Premier League Predictions: Man City vs Liverpool, Spurs v Man United, and the rest of Matchday 11 – The Athletic
Welcome to week 11 of The Athletic’s Premier League predictions challenge, where I’m expecting a bleak weekend on the goals front.
After 100 matches, this is on course to be the lowest-scoring Premier League campaign since 2017-18. The average goals per game has dropped from 3.28 in 2023-24 to 2.93 last season and a miserable 2.68 goals so far this term.
Since I wrote about it at length a few weeks ago, the scoring rate has increased — but not dramatically. No fewer than seven teams (including Aston Villa and Newcastle United) are scoring at a rate of one goal a game or worse. Sunderland are fourth in the table, having scored 1.2 goals per game.
In week four, there were just 19 goals scored in 10 games — and, having studied the fixtures, I’m inclined to predict a similarly low return this weekend. A lot of the games have the potential to be tight, so I’ve gone for three 1-0s, three 1-1s and three 2-0s before Manchester City and Liverpool, top of the bill, bring a little more attacking quality on Sunday afternoon.
It got me wondering about the lowest-scoring gameweek of the Premier League era. The answer is November 2001, when there was a weekend in which just 10 goals were scored in 10 games: four 0-0s, four 1-0s, a 1-1, and finally, a far more memorable 3-1 victory for Arsenal over Manchester United at Highbury.
The highest-scoring gameweek of the Premier League era? That would be the crazy final day of the 1992-93 season, when there were 53 goals scored across 11 matches. But it comes as no surprise that the next four on that list were all in the first half of this decade — before the recent (and in my opinion regrettable) reversion towards a less expansive, more low-risk approach built around set pieces.
Still, if there is one positive to a drop in the number of goals, it means scorelines should, in theory, be easier to predict.
Each week since the season began, four of us — a guest subscriber, six-year-old Wilfred, an algorithm, and I — have been predicting the Premier League results.
We are awarding three points for a correct scoreline and one point for a correct result. We are also awarding a bonus point for any “unique” correct prediction, so, for example, I got four points for being the only one to call Manchester City’s 3-1 victory over Bournemouth, but only the standard three points for predicting Arsenal’s 2-0 win at Burnley.
With two correct scorelines and another five correct results, I ended up with 13 points. On top of that, thanks to an eagle-eyed editor, I was belatedly awarded a bonus point for predicting Manchester United to beat Brighton a week earlier. After a poor run of predictions over the previous few weeks, I’m now back to within one point of the algorithm at the top of the table.
Wilf’s impressive recent surge was slowed down somewhat by a series of near-misses, and it was a similar story for our guest subscriber, Hari, a Liverpool supporter from south London. It’s a cruel game.
This week’s guest subscriber is Weston, a 30-year-old Manchester City fan from Hoboken, New Jersey. I think I can guess what he will pick as the game of the week. If my predictions are anywhere near accurate, that might apply in terms of entertainment value as well as high stakes.
Our subscriber’s match of the week
Man City vs Liverpool, Sunday, 4.30pm UK/11.30am ET
Weston says: “If City or Liverpool were to lose this match, they may fall too far behind a cruising Arsenal team that rarely concedes goals. Erling Haaland proved he is a cyborg last weekend after scoring two at the Etihad against Bournemouth’s outrageously high back line. Arne Slot’s Liverpool did beat City handily in both fixtures last season, but Haaland will bulldoze through Liverpool’s shaky defense.”
Man City 2-1 Liverpool
Oli says: “It came as a surprise to realise Manchester City have beaten Liverpool just once in their last eight Premier League meetings — and that was in April 2023 when Liverpool were at a low ebb and Pep Guardiola’s team were closing in on the treble. For all Erling Haaland’s record-breaking exploits, he has scored just once in four Premier League matches against the Merseyside club, which is a testament to the way Virgil van Dijk and his colleagues have defended against him. Back-to-back wins and clean sheets suggest Liverpool will head to Manchester with renewed vigour, but I’m not convinced they will keep Haaland quiet again. It should be a high-quality game. The winners? Arsenal.”
Manchester City 2-2 Liverpool
Erling Haaland is unstoppable – or is he? (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
The rest of Oli’s predictions
Tottenham vs Manchester United
Only goal difference separates these two teams in the table, so it feels odd that there is such a difference in mood among the respective fanbases. There has been a simmering frustration around Tottenham at this early stage of Thomas Frank’s tenure, as Jay Harris detailed here, whereas United’s supporters, in the main, continue to back Ruben Amorim, convinced that the good times are on their way back. This feels like a bit of a tipping-point fixture, where the result could change moods and narratives dramatically one way or the other. But I suspect a draw is more likely.
Tottenham 1-1 Manchester United
Everton vs Fulham
Everton have won just one of their last seven Premier League games and David Moyes cannot allow it to be one of those slumps that carries on from autumn into the winter, which have been a feature of the club’s recent history (hence the sackings of Marco Silva in December 2019, Rafael Benitez in January 2022, Frank Lampard in January 2023, and Sean Dyche in January 2025). That isn’t what this season — their first at their shiny new Hill Dickinson Stadium — was meant to be about, so they need a win to keep negativity at bay. Fulham arrested their own slump last week by beating Wolves. Expect a tight game.
Everton 1-0 Fulham
West Ham vs Burnley
I said last week I no longer knew what a West Ham home win looked like. Now that I’ve seen one for the first time in nearly nine months, it feels easier to imagine a second. It won’t be easy against a Burnley team who are competitive all over the pitch, but I feel West Ham might just shade this.
West Ham 1-0 Burnley
Sunderland vs Arsenal
Arsenal have won their last 10 matches in all competitions, keeping clean sheets in nine of them. In fact, they’ve only conceded three goals in 16 matches all season. It’s a truly formidable run, and, even though Sunderland are unbeaten at home this season, it’s hard to predict anything other than an Arsenal win to nil.
Sunderland 0-2 Arsenal
Chelsea vs Wolves
At the time of writing, Wolves are still without a coach, having tried and failed to bring back Gary O’Neil to replace Vitor Pereira, the man who replaced him last December. Beyond that, Domenico Teti left by mutual consent this week after less than five months as the club’s director of professional football. If Wolves fans are getting flashbacks to their relegation campaign in 2012, when they sacked Mick McCarthy without knowing who to replace him with, then they are not alone. Chelsea were held by Qarabag, of Azerbaijan, in the Champions League on Wednesday night. They might find this easier.
Chelsea 2-0 Wolves
Aston Villa vs Bournemouth
Both of these teams played into the hands of stronger opponents last weekend. Both could have hoped for a gentler fixture as they look to bounce back on Sunday. If I had to lean either way, I might go for a Bournemouth win, given that Villa played in the Europa League on Thursday night. But a draw seems a logical option.
Aston Villa 1-1 Bournemouth
Brentford vs Newcastle
As George Caulkin discussed with characteristic eloquence here, there has been such a contrast between Newcastle’s excellent performances in the Champions League and a fairly miserable campaign so far in the Premier League. There is almost certainly a psychological dimension to this, but I also feel they are one of the teams that have been sucked into a more attritional, less expansive approach in the Premier League. I don’t think it has played to their strengths, whereas it suits Brentford perfectly. I’m not expecting a thriller.
Brentford 1-0 Newcastle
Crystal Palace vs Brighton
Is this a derby? Not for me, Clive. But it is a genuine rivalry, dating back all the way to the 1970s. And it gives me an excuse to share this wonderful clip of a young Crystal Palace fan baiting Brighton’s fans during a half-time penalty shootout at Selhurst Park last year. Palace have the upper hand right now, but, like so many teams before them, they have found it hard to get used to the additional demands of European football and the difficulties of the Thursday-Sunday routine. With Danny Welbeck in excellent form, I expect Brighton to get something from this game.
Crystal Palace 1-1 Brighton
Nottingham Forest 2-0 Leeds
Similar to West Ham v Burnley above, the pressure is on Nottingham Forest to put a dreadful start to the season behind them. If Leeds — and indeed Burnley — can get a result this weekend, then their league position will look an awful lot healthier going into the international break. But this is the kind of game where Forest’s new manager Sean Dyche will expect his team’s individual quality will make the difference.
Nottingham Forest 2-0 Leeds
