The thing is that there are only a few guys with equally excellent CX technique, and none of them come close to Mathieu's engine. I'm 200% convinced Wout has the extra horsepower, but on these courses, either he can't use those, or he loses more time due to technique. Guys like Meeusen are probably on par with Mathieu on a technical level, and i'm guessing mini Nys is or at least will be even better, but it would take someone with Wout's engine and Mathieu's technique to repeatedly beat Mathieu.
That said, i've seen 3 races where i think Wout was better so far, and that's 3 more than the last 2 seasons. I feel Wout was better in Namur, but he lost because Mathieu was more cunning. Then he lost one and won one due to mechanicals. And there was Dendermonde.
You say Mathieu lost Gavere because it was only his second race... but he lost it to Pidcock who also had just started a week earlier. So that's not a fair conclusion. It should also be said that while we expected Iserbyt to put some heat on Mathieu, he (Eli) has been most unfortunate with mechanicals and crashes right at the start, and then his injury as well. Though, after all is said and done, it still seems the only one able to give Mathieu a beating, is Wout. And for that, he has to ride as perfectly as possible and have a good day. Simply "not making mistakes" isn't even enough. I've said it before, but Mathieu takes half a second at every corner, twist, obstacle, and does so while not breaking a sweat, purely based on technique. He takes corners and obstacles at a higher speed, meaning he gains time, meaning he doesn't have to accelerate as much to get going again, meaning he burns less matches. That's 10-20 seconds worth of effort that Wout (and others) have to dig deeper in order not to lose ground. You can do this for two, three, four laps, but you can't keep doing that for 8 or 9 laps.