The second Super Sunday of the Premier League season includes one of the matches of the season as Man City host Chelsea in the second game of the day. Prior to that Crystal Palace host Arsenal in a London derby to kick off a big day of action.
Crystal Palace started off the season with a solid win at Norwich last weekend while Arsenal were failing at home to West Ham. That defeat puts the pressure on them to get something out of this match as nobody wants to begin the campaign with two defeats.
Palace’s win over Norwich last week has the opposite effect on them. They can approach this one with nothing to lose and in front of their passionate fans they won’t lack for support. Even were Palace to lose this one they would have taken three points from their opening two matches.
Marouane Chamakh won’t be available to face his former club as he has been ruled out with injury. Julien Speroni is another who won’t be around for this match as he is still out injured too but Alan Pardew has a full strength squad to pick from apart from that duo.
Alexis Sanchez is available from the start of this match having missed the majority of last week’s defeat after returning to training later than everyone else due to the Copa America. Jack Wilshere, Danny Welbeck and Tomas Rosicky all remain on the sidelines with injury. Hector Bellarin has recovered from injury and he will start.
This is a real banana skin for Arsenal. You would think they will have enough to come through it but after last week it is hard to back them with any confidence. I actually wouldn’t put anyone off the 4/1 on Palace sneaking this but however the match goes I do expect to see some goals.
Arsenal can’t just turn up and grind out a win after last week. They need to make some sort of impression but Palace will go right at them in this match. We’ve seen before that Pardew hates losing to Wenger so Palace will be well up for this one. I think that will lead to some goals and at 17/20 I like over 2.5 here. We saw Arsenal can be opened up last week and we saw the same about Palace so goals should come in this one.
The main attention will be on the Etihad Stadium though on Sunday as Man City host Chelsea in a battle of last season’s top two. Man City laid down a real marker last week while Chelsea stumbled at home to Swansea.
City have Yaya Toure available here despite him leaving the field early on Monday night. He has recovered from whatever knock he had in that game. Sergio Aguero is in line to start too having started on the bench last week. Gael Clichy could also return but Fabian Delph is still out with his pre-season injury.
Chelsea will be without Thibaut Courtois after his sending off last week. Asmir Begovic will replace him. There is also a doubt about Oscar too while we don’t really know if Diego Costa is fully fit or not.
Things don’t seem absolutely perfect at Chelsea at the minute. They have this weird saga going on between Jose Mourinho and the medical staff which strikes me as strange and they’ve looked woeful both in pre-season and last week against Swansea. I wouldn’t normally go against Chelsea or back them to lose but this looks like a good time for City to play them and I think they are worth taking on the Asian lines.
Back Crystal Palace vs Arsenal – Over 2.5 goals for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with BetVictor
Back Man City (-0.25AH) to beat Chelsea for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with BetVictor
Blog football YTD: -17pts
