Premier League crisis index: Who’s plunging into a punishment vortex after Week 2?

As we go into the 25th season of the Premier League, it’s time to face up to its impact. Not only has it changed football — for good and ill — but it’s altered the very language we use. The word “crisis” used to be reserved for extreme circumstances; now, it is a permanent presence in the game.

The CRISIS is its own power. It is always with us. All we have to do is work out where it should be allocated this week …

Third place on this list is generally going to be reserved for teams who haven’t quite tumbled into full CRISIS, but aren’t too far away. In Arsenal’s case, this 1-0 loss against Stoke might turn out to be meaningless. But it might also have been a distant rumble of thunder, the first twitch of the seismograph, a couple of notes on a ominous cello.

Arsenal, of course, are always CRISIS-adjacent, and last weekend we were only denied a full meltdown by Olivier Giroud’s large head. This time around, the fact that Alexandre Lacazette’s disallowed goal might have been given, in some other universe, by a linesperson guessing the other way, seems to have managed to defuse the situation. Sure, there have been a few curious selection choices, and there are plenty of unresolved transfer issues hanging over the squad, but everything’s just about holding together. Just about …

Away to Liverpool next weekend? Hooray!

Nice and convenient, when the CRISIS shifts between two teams playing one another. In some swanky bar in the bowels of New Wembley, Chelsea’s officials were able to hand over the CRISIS briefcases with a smile and a quip, provoking a rueful grin from their Spurs counterparts.

Like Chelsea last week, Tottenham’s visit to the halls of CRISIS need only be a fleeting one. A solid, stylish Wembley win next weekend, with a couple of goals from Harry Kane, and everything will be just fine. Their momentum will be restored, their bid for glory will be back on track, and their new house will start to feel like a home.

But until then … well, let’s just say that failing to break down an injury- and suspension-riddled Chelsea side, and then getting sucker punched, is more or less precisely what didn’t need to happen. As well as all the nonsense surrounding the New Wembley Curse, there are questions to be asked about Spurs’ inability to generate good chances, about the depth of the squad, about their discipline, and all the other little imperfections that are keeping Spurs just that little bit Spursy.

And if this was the moment that the New Wembley Curse renewed itself for a full season? Then this could be a very long season indeed.

Oh dear. Losing to Tottenham is the kind of thing that shouldn’t worry a newly promoted team too badly: They are quite good, after all, our previous entry notwithstanding. But losing to one of the other newbies is a definite cause for concern, particularly when said newbies finished 13 points behind Newcastle last season.

We can only conclude that Huddersfield Town, over the summer, spent some time coming to terms with what promotion to the Premier League really meant. And that they have done what needed to be done: The players have upped their games; David Wagner has devised ever more subtle and ingenious plans; the hierarchy above him have invested wisely and in harmony with their coach’s wishes.

Meanwhile Newcastle, returning sort-of-big beasts, have turned up with an attitude of: we’re back, and we’re Newcastle, so what could possibly go wrong?

You’d think they’d remember what being Newcastle actually implies. CRISIS. CRISIS by the bucketload. CRISIS all over the floor. CRISIS in your face. With Rafa Benitez starting to make ominous noises and no sign of any coherent identity, and with Jonjo Shelvey due to return at some point, they could be sat up here at No. 1 for a while.