Roberto Martínez described Everton’s laboured win against Norwich in midweek as a fantastic cup tie, the sort anyone would want to pay to see, but the relentlessly positive manager was probably in a minority of one with that opinion.

Everton were jeered off at half-time – that’s how fantastic it was – and during a particularly tedious opening half-hour when spectators were practically poking each other with sharp objects in order to stay awake someone ventured the opinion that this was shaping up to be the most tedious Premier League season for some time.

Yes, of course it was a Capital One Cup tie, and as such exempt from general criticism of the Premier League. Managers make so many changes these days, and have so little desire to go all the way in that particular competition, that it is hard to believe any result counts as a shock, whether it is the holders going out at Stoke City, Arsenal coming a cropper at Sheffield Wednesday or Manchester United being beaten by Middlesbrough. If a team have pressing concerns in the league or the Champions League, and Arsenal, Chelsea and United certainly have those at the moment, Capital One obligations usually become an early casualty.

Back to Everton, though, because it was the dullness of the fare in a meeting of two Premier League sides that stood out. It was like the Manchester derby all over again, except no one apart from Gary Neville would care for the Manchester derby all over again. The wider point is that a quarter of the way into the Premier League fixture list, the top flight of English football is still waiting for take-off. Can you name any thrilling games? Great performances? Memorable European nights? It just does not seem to be happening yet, unless we are going to count Sergio Agüero’s five goals in 23 minutes against hapless Newcastle or Arsenal finally getting their European campaign going in the nick of time.

OK, fair enough, Leicester City and Jamie Vardy are a good story and they have been involved in some exciting comebacks to keep their run of results going. But does a team such as Leicester threatening the European positions indicate a healthy level of competition within the Premier League, or is it a sign that everyone else’s standards have fallen? One could almost say the same about Arsenal topping the league last week. Does this finally mean that Arsène Wenger has been on the right track all along and is now poised to make a serious challenge for the title, or are Arsenal where they are because Chelsea and Manchester United have disappointed this season?

Chelsea have generally represented a benchmark for English quality but are struggling and are 11 points off the top of the table. Photograph: Matt Dunham/AP

Chelsea have been the big no-show at the Premier League party, and while that is arguably no great loss on the entertainment front, the inability of José Mourinho and his squad to keep up the expected standards implies a loss of quality at the top end of the table. Chelsea have traditionally been hard to beat and a model of consistency. With Manchester United in slow decline for the past few years and Manchester City blowing hot and cold, Chelsea have generally represented a benchmark for English quality, the one club you could always rely on to have an interest in the title and put up a respectable performance in Europe.

Take that away and it becomes harder to judge the rest. United, it is fair to say, are not leaping ahead with football of the future under Louis van Gaal. They have slowed down their game, cut out the risks and become more predictable, and so has Wayne Rooney. Anthony Martial, surely signed as an attacking spearhead, has found himself shunted to the wing to allow his captain an extraordinarily generous amount of time to find his form in the middle, while Memphis Depay, not quite as dashing and adventurous a signing as was first billed, has found himself out of the side.

Van Gaal tinkers as if he has one or two more “transitional” seasons before things start to get serious, and at this rate could still be talking of potential rather than achievement when his time at Old Trafford is up.

City, in contrast, know exactly how they want to play but have been unlucky with injuries, as has happened in the past. They have built their system around David Silva and Agüero, and inevitably suffer when both are absent at the same time. Manuel Pellegrini’s side at least have the potential to excite. When everyone is fit they can offer football of the highest quality, but even the most optimistic City supporters are becoming resigned to the fact that Agüero, in particular, rarely completes a full season.

On the injury front, however, no one has it as bad as Liverpool, where even the arrival of Jürgen Klopp has had to take a back seat to the almost daily bulletins of bad news from the treatment room. Klopp might come good in the end – with the limited resources he is working with at present it is too early to tell – though what can be said with certainty is that it will be a while before Liverpool are back in the sort of entertainment business that flourished all too briefly under Brendan Rodgers.

Liverpool are at Chelsea on Saturday, normally a fixture filled with excitement and possibility, yet Mourinho and Klopp are so short of wins it could easily turn out to be another cautious arm wrestle along the lines of the Manchester derby. If you had been told a couple of years ago that Mourinho and Klopp would soon be facing each other in the Premier League the prospect would have appealed, yet the present reality is more mundane and compromised than might initially have been imagined.

Rather too much of the Premier League is currently like that. West Ham and Crystal Palace supporters might be happy, but taking an overall view this is not shaping up to be a classic season. It has long been said that while the absolute quality might be elsewhere, the Premier League can always be relied upon for entertainment and drama on the pitch. Someone had better have a word, in that case, with most of the title contenders. And Chelsea.