A shared summit with chaos behind them: has the shape of the Premier League race been settled early?

Arsenal begin the season as reigning champions and clear favourites to retain the title, having finally ended a 22-year trophy drought under Mikel Arteta.

Last season the team leaned on a style often described as wearing down the opponent. This term they have opened in far more powerful and convincing fashion, according to "BBC Sport".

The statement was emphatic. Arsenal thrashed Manchester City 3-0 in the Community Shield, then reeled off wins against Coventry, Aston Villa, Chelsea and Sunderland, plus a victory over Napoli in the Champions League.

Factor in last season's results and Arsenal have now racked up nine straight Premier League wins. Their last defeat in any competition within normal time came against Manchester City on 19 April.

Those numbers hand Arsenal a clear psychological and technical edge. The team have not simply piled up points. They have shown a real knack for keeping the wins coming and handling every kind of match thrown at them.

Things look rather more complicated at Manchester City, especially after the departure of Pep Guardiola, the manager who steered the club to six titles in ten years, the historic treble among them.

Enzo Maresca, Guardiola's former assistant, took on the job and delivered four straight league wins after the defeat to Arsenal in Cardiff.

City saw off Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Coventry, then beat Porto in the UEFA Champions League before edging the Manchester derby against United 1-0.

Erling Haaland scored the only goal, but the win came with a twist. The Premier League's refereeing committee later admitted an error, ruling that the Norwegian striker's goal should have been disallowed for offside.

None of that took the shine off a perfect start for Maresca in the league. City, it seems, can still compete despite the upheaval on the touchline.

Here's the paradox: the perfect starts made by Arsenal and Manchester City don't necessarily mark them out as dominant over their rivals, at least not once you move from the league table to the detailed figures.

Brighton have scored 13 goals and Chelsea 10, according to BBC Sport. Arsenal and Manchester City have managed just eight apiece.

Look at the shot counts and Arsenal sit tenth, City eleventh. The pair rank sixth and fifth respectively for touches inside the opposition penalty area.

Defensively, though, the two sides show their real strength. Arsenal have conceded just once and Manchester City twice, handing both one of the best defensive records in the competition so far.

This is exactly where their biggest asset lies. Even when the attacking performance falls short of exceptional, their knack for keeping opponents off the scoresheet gives them a clear edge in racking up points.

Arsenal and Manchester City have pulled clear early at the top. Behind them, the picture looks far less reassuring for the rest of the title contenders. Most betting companies rank the next three chasers in this order: Chelsea, then Liverpool, then Manchester United, with Tottenham some way further back.

Managerial upheaval was one of the big talking points before the season kicked off. Chelsea and Liverpool both sacked their bosses, then landed Xabi Alonso and Andoni Iraola respectively over the summer.

Manchester United and Tottenham had moved earlier, switching managers back in 2026. Michael Carrick and Roberto De Zerbi went into their first full pre-season with their new sides. One glance at last season's table showed just how much work lay ahead.

Chelsea finished tenth. Liverpool, the defending champions, came fifth, and Tottenham languished down in seventeenth. Manchester United ended the campaign third after a sharp upturn in results and performances under Carrick. The current start, though, does not quite match those hopes.

Chelsea sit sixth, beaten just once and with 10 goals to their name, a healthy attacking return. The problem lies at the other end. They have shipped nine goals, the fourth worst defensive record in the league so far.

Even more alarming, Chelsea conceded two or more goals in each of their first four matches. That hasn't happened since the 2015-2016 season.

The attacking tools are there to push on. But unless they sort out the defence, and quickly, a genuine title race with Arsenal and Manchester City will stay out of reach.

Defending champions Liverpool sit eighth. They've not lost any of their opening four matches, but three draws have cost them six points at a very early stage of the season.

Even more striking: this is only the third time in the past 63 seasons that Liverpool have failed to win either of their first two home league matches.

Return to the title race is possible, but only if they stop bleeding points, especially with Arsenal and Manchester City off to perfect starts.

Manchester United sit thirteenth on four points, matching their worst Premier League start since the 1992-1993 season and repeating last season's dismal opening.

Dig into the numbers, though, and they tell a different story from that lowly position. United have fired off 84 shots, more than any other side in the league. They've also proved miserly at the back, facing just 41 shots to rank as the second-least targeted team.

The problem is what happens when it matters. United have conceded seven goals and scored seven, proof that all those attempts, all that possession and all that attacking pressure haven't turned into anything like the results the volume of chances deserves.

Tottenham had no natural claim to the title race, not after back-to-back seventeenth-place finishes.

Even so, a brighter start looked likely under Roberto De Zerbi, particularly with the coach handed a full pre-season to mould his squad.

Reality bit harder. Spurs sit seventeenth, exactly where they ended last season.

More alarming still, they have failed to score in their first four league matches, a first in the club's history. De Zerbi's rebuild suddenly looks a taller order than anyone expected.

The early standings hand Arsenal and Manchester City a clear advantage, but history warns against jumping to conclusions. Since English top-flight football began, 80 teams have won their opening four matches. Only 24 went on to win the title.

A perfect start, then, guarantees nothing about the pace a side can sustain to the finish. In the Premier League era, just nine of the 28 teams that won their first four in a row lifted the trophy, most recently Manchester City in 2023-2024.

Another figure should trouble the chasers. Only six Premier League seasons have featured two or more teams winning all of their first four matches. Arsenal and Manchester City sitting together at the summit with perfect records is a genuine rarity.

History looks no kinder to those who fall behind early. Just two teams have won the Premier League after trailing the leaders by five points or more following four rounds.

Manchester United pulled it off five times under Sir Alex Ferguson, in 1992-1993, 1996-1997, 1998-1999, 2007-2008 and 2008-2009. The other side was Manchester City under Pep Guardiola, who overturned their deficit to take the title in 2020-2021.

None of this means the race is settled in September, but it does reveal that losing five points or more to the leader after four rounds is far from a comfortable spot, according to BBC Sport.

So the Premier League title race hasn't officially narrowed to a two-horse contest after only four rounds. The season is long. Injuries, fixture pressure, dips in form and congested schedules can all reshape the picture completely. The current signs, though, point firmly towards Arsenal and Manchester City.

Both have taken 12 points from 12 and are defending superbly, while most of their direct rivals are struggling badly, whether with results, at the back or in front of goal.

The real question at this stage may not be "Is the title race confined to Arsenal and Manchester City?" Perhaps the more intriguing one is this: "Can the rest wake up before the early gap becomes one that is difficult to close?"