The second weekend of the Premier League season begins on Saturday where we have the rare species of seven matches being played out across the day with some decent action promised to be delivered among them.
This is a typical Saturday with the day bookended by the TV matches whereas the remainder of the games to be played out will come with the regular updates in all the usual places as the league begins to warm up to speed.
Early Kick Off
We begin the day down at the Amex Stadium where conditions could be a little on the rough side when Brighton and Hove Albion play their first home match of the campaign. There will be an excitement among the Seagulls’ fans after their fine win to open up the season last week and they will be eyeing up a shock win over Manchester United. United themselves started the campaign with a win last week so one of these could well move to six points at the earliest opportunity. This feels like a real test for the new Manchester United under Erik ten Hag and if the conditions allow a decent game of football should get the day started.
3pm Matches
There are five matches in the traditional 3pm slot on Saturday where the champions Manchester City probably headline the action. They host promoted Ipswich Town at the Etihad Stadium with the visitors a huge 35/1 to win in some places. Tottenham Hotspur flattered to deceive in midweek but they look to have the ideal chance to bounce back from that when they entertain an injury ravaged Everton for whom this looked like it could be a long season based on the disaster of their opening display.
We have a London derby on Saturday afternoon as well as Crystal Palace begin life without Joachim Andersen and Jordan Ayew when they welcome a reinforced West Ham United to Selhurst Park. The other two promoted sides are in action in the other two games. Southampton play their first home game back in the Premier League when Nottingham Forest are the visitors to St Mary’s while Leicester City look to build on the point that they picked up on Monday night when they travel to the capital to take on Fulham.
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Late Game
We save the best for last on Saturday as two of the top four from last season meet at Villa Park as Aston Villa take on Arsenal. The reverse fixture cos the Gunners the title last term and completed a double for the Villans over their London rivals and it will be interesting to see if that form stands up or whether Arsenal can overcome their first big test of the season. Villa look stronger on paper this time around while Arsenal are steadily improving their squad. Both teams go into this one off the back of victories and so we should round off the day with a really good match.
Betting
I like bets in a couple of the matches on Saturday with the first of them coming in the match between Manchester City and Ipswich Town. I don’t think we are breaking the realms of possibility by expecting City to win this game and potentially win it well but rather than take them to cover monster handicaps I’m going to take Erling Haaland to score twice and have a smaller bet on him to score a hat trick. Haaland scored five braces and two hat tricks in the Premier League last season and more in the FA Cup and Champions League. Among his multi-goal victims were Burnley and Everton so he can feed on sides who sit deep. I don’t think Ipswich will do that because I don’t think they have the players to do it. Haaland looked lively last week and got on the scoresheet against Chelsea and given his record in a City shirt and the amount of goals that Ipswich concede the 2/1 on a brace and 15/2 on a hat trick feel a little on the high side to me.
The other bet I like is for Aston Villa to cover their Asian handicap line against Arsenal in some way. If you want to be brave you could just take the solid odds against double chance for Villa or the draw but I like a little extra juice on my lines at this stage of the season so I’m going to go with the Villans with the +0.75 goal start which at least gets us half of our stake back should Arsenal win by a single goal. We still win in full should Villa avoid defeat and having done the double over Arsenal last season that is very possible because Unai Emery has recruited in the positions he has lost players and the depth of this Villa squad looks better than it did last term whereas Arsenal are still building the extra depth that they want. Villa Park was very tough for sides to go last season with the home side averaging over two points per game there and I don’t think Villa are getting the respect they should from the layers here. I thought they were very good in game one whereas Arsenal looked just a little laboured. I expect Arsenal to come good but I would be surprised if they go to Villa and win by two. I’ll take Villa to get us a return of some kind here and recent history suggests it can be the full win.
Tips
Back E.Haaland to score 2 or more goals for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Bet365
Back E.Haaland to score a hat trick for a 1/10 stake at 8.50 with 888sport
Back him here:
Back Aston Villa (+0.75AH) to beat Arsenal for a 3/10 stake at 1.92 with Bet365
