-
More Ipswich woe
-
Cards for City v Saints
-
Goals backed at Goodison Park
-
Brentford v Ipswich (Sat, 15:00)
Ipswich remain winless after eight games and questions are being raised whether their style and/or quality is up to the Premier League following back-to-back promotions from League One.
They've scored the second fewest goals whilst conceding the third most. Brentford have finished 13th, 9th and 16th since their promotion to the Premier League in 2021 and find themselves in 13th despite a tough start to the season which has seen them play Man City, Liverpool, Tottenham and Man Utd all away from home.
However, at home to newly promoted sides is where they thrive. They've won seven of eight games scoring two or more in seven of them.
- 2-1 Watford
- 1-2 Norwich
- 2-0 Bournemouth
- 3-2 Fulham
- 2-1 Forest
- 3-0 Burnley
- 3-2 West Ham
- 3-1 Luton
Yoanne Wissa is back for the home side as well and between him and Bryan Mbeumo they have 19 goals in the last 21 games.
Back Brentford to beat Ipswich
Manchester City v Southampton (Sat, 15:00)
The Asian handicap is set at -2.5 here and let's be honest it's likely City will win by two or more goals having scored at least two or more in 16 of their last 17 Premier League games.
It's been an alarming start for Russell Martin's Southampton, losing seven of eight winless games, scoring just six goals. It could as uncompetitive as the 1/111.09 victory for the home side suggests, so I want to get on an angle I alluded to in midweek when City hosted Sparta Prague.
When you have an uncompetitive match it often leads to a low number of cards. Indeed under 3.5 cards is just 4/71.57 here and we know for a typical Premier League game this season we're now seeing lines of 5.5!
So when we have a low expectation it brings in the chance of the outsider winning. And it's surprising to see across Man City's 13 games this season, the opposition have only collected more cards on four occasions, with City also winning the count on four occasions (31%).
Three of those have come at the Etihad, including versus Fulham and Brentford, two teams of a similar profile to Southampton in terms of bottom half Premier League sides. So there is already a blueprint for a repeat.
The referee is Tony Harrington who has started the season by showing the lowest cards per-game in the league with just 3.50pg. As a result there looks a great chance of City causing an upset in the cards potentially winning in a 1-0/2-0/2-1 manner.
Everton v Fulham (Sat, 17:30)
Sean Dyche and Everton have steadied the ship following four straight defeats to start the season, with an unbeaten four game run including two wins.
Despite only winning three games, Fulham have been unlucky not to have won more with expected points ranking them 2nd - the biggest underachievers in the division! It's infront of goal where they've underperformed, scoring five goals fewer than their xG with Adama Traore the main culprit. However, if they continue to make chances, expect that to change.
Whenever Over 2.5 goals is priced as a 50-50 shot in the Premier League it's almost a no brainer to back the Overs. This season the average goals are 2.88 per-game following on from last seasons enormous leap of 3.28pg from 22/23's 2.85pg as a result of the increase in playing time with the additional injury time.
Everton's matches have seen 24 goals so far at an average of 3.0pg with six of their last nine seen over 2.5 goals, with Fulham's games having 22 goals at an average of 2.75pg resulting in 16 of their last 24 matches (67%) seeing over 2.5 goals.
Back Over 2.5 goals in Everton v Fulham