It’s the final week before another international break in club football but the Premier League is serving up a fascinating set of fixtures before the weekend off.
Table topping Liverpool will be kicking off the action with a trip to Crystal Palace as they look to extend their strong start to the season.
Manchester City, Arsenal and Aston Villa will all be eager to build on impressive midweek Champions League victories with the Villains hosting Manchester United in the match of the weekend.
Check out our tips and previews for all ten fixtures below.
There really is not a lot to like about Palace heading into this fixture with the Eagles still winless in the league and really battling to score the necessary goals.
They have only scored more than one goal once in the EPL and Liverpool’s resolute defence is going to be really tough to break down.
Meanwhile at the other end of the pitch, the Reds forwards are in fine form and should have no problems breaching the leaky Palace backline.
Fatigue is the only thing that is going to stop Arsenal coming away with all three points in this fixture.
Between September 14 and October 1, the Gunners have played six matches starting with three straight away matches against Tottenham, Atalanta and Arsenal before returning home for Bolton, Leicester and PSG.
Perhaps Mikel Arteta will opt to rotate some of his key players through this week and we might see the likes of Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling, Jakub Kiwior from the start, plus some minutes for a few young players.
The good news for the Gunners is that Southampton look like the least competent opponent of this run and as long as the starting 11 come out and do their job, this should be a pretty comfortable victory.
Brentford might not be the best team in the Premier League but they are at least producing results to give punters some confidence in their capabilities.
The same cannot be said for their opponents this week with Wolves in all sorts of trouble through six weeks of action.
The visitors have just one point to date and until they show some signs of life, they are firmly in the back against until they give a reason not to territory.
Leicester might still feel as though they could have taken something from the Emirates last weekend but a collapse in second half stoppage time made it six Premier League fixtures without a win.
Unlike certain other winless teams though, Leicester have shown signs of life and it comes down to their attack which is producing something most weeks.
However defensively they are dealing with some problems and Bournemouth are not exactly watertight at the back either.
Perhaps this is the week Leicester finally break through and get their win, there might be more pain for the Foxes but I like the chances of this being a wild and high scoring contest.
Fulham might have gone under the radar a bit this season but with 11 points from their six matches to date, they might have the quality to at least give City some problems.
No matter which way you try and justify it though, you can’t back City to drop points in three straight Premier League fixtures unless the entire first team squad and probably most of the reserves are unavailable and the backroom staff are forced to don the kit and cover for the week.
With City still adjusting to life without Rodri in midfield, they might not be able to control the match the way they are used to but they have the attacking firepower to go and outscore teams like Fulham which is what I’m expecting them to do here.
Ipswich have become the Premier League’s draw specialists having had to settle for a share of the points in their last four matches.
West Ham have drawn two of their last three Premier League matches as well so you can kind of guess where this tip is heading.
Neither of these teams really inspire a whole lot of confidence in their ability to win, but they have shown enough fight to give me some confidence they will avoid a loss.
Let’s go for some real big value and back the spoils to be shared at halftime and fulltime.
Some of these tips do not require a whole lot of deep thought and this is the most straightforward play available this weekend.
Everton might have finally won a match last weekend but beating Crystal Palace is not exactly winning hearts and minds given the current state of that club.
Newcastle is a much tougher opponent for the Toffees and I’m fully expecting them to be put back in their place.
What a week it has been for Villa and it could get even better if they can pick up all three points from this home date with the struggling Man United.
They hosted their first Champions League match at Villa Park during the week and managed to defeat Bayern Munich in front of a raucous home support.
Now they have a reeling opponent coming to town and I’m not convinced United will be fighting that hard to save the embattled Erik ten Haag.
As long as Villa show up ready to go in this match, they should easily account for their opponents.
20 years ago Chelsea were a rigid and let’s be fair, frustrating side to watch, especially when they were irritating whichever non-Chelsea club you supported.
But in 2024, the Blues are just fun to watch because they are scoring a boatload of goals and not great defensively so their matches really can go in any direction.
If they are wasteful this weekend, Forest is well placed to take advantage of those follies but with Cole Palmer carrying this team the way he is at the moment, that doesn’t seem likely.
Chelsea should win and we’ll almost certainly see a fair few goals too.
On their day, Spurs are pretty damn good under the tutelage of Ange Postecoglou, but even he can’t fully separate the club from their innate… Spursiness.
However they can take a massive step in the right direction this weekend when they travel to face Brighton on the back of a big win over Man United last Sunday night.
The Seagulls are winless in their last four league matches and I’ll back them to lose their second game of the season here.