Football weekly roundup: Man United crisis deepens while AC Milan thump Inter

From the centre circle on the Stamford Bridge stadium pitch, Morgan Rogers ran almost in a straight line towards goal. He moved past five Manchester United defenders, unchallenged, before delicately dinking the ball over the rushing goalkeeper Senne Lammens to give Chelsea the first goal in a Premier League match they’d win 2-0.

The goal highlighted all that has been going wrong with the Red Devils – starting with a leaky defence that seems to have forgotten its fundamentals.

In the Premier League, defending champions Arsenal took a three-point gap at the top of the table with a win over Liverpool while title-rivals Manchester City lost a second consecutive league match.

But there were plenty of other talking points from this weekend across the big European leagues, with Borussia Dortmund continuing to challenge Bayern Munich’s dominance in a gripping 2-2 draw, and AC Milan cruising past Inter in the 185th edition of the Derby della Madonnina.

Here are the key talking points from the week in football:

Martinez sees red, Carrick avoids the exit

It was perhaps one of the most telling images that emerged from Manchester United’s trip to Chelsea. Lisandro Martinez walking towards the tunnel after being sent off, while manager Michael Carrick busied himself in making notes – neither looked at each other.

Carrick is arguably on borrowed time after the United board decided not to bring down the axe on his tenure as full-time manager of the club that has remained winless in their last nine matches across competitions.

In the first half against Chelsea though, it seemed the players were determined to bail their manager out of trouble, as they created chances against a lackluster Chelsea defence.

But they were wasteful in their finishing.

At the change of ends, the indifferent shooting was matched by inept defending. Rogers marched into the United box with barely a whimper from the defence to put the hosts into the lead.

And then Martinez, a World Cup winner with Argentina, picked up two yellow cards within the space of two minutes – the second coming through a deliberate elbow to the face of Wesley Fofana while United defended a corner.

Cole Palmer converted the resulting penalty as United drop down to 17th position on the table, one short of the relegation zone.

AC Milan thump Inter

While the current United manager’s future is on turbulent waters, the previous one, Ruben Amorim, endeared himself to the AC Milan faithful. In the 185th edition of the Derby della Madonnina – the Milan Derby – AC Milan secured a solid 3-1 win over defending Serie A champions Inter.

Christian Pulisic opened the scoring in the fourth minute with a strong header before Adrian Rabiot played a first time shot off a clever corner routine in the 10th.

Inter, the on paper visitors at the San Siro stadium that both teams share, pulled one back in the 22nd minute through Alessandro Bastoni.

In the 43rd minute though, the man who set up the first two goals, Diego Moreira scored AC Milan’s third from a brilliant freekick from just outside the box.

The win was AC Milan’s sixth of the Serie A season, with their only defeat so far coming in their previous match against Bologna.

For Inter though, this was their first loss of the campaign.

Kane misses as Bayern share spoils

The stage was set for the new Ballon d’Or winner Harry Kane to take to the field as Bayern Munich hosted Borussia Dortmund in the 115th edition of Der Klassiker (The Classic) – the derby between two of the most successful clubs in the German Bundesliga.

And the game lived up to the hype as well with the only two undefeated teams in the competition holding on to a 2-2 draw.

Defending champions Bayern opened the scoring through Konrad Laimer.

Then in the 57th minute, Bayern were awarded a penalty. This was the moment for Kane, who scored 73 goals for club and country in the 2025-26 season, to add to his tally. Yet inexplicably, he hit the bar.

Within a few minutes, Dortmund levelled through Serhou Guirassy. And while Kane failed to score earlier, he did make an excellent assist, heading Joshua Kimmich’s cross into the danger zone for Dayot Upamecano to tap into an open net.

At the start of the night, Bayern were level on points with their rivals and looked certain to be the undisputed leader of the Bundesliga table.

Only for Fabio Silva, in the 89th minute, to hammer a shot brilliantly past a sea of defenders and into the net as Dortmund rescued a point.

Arsenal win at Anfield, City lose to Brighton

Manchester City started their campaign with seven wins in a row. Then came the loss to Aston Villa, and over the weekend, another defeat, this time to Brighton.

Yasin Ayari’s 11th minute strike was all that separated the two teams.

It gave defending champions Arsenal a chance to take a three-point lead at the top of the Premier League table. To do that, they needed to do what they had not done in 14 years – win a league match at Anfield.

But this is an Arsenal team that has relearned what it is like to win the biggest title in England. And an unmarked Kai Havertz’s 16th minute goal, which came at the end of an excellent low cross by Declan Rice in front of a switched-off Liverpool defence, now puts Arsenal on 24 points from nine matches.

There’s still a long way to go in the season, but being at the top of the table is always encouraging.