Welcome to week two of The Athletic’s Premier League performance table — the sort of ranking system Crystal Palace manager Pierre Sage refuses to take any comfort from.In case you missed week one, this isn’t the official standings, where results are the be-all and end-all.In our performance-based take, there’s a clean slate at the start of each gameweek, which means you can go from top to bottom (and vice versa) in the space of a few days, with the one-to-20 rankings assessed purely on how well each team played in their previous match.How do we decide that? By watching all 10 Premier League games in full across the past four days, dissecting where it went right and wrong, and arguing with a teenage son at the end of it all about why Brentford are above Chelsea.If there was angst last week about Fulham deserving to be higher after an entertaining 3-2 defeat to Chelsea, there’s no such concern on the back of their miserable display in losing 1-0 at Sunderland. Other teams in this gameweek were far trickier to judge, in particular Brighton & Hove Albion, who were part of a wild seven-goal thriller at Stamford Bridge.If nothing else, the summaries below provide you with a weekly snapshot of each team’s performances in the 2026-27 Premier League. And, naturally, you’ll be in full agreement with each and every word, given that it’s a totally subjective process.1. Manchester City (last week: 10th)Crystal Palace 1-4 Manchester CityT​wo ​trademark goals for Erling Haaland, two for Rayan Cherki, and two assists for Phil Foden. This was City playing with confidence, control and, in the case of Cherki, swagger.If Cherki was poor before the interval (the Frenchman chose a different word, which would require asterisks, to describe his first-half performance), he was sensational after it, especially with his Ricky Villa-esque solo goal.