Premier League Form Guide: Chelsea visit Manchester City with fourth at stake
Freebies for Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United in the top flight’s first-day flip?
This weekend is opening day backwards in English football’s top division.
The Premier League fixture list on Saturday and Sunday mirrors the first weekend of the 2024/25 season, pitting Manchester City against Chelsea and AFC Bournemouth against Nottingham Forest in the pick of the games.
Could Leicester City’s visit to Tottenham Hotspur result in the first football match in history lost by both teams? Only time will tell.
AFC Bournemouth v Nottingham Forest
Andoni Iraola has made AFC Bournemouth one of the Premier League’s most dangerous teams.
They now have the third-highest expected goals (xG) total but they’re under-performing it by 6.4 goals. To me, at least, that suggests there’s more to come. To be saying that about a Cherries side on the coattails of the top six teams in England still feels surreal.
Third-placed Nottingham Forest are level on points with Arsenal and they’re an outlier in xG terms – theirs is the sixth-lowest in the league. Chris Wood is scoring and Morgan Gibbs-White is among their in-form attacking players but Forest have built their 2024/25 success on limiting chances at the other end.
Forest’s last win over Bournemouth came in the Championship in 2015. They’ve played one another nine times since then, most recently a 1-1 draw on the opening weekend of this season.
Brighton & Hove Albion v Everton
They’ve played a game fewer than everybody else apart from Liverpool but it’s noteworthy that Everton have the eighth-lowest expected goals against (xGA) total in the Premier League this season. David Moyes needs to maintain that and get the Toffees scoring. That’s it. Smacking three past Tottenham Hotspur wasn’t a bad start.
Brighton & Hove Albion have quietly put together a decent run of form, following four draws over the festive period with back-to-back away wins against Ipswich Town and Manchester United in the middle of January. Kaoru Mitoma and Georginio Rutter have each scored two of Brighton’s five goals in those wins.
Everton have won only one of their last six games against Brighton, a 5-1 win at the Amex Stadium in May 2023. Dwight McNeil and Abdoulaye Doucouré scored a pair apiece.
Liverpool v Ipswich Town
Liverpool have scored 50 goals and won 50 points in the Premier League this season. On Saturday, they put their league-leading xG total of 49.4 goals – again, the Reds and Everton have played a game fewer than everyone else – up against Ipswich Town’s 20.0, the lowest of the lot.
Arne Slot’s Reds also have the lowest xGA at just 18.8 over 21 games while Ipswich have an xGA of 45.0, the second-highest in the Premier League. Three teams have conceded more actual goals. (Yes, it’s those three.)
Ipswich are winless in three, and they’ve won one and drawn one of their last six games. They’ve lost seven of the last ten and last weekend’s 6-0 walloping at the hands of Manchester City was a most unwelcome deterioration in their fortunes.
Southampton v Newcastle United
Newcastle United couldn’t have asked for a better fixture as they look to bounce back from giving up their long winning run against Bournemouth. Southampton have the highest xGA in the Premier League by a mile and have conceded more actual goals than everyone but Wolverhampton Wanderers.
The Saints are growing more pathetic by the week. At the other end, they have the fourth-lowest xG in the league and are under-performing even that by eight clear goals, the biggest differential of any side. Six points from 22 games is the result. Dismal.
When penalties are excluded, the Magpies have scored exactly the expected number of goals. Alexander Isak has scored or assisted more than half of those 38 goals. He’s out-scoring his personal xG by more than two.
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Arsenal
Wolves have out-scored their total xG for the season by the most of any team in the Premier League this season and it’s not even close – Wolves have scored 8.6 more than expected, Forest next in line with 5.5 more than expected. They’ll need quality of chances and the ability to take them if they’re going to spring a surprise on Saturday.
After three matches unbeaten, Wolves are now three without a win and have scored just once in those three games, namely Matt Doherty’s close-range finish in defeat to Chelsea on Monday night.
The Gunners have lost only twice in the Premier League this season and are unbeaten in 13 games. Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka scored the goals in the reverse fixture, each providing the assist for the other.
Manchester City v Chelsea
Manchester City are getting there, slowly but surely. They’re unbeaten in five matches since Boxing Day, winning three, and their dismantling of Ipswich last Sunday suggested their key scorers are sharpening up in front of goal again too.
But there’s a catch. In their previous five, City played Brentford, West Ham United, Leicester City and Everton. They need a proper test and they’ll be getting one with the visit of Chelsea for the teatime kick-off on Saturday.
Chelsea are one of only two teams with an xG higher than two goals per 90 minutes and have recovered from a winter wobble against Fulham and Ipswich over Christmas. Their three-game unbeaten run in the league in 2025 has only yielded a win against Wolves. Like City, the Blues will learn a bit about themselves on Saturday.
Crystal Palace v Brentford
One of Sunday’s early kick-offs is a meeting of two teams locked together in mid-table. Brentford are no longer winless away from home but have still picked up just five points away from West London, so Crystal Palace will be eyeing up an opportunity to take all three at Selhurst Park and go past the Bees into eleventh.
Brentford have won twice in December and January, so Thomas Frank will be especially eager to follow the thumping win at Southampton with a second away victory on the bounce. It’s a tall order – it might be a relatively small sample size but Brentford haven’t won at Selhurst since 1957.
The Eagles have rebuilt their form impressively under Oliver Glasner after a poor start to the season and their tactical approach explains why they’ve collected more points away than they have at home.
Tottenham Hotspur v Leicester City
Look at all that red! Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City have played a combined total of nineteen matches in December and January: two wins and three draws are all they have to show for it.
Spurs’ +10 goal difference in the bottom six of the league has become a running joke and they’re in a similar position with an xG total of 37.8, the fifth highest in the Premier League behind four of the top seven.
The Foxes have now lost seven league fixtures in a row and failed to score in five of those matches. They’re yet to claim a single point away from home since Ruud van Nistelrooy replaced Steve Cooper as manager.
Aston Villa v West Ham United
The penultimate game of the weekend is a repeat of Aston Villa’s FA Cup Third Round tie against West Ham United. Villa had to come from behind to win that one and have developed a tendency to do things the hard way. In their last two games they’ve clawed back a two-goal deficit at Arsenal and fallen to a damaging defeat against Monaco in the Champions League.
West Ham have won two and drawn one of the last six in the league but there’s nothing easy about the opposition they faced in those games. Well, Southampton is easy. But at least they won it.
The reverse fixture was the origin of the great Jhon Durán mythos. The Villa striker was linked with a move to West Ham last summer and even threw up the Hammers. Then he swept in the winning goal against them on opening day and the rest is history. His future remains in doubt.
Fulham v Manchester United
An unusual 7.00pm Sunday kick-off rounds off the weekend as Manchester United travel to Craven Cottage to take on a Fulham side who’ve lost only once in the league since the start of December. They have, however, drawn their last four at home.
Thirteenth place is most unfitting of the Red Devils and not the least bit amusing, no sir. Since their derby win over Manchester City in December, they’ve lost four out of six fixtures and beaten only Southampton at home. Drawing at Anfield in that run seems as indicative of a problem as a positive.
When penalties are excluded, United are under-performing their xG by 7.2 goals, more than anyone else in the Premier League.
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