Premier League Predictions Matchday 2
Everton 2-0 WBA
Leeds 2-1 Fulham
Manchester Utd 2-1 Palace
Arsenal 3-0 West Ham
Southampton 2-1 Tottenham
Newcastle 1-0 Brighton
Chelsea 2-2 Liverpool
Leicester 2-0 Burnley
Aston Villa 1-0 Sheffield Utd
Wolves 1-1 Manchester City
Summary-
Chelsea’s clash with Liverpool is the first game of the season between the so-called top 6, however, the party of 6 were gate-crashed by Leicester last season, and after solid starts last weekend by Leicester, Wolves and Everton – who actually won at Spurs – we could witness another disruption to the perceived hierarchy. Spurs are coming off a worryingly poor performance last Sunday and trip to Bulgaria yesterday, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see them struggle again, as they travel to Southampton on Sunday. The signing of Gareth Bale can’t come soon enough, with North Londoners desperately needing to add more threat and potency to Mourinho’s counter-punch approach.
Elsewhere, I am expecting Everton and Leicester to continue their winning starts, while Wolves are unlikely to lie down for Manchester City’s season opener. The aforementioned Manchester City, along with Manchester United, begin their EPL campaigns this week, after sitting out Matchday 1, due to their European exploits. United open up at home to Palace, and I’m expecting Palace to be far more difficult to beat than people anticipate, based solely on Palace’s poor form at the end of last season. It needs to be noted that all of those games were highly insignificant to Palace, whereas this is a new season, which already saw Palace open with a win against Southampton last weekend.
Game of the Week: Chelsea vs Liverpool
Following a massive summer outlay that saw the Chelsea snap up the liked Timo Werner, Kai Havertz and Hakim Ziyech among others, much bigger things are expected of Chelsea this season, and on Sunday, Frank Lampard’s new-look team face an early test of their credentials, against reigning Premier League Champions.
Chelsea opened up their season with a routine 3-1 win at Brighton, landing us our first EPL Lock of the season, while Liverpool started their Premier League title defense with a thrilling 4-3 triumph over newly promoted Leeds at Anfield. While the game made for an exhilarating watch, Liverpool needed 2 penalties to secure the win, and were opened up all too often by Marcelo Bielsa’s Leeds. Even more worryingly, the Reds’ defensive record now shows just 2 clean sheets in their last 16 competitive fixtures.
The magnitude of Chelsea’s summer business becomes more evident by looking at my combined XI, with 4 of the 5 signings making it into an XI, going up against last season’s dominant champions. Both Werner and Havertz were 2 players that many experts felt that Liverpool desperately needed to add to their own squad, however, despite Klopp’s German connection, it was Chelsea who captured the much sought after duo. Frank Lampard got to see both Ben Chilwell and Thiago Silva return to training this week – which means that he could opt to immediately add the pair to his defense for Sunday.
Prediction-
The Reds won just 50% of their last 16 competitive fixtures and just 2 of their last 8 on the road, while Chelsea have won each of their last 7 domestic fixtures at Stamford Bridge. With that in mind, I’d be very surprised to see Liverpool pick up a win here and I am keen to fade them as unworthy 11/10 favorites.
Despite their summer business, the Blues certainly aren’t solid at the back, and the Merseysiders have managed to score 11 times in last five clashes with Chelsea, dating back to April 2019. The data indicates that goal are given this Sunday.
Prediction- Chelsea 2 Liverpool 2
Best bet- Over 2.5 and BTTS @10/11
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