Premier League weekend wrap-up: Villa unstoppable, late-game luck for Arsenal and crunch time for Spurs

There's still one more match left to play in Matchweek 16 of the Premier League, with Manchester United set to host Bournemouth on Monday, but the bulk of the games are in the books.

Among the more notable results from the weekend were Aston Villa's narrow victory in London, Arsenal avoiding disaster against the league's worst team, and Tottenham failing to show up against Nottingham Forest.

Here are some of the bigger talking points from the weekend matches in Matchweek 16.

Nine straight wins for Aston Villa

Since losing to Liverpool on Nov. 1, Aston Villa have run off nine consecutive victories in an incredible run of games for Unai Emery's men.

Among those nine victories are six in the Premier League, with the other three coming in the Europa League. Villa's most recent win, a 3-2 result in London against West Ham United, saw the team erase two separate leads en route to claiming the three points, with Morgan Rogers finding the back of the net twice while an own goal rounded out the scoring for the visitors.

It wasn't the cleanest of performances, especially since it came against relegation-threatened West Ham, but Villa won't care as they are now the hottest team in England and are very much in the Premier League title hunt.

Considering how poorly the team got out of the gates to start the 2025-26 campaign, their current status both domestically and in Europe is nothing short of astonishing.

Arsenal breathe a sigh of relief

While much of the current narrative in the Premier League centers on Aston Villa, the Gunners are still the league leaders.

They churned out another victory over the weekend, although Mikel Arteta was not happy with how his team performed in the 2-1 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Wolves have been a guaranteed win for nearly every side they've faced so far this season, and they entered Saturday's match with a -26 goal difference, so the expectation was that the encounter at Emirates Stadium would be a comfortable formality for Arsenal.

Instead, it was anything but, as the Gunners could not penetrate the Wolves' defence until the 70th minute despite a massive advantage in possession (70-30) and shots (17-3), and they let the visitors back into the game with a 90th-minute goal from Tolu Arokodare that seemed to doom Arsenal to a shock draw.

However, it was another own goal, this one in the fourth minute of stoppage time, that saved Arsenal's blushes and allowed the North Londoners to escape with a victory that kept them on top of the standings.

Tottenham in trouble

Things are looking all too familiar for Tottenham these days after a 3-0 loss at Nottingham Forest on Sunday.

That loss means Spurs have failed to win four of their last five games in the Premier League, with three of those being losses. That leaves the club in 11th place with 22 points after 16 matches — just four points above 16th-place Forest.

Given that Spurs finished 17th last year and enjoyed a good start to the current campaign under first-year manager Thomas Frank, the team's position is extremely disappointing and will certainly lead to questions about Frank's long-term future.

For his part, Frank says there's no "quick fix" for Tottenham, and he believes he'll be the one entrusted to help turn things around, but one has to wonder how much leeway he'll be given when considering Tottenham's recent history of failure in the league.

How to watch the Premier League in Canada

Soccer fans in Canada can watch every Premier League match during the 2025-26 season on DAZN.

With Fubo Sports on DAZN, Canadians can catch Premier League action as well as Serie A. Additionally, DAZN is the home of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Conference League, Bundesliga, and more.

For pricing information and to sign up to watch, click here.