champions League. Will they get battered? Probably. But what a moment for not-really-that-European football.