Health Check for Premier League Contenders: Arsenal, Chelsea, Leicester City

Arsenal (Third, with 16 points from seven matches)

After the first two games of the season, north London-based therapists must have thought they had hit the jackpot. When just a point was gleaned from matches against Liverpool and Leicester City, a summer of moaning about a lack of transfer activity morphed into full-blown meltdown for Arsenal supporters. 

Arsene Wenger's frugality over the close-season—as rivals spent with an unabashed glee not seen since Brewster had £30 million to squander—never looked more exposed than on the opening weekend when Liverpool ripped apart a defence he had assembled with sticky-back plastic.

Calum Chambers and Rob Holding were paired at centre-half due to injuries to a back four every Arsenal supporter knew at the start of the season wasn't quite good enough, even with a full complement. 

Thankfully in Wenger's 20th year at Arsenal things have got considerably better since then. Five successive victories in the league, including a 3-0 win over Chelsea that must have exorcised more than a few demons, has the Gunners sitting pretty.

Supporters are daring to dream again, while said therapists are undergoing therapy themselves due to stress induced by a lack of work—for now.

Position at this stage last season: Third, with 13 points from seven matches.

Results so far: Liverpool home - lost 3-4, Leicester City away - drew 0-0, Watford away - won 1-3, Southampton home - won 2-1, Hull City away - won 1-4, Chelsea at home - won 3-0, Burnley away - won 0-1. 

Next six Premier League fixtures: Swansea City (h), Middlesbrough (h), Sunderland (a), Tottenham Hotspur (h), Manchester United (a), Bournemouth (h).

What's Gone Right? 

Quite a lot to be fair. Paying £35 million for centre-half Shkodran Mustafi on the penultimate day of the transfer window will have had Wenger questioning life, mortality and everything in between. It could prove inspired, though.

The German is happy to attack everything in the air, leaving Laurent Koscielny to tidy up the second ball. It's a partnership that has jelled instantly, with Arsenal having conceded just four goals and kept three clean sheets in the seven matches they have played together.

Wenger has been crying out for an aggressive centre-half (or at least he should have been) in the vein of Tony Adams or Nemanja Vidic for pretty much the second decade of his Arsenal tenure. He might finally have got his man. 

With Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal either side, Arsenal arguably now have the most balanced back four in the Premier League aside from Tottenham Hotspur.  

Swiss midfielder Granit Xhaka is being eased in more gradually than Mustafi, but he has proved an instant hit with the Emirates Stadium faithful. It's amazing how quickly two jackhammer strikes from range can endear a player to a new set of supporters. On the south coast, Jack Wilshere watches passing ships daily and wonders whether one will ever be chartered to take him back to the capital. 

With foundations no longer dug in sand, Arsenal's myriad of artists seem unburdened, able to paint mini-masterpieces at their own leisure. There are few more edifying sights in football than Arsenal in full flow. When they get it right, Wenger can rest assured he has the prettiest wife at home. 

Mesut Ozil is in the type of form that allows him to pick out the most difficult of passes with the nonchalance of a kid picking his nose. Everything he does is carried out in a languid manner, hinting he could do it while simultaneously carrying a cup of tea without spilling a drop. 

It's a measure of how well Arsenal are playing, and perhaps also indicative of how Ozil's role has changed slightly, that he's yet to provide an assist this season. Last term he boasted 19, one shy of the Premier League record.

He's still the main conductor, often from slightly deeper, but not everything has to go through him as it once did. With Sanchez replacing Olivier Giroud as the main focal point this season, Arsenal have added a more dynamic element to their game, often going from back to front quicker. No longer do they persistently look to Ozil to provide an eye-of-the-needle pass to break down packed defences. 

Sanchez mixes bullishness with a coolness in front of goal that so often can be lacking in those with a sprinter's pace. Soccer Aid's Darren Campbell is not alone in having feet as wonky as they are fast.

The Chilean has been a revelation through the middle, while Theo Walcott has finally realised it's better to be an exceptional wide player than a so-so centre-forward. His career has gone full circle and is looking all the better for it. Both have five goals apiece already.

Giroud is scheduled to return from injury after the international break and will give Wenger further options. Likely to be eased back from the substitutes' bench, he gives Arsenal a plan B they lack in his absence.

Against Burnley last weekend—when they needed an injury-time winner from Koscielny—Giroud would have been an ideal substitute as Arsenal were repeatedly frustrated by a side happy to put 10 men behind the ball and leave no space in behind. 

Alex Iwobi deserves a mention too. At the age of 20, he looks like an Arsenal player from the first half of Wenger's long tenure. Rangy and athletic, he glides around the field. Continuity players also capable of unlocking the door with a moment of chutzpah are hard to find. Wenger looks like he has unearthed a gem.

"When the ball gets to him, you always feel the game can become quicker now. He's developed that in the last 18 months. When I saw him in the youth team, he was more of a dribbler, an individual player," Wenger said of the Nigerian, per The Independent's Samuel Stevens. 

"He's slowly discovered from training with the first team that he needed to find a mixture between the individual and the collective game. That mixture is right now."

What Needs Work, and Can They Win it?

As ever with Arsenal, it appears to be more a question of mentality than ability. Wenger conceded the win over Chelsea was a statement from his side, but he should have been just as pleased with last weekend's victory at Burnley. Everyone knows Arsenal can win beautiful. What lets them down more often is an inability to win ugly. 

It's been 12 years since Arsenal were last champions. Wenger will accept last season represented a glorious  opportunity squandered to bring that barren run to an end. However, with many of their rivals still very much in transition, there's no palpable reason why they shouldn't be pressing hard come May.

But then that's hardly a new revelation.

Chelsea (Seventh, with 13 points from seven matches)

Jose Mourinho's presence at Manchester United must feel like the gift that keeps on giving for Antonio Conte.

While the minutiae of what is unfolding at Old Trafford is reported on a minute-by-minute basis via the type of investigative vigour last seen when the Watergate scandal broke, Conte and Chelsea seem able to go about their business with barely a twitched curtain in comparison.

That said, perhaps it's better to have a cast of millions peering in at you than Roman Abramovich's all-seeing eye.

Somehow it seems an aeon ago since Chelsea were last champions, despite it being only the season before last. What the world is trying to work out is whether the class of 2014/15 were simply the best of an admittedly mediocre bunch that year. Are they now in need of a widely spoken of overhaul, or do they still have a good enough spine of a side to be straightened out under Conte's never-less-than-engaging stewardship?

Conte seems to have drawn a conclusion more in line with the former diagnosis. It has been widely reported after a three-day bunker meeting between the Italian and Abramovich, per the Daily Mail's Danny Gallagher, Chelsea's owner has agreed for his coffers to be relieved considerably over the next few transfer windows. 

Nonetheless it still seems far too premature to cast this season as being one of the transitional variety. With Chelsea just five points shy of Manchester City at the Premier League summit, there's no need to sound the death knell in west London just yet. 

Position at this stage last season: 14th, with eight points from seven matches.

Results so far: West Ham home - won 2-1, Watford away - won 1-2, Burnley at home - won 3-0, Swansea City away - drew 2-2, Liverpool at home - lost 1-2, Arsenal away - lost 3-0, Hull City away - won 0-2.

Next six Premier League fixtures: Leicester City (h), Manchester United (h), Southampton (a), Everton (h), Middlesbrough (a), Tottenham (h).

What's Gone Right?

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

It's good to have Diego Costa back. Having spent the majority of last season marauding around the field with the wild eyes of a dog you'd cross the street to avoid, it was no surprise when speculation emerged that the striker could return to Spain and Atletico Madrid over the summer.

Conte's Vesuvius-like eruptions were legendary at Juventus, and while a betting man would more likely put money on the Italian and Costa coming to blows than enjoying a fruitful relationship, it's often the case that comradeship is found between kindred (wild) spirits. Think Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Mourinho, Richard Burton and Richard Harris. 

Costa tops the scoring charts with six goals already and is back to his horrible-bastard best. For all his pantomime villainy—and for the most part, that's all it is—Costa is a magnificent centre forward.

An antithesis to the modern game's obsession with false nines, he's unapologetically a proper nine. Forget the theatrics, he's as hard as nails and enjoying his football again. 

In patches Eden Hazard, too, has shown improvement, even if he has not scaled the heights of 2014/15 when he was named PFA Player of the Year.

The Belgium international remains Chelsea's most talented player, but in terms of the defensive responsibilities a coach like Conte will want him to embrace, it's hard to get past the old adage "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink."

To minimise the burden of tracking a full-back, Conte may elect to use him just off Costa, though this negates a little the threat the Belgian poses when cutting inside from the left. 

Of better cheer is the form of N'Golo Kante, with the Frenchman having shown already last season's magnificent campaign for Leicester will not necessarily define his career, as it may well others.

What Needs Work, and Can They Win it?

If the first three league games of the season papered over the cracks, the next three were the equivalent of using a wallpaper stripper to reveal just what Conte has to play with. A draw at Swansea City could have been a bad day at the office, but defeats to Liverpool and in particular Arsenal made it seem more the office is on fire.

Football is rarely kind enough to leave elephants in the room without comment for long. In the case of Chelsea's defence, Conte laid his cards on the table from the moment he arrived in west London.

John Terry was awarded a one-year contract when previously he had announced with a trumpet that he was being cold-shouldered by the club, while much of the summer was preoccupied with trying to bring in some of the world's finest defenders to shore up a porous back line that shipped 53 Premier League goals last season.

Conte wanted Napoli's Kalidou Koulibaly and Juventus warhorse Leonardo Bonucci, according to Matt Law of the Telegraph. Chelsea's hierarchy gifted him David Luiz and Marcos Alonso, wrapped up in a neat little blue bow. It brings to mind the tale of Mario Balotelli's mum sending him out to buy an ironing board when he was at Manchester City, and he came back with a quad bike and a giant trampoline. 

With Thibaut Courtois struggling for anything like his best form, Branislav Ivanovic getting neither younger nor better, Gary Cahill enduring a miserable campaign riddled with individual errors, Terry injured and David Luiz still David Luiz, Conte is under no illusion a major rebuilding job at the back is more than likely required.

It is expected Chelsea will go back in for Bonucci in January. Call me old-fashioned, but it might have been an idea for the Stamford Bridge hierarchy to have bought the players Conte wanted over the summer when they spent £120 million.

Employing a deeper defensive line or even a back three, as he tried in the second half with the game already dead at Arsenal, have been mooted as possible short-term solutions to a problem unlikely to go away of its own accord.

Where to play Cesc Fabregas, or even whether to play him at all, remains a conundrum for Conte. Doubts persists over whether the Spaniard, for all his exquisite passing, is defensively disciplined enough to be trusted in a midfield two. At times when he plays alongside Nemanja Matic it can look like two men sharing a parachute. 

If Chelsea ever play three at the back, it seems unlikely Fabregas would start in a 3-4-3. While it's hard to watch the 29-year-old at the moment and not pine for the player he was, he's still capable of being a wonderful playmaker in the right system. Conte's job is to pinpoint just exactly what that system is.

Another mystery for Chelsea is their inability to start games with any kind of momentum. Remarkably they led at half-time in just 13 of 38 matches last season. Again this term, just two of Chelsea's 12 goals have arrived in the first period.

Given that in their heyday they were notoriously adept at taking control of games from the first minute and rendering them lifeless by the interval, courtesy of a commanding lead, it's a sluggish habit to have fallen into. 

As for the bigger question of whether Chelsea can win the title, at this juncture it seems the tallest of asks—if far from impossible. Which brings us nicely on to Leicester.

Leicester City (12th, with eight points from seven matches)

IAN KINGTON/Getty Images

It's a difficult one with Leicester. How can you possibly quantify expectations after a campaign in which it's hardly melodramatic to say Claudio Ranieri's band of brothers redefined the parameters of what is perceived possible in sport?

The achievement of the Italian and his players has ensured to a man they will never be forgotten, never not written about, but what happens next remains a question it seems almost uncomfortable to ask.

For Leicester supporters it must feel like when as a kid your parents got you a Christmas present you knew they couldn't really afford. You'd vow to be grateful forever, but by the time Christmas came around the next year you'd be unsure what was OK to ask for. You were still grateful but didn't want to end up with nothing. Or just as bad, something you didn't want. 

Even withstanding the sale of Kante to Chelsea, Ranieri oversaw a summer spend to the tune of £65 million. The champions broke their transfer record three times in bringing in Nampalys Mendy, Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani.

There's not really anywhere for Leicester to kick-on to, but it's likely those signing the cheques will have set targets beyond the 40-point mark that Ranieri (half) jokingly said was his priority.

This week Ranieri was quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport (via ESPN) as saying it is only now that what Leicester achieved in May is starting to sink in. Soon it will be time to move on. Sport is nothing if not a hard taskmaster.

He said: 

"

I thought about it today for the first time, I have to be honest, of how we did something that made a lot of people happy.

You won't believe it, but it's only listening to all that you've said about me that I realised how big a thing we did with Leicester, because credit must go to everybody for it.

"

If Leicester's league form can at best be generously described as patchy, it is in the UEFA Champions League where they have played their best football. 

Whisper it quietly for while the Premier League may now be well-acquainted with what Leicester are all about, there's nothing to say the rest of Europe won't be caught cold. 

Club Brugge and FC Porto will attest to that. 

Position at this stage last season: Eighth, with 12 points from seven matches. 

Results so far: Hull away - lost 2-1, Arsenal home - drew 0-0, Swansea home - won 2-1, Liverpool away - lost 4-1, Burnley home - won 3-0, Manchester United away - lost 4-1, Southampton home - drew 0-0.

Next six Premier League fixtures: Chelsea (a), Crystal Palace (h), Tottenham Hotspur (a), West Bromwich Albion (h), Watford (a), Middlesbrough (h).

What's Gone Right?

After suffering a 4-1 defeat at Manchester United at the back end of September, few would have been surprised had Leicester's home bow in the UEFA Champions League three days later proved the proverbial damp squib. 

On the contrary, the Foxes proved giant (dragon) slayers yet again as Porto were seen off 1-0, courtesy of a trademark Slimani header. His leap is so prodigious that pilots now circumnavigate the King Power Stadium when flying from East Midlands airport.

At the best part of £30 million for a 28-year-old, Slimani will never be described as a steal, but he's proving good value. In tandem with Jamie Vardy the Algerian could forge a gloriously unruly partnership. 

Imbued with a voracious work-rate and on the back of a 31-goal campaign with Sporting CP, Slimani has hit the ground running with three goals in his first five matches for the Foxes.

What Needs Work, and Can They Win it?

Already trailing Manchester City by 10 points, it looks as though Leicester's defence of the title is pretty much over before it really began. 

There was always going to be a significant lull—inevitable as night follows day—but the hangover might not have been so pronounced had they managed to navigate the first game of the season unscathed.

In losing at relegation favourites Hull City, it was as though Leicester had suffered an identity crisis. Unsure whether to play the counter-attacking game that served them so well last season, or dominate possession to force the issue against a clearly inferior side, they effectively did neither and lost 2-1. It's been a recurring theme.

"It's so difficult, in every game every team wants to beat us because we are the champions," Leonardo Ulloa told Leicester's official website, to the accompaniment of the world's smallest violin, after Southampton held them to a goalless draw at home last weekend.

Ranieri had the good grace to say Leicester were fortunate to get a point. 

With hindsight it seems remarkable how accommodating so many teams were last term in defending with a high line against Leicester, leaving acres of green field for Danny Drinkwater to chip balls into for Vardy to chase. It's not been anything like as easy this time around. 

In seven games this season they have suffered as many defeats as they did in the whole of last term. Losing 4-1 to a Liverpool side in riotous good form is one thing, but the abject manner of their performance in falling to the same scoreline at Manchester United was bordering on amateurish. 

Leicester got the basics all wrong at Old Trafford in conceding from three corners. If might seem harsh to say they are nowhere near good enough to not get the simple things right, but better that than to condescend in giving a free pass on the grounds of previous triumphs. 

Where once Leicester's man-mountain centre-halves Wes Morgan and Robert Huth would mark at set pieces with all the subtlety of rugby players in a lineout, now they fear the referee's whistle as football looks to clean up its (penalty-box) act.

Last season with something to hold on to in the second half of the campaign, Leicester's league matches had the charged atmosphere of a cup game. The sense of innate urgency that saw every tackle rewarded with its own private celebration is impossible to recreate.

The absence of Kante should not go unspoken of either, with Mendy understandably yet to fully get to grips with matching the on-field omnipresence of his predecessor. 

It wouldn't be the biggest surprise should Leicester struggle to even make the top eight, but then neither would it if they left at least a couple of European heavyweights with bloody noses. 

The next chapter in English football's most remarkable story may just prove to be the most interesting yet.

All stats provided by WhoScored.com unless otherwise stated.

Look out for our assessment of Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham on Monday.