The international break is over, the PL is back, and we have a full slate of games ahead of us. And as always, I’ve arrived at a boosted treble and three selected singles I like this weekend!

By Lars Sivertsen, Football Expert for Betsson

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Boosted Treble of the week

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Southampton – Leicester

We start out on the South Coast where Southampton take on Leicester City for what I would already describe as a crucial relegation six-pointer. Looking at the table that may seem a bit harsh on Leicester, who actually sit all the way up in 15th place with 6 points – just two points fewer than Manchester United, Bournemouth and West Ham. Avoiding a points deduction was also a huge boost to their survival chances. So on the surface of things, Leicester have had a really rather decent start to the season. I am, however, not entirely sold on them so far. Seven games is just about a big enough sample size that I think it’s fair to start looking at underlying numbers, and Leicester’s “expected goals” numbers are really rather worrying.

So far this season, only Ipswich have a worse xG balance than the Foxes. No team has conceded more shots so far this season than Leicester, and no team has produced fewer. This seems bad. So while results have been entirely acceptable for a club in their situation, the performances are going to have to improve and improve quickly.

Leicester play Southampton here, and then Nottingham Forest, Manchester United and Ipswich in their next three. Facing three relegation rivals in four games makes this a crucial mini-run for Steve Cooper’s men.

We’ve gone against Southampton several times already this season, and while not all of those bets have landed, I’ve felt pretty vindicated in doing so. Seven games in, they’re joint-bottom of the league alongside Wolves. They’ve won no games and drawn just one. One point in seven games is worrying, to say the least. But Southampton are very much the opposite case of Leicester City: Their xG numbers actually look okayish. Or, at least, they’re not bottom of the league by this metric. Stats website FBref, who get their numbers from Opta, have them third from bottom on xG difference so far this season. In attack, Southampton have actually created a higher xG number than Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and Everton. In terms of creating chances, they haven’t been totally useless – but we’ve seen them play themselves into trouble at the back far too often.

Going on xG and nothing else it would be really tempting to back some kind of Southampton result here. A home win is priced at 2.35 and Southampton with a “draw no bet” at 1.71, but no matter what the numbers say I find it hard to trust them that much. It’s far too easy to imagine, for instance, the wily old Jamie Vardy pouncing on an indecisive pass in the Southampton defence and scoring a goal out of nothing. That’s a very specific example of course, but having watched a few of Southampton’s games this season I find it exceedingly hard to trust them to keep a clean sheet against anyone. Leicester have been poor at creating chances, as their numbers tell us, but the experience of Vardy combined with the bright and skilful Facundo Buonanotte makes me think they can score here at some point.

And as we’ve said many, many times on this blog: If you think the away team will score, “both teams to score” is often a good way to go. Yes, Southampton have been wasteful up front, but they create some chances and Leicester have conceded more shots than anyone else in the league.

These are two pretty bad teams who both know this is the kind of game where they need a result, and typically that would indicate a slow, defensive, low event kind of game. But contrary to that conventional wisdom, I think both these teams are so poor defensively that they won’t be able to avoid giving the other guys some good chances to score. I like “both teams to score” at St Mary’s to start off our weekly boosted treble.

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Bournemouth – Arsenal

Next up we head to the Vitality Stadium, where Bournemouth host Arsenal. The visitors have a few injury worries coming into this game, but reports suggest both the influential Bukayo Saka and in-form Kai Havertz should have a good chance of featuring here. Arsenal have five wins and two draws in the league so far this season, and in both the two games where they dropped points they went down to 10 men. Going down to 10 in two out of seven games has also skewed their xG numbers a little bit, with Arsenal currently having “just” the third best defensive record in the league according to the xG. But in the games where they’ve kept 11 men on the pitch Arsenal have looked pretty solid and allowed few chances at the back. They’ve perhaps been less swashbuckling in attack than some might want them to be, but I don’t think being able to rely on a solid defence is a weakness.

Bournemouth suffered a surprise defeat to Leicester City in the last game before the international break, in a game where they out-shot their opponents 19 to 6. They’ve been underperforming in attack so far this season, scoring just eight goals from an xG of 12.1. Normally that would suggest that they are due some goals and it makes them a team to keep an eye on for the coming weeks, but  I just think Arsenal are too good for this to kick in here. Arsenal had the second best away record in the league last season (13 wins, three draws and three defeats), and dealing with this type of fixture with a minimum of fuss is something I think you can reasonably expect from this team.

Uncertainty about the readiness of some of Arsenal’s key men is giving me a tiny bit of anxiety here, but it is also giving us a better price on Arsenal than we would ordinarily get. I think this is the kind of away game where Arsenal’s defensive solidity will stand them in good stead, and I’m expecting them to come home from Bournemouth with three points in the bag. I’m adding an Arsenal win to our weekly treble.

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Newcastle – Brighton

Lasty, I’m going to do something that has backfired on us once already this season, but I have my reasons for doing it again: I am going to trust Newcastle. Eddie Howe’s men have had a slightly underwhelming start to the season, beating Southampton, Tottenham and Wolves, but dropping points against Bournemouth, Everton and Fulham. Losing to Manchester City, well, that’s just what tends to happen when you play Manchester City. Still, Bournemouth, Everton and Fulham are teams you will want to be beating if you are serious about challenging for a CL spot this season. Injuries to both their regular strikers meant Newcastle had to use Anthony Gordon up front against Everton before the international break, a move that did not entirely come off for them. Everton were happy to sit back and soak up pressure, leaving the speedy Gordon with very little space to run into. It is looking like Gordon up front again this weekend, but this should be a very, very different match.

Brighton, after all, are not Everton. They had a promising start to the season before dropping points to both Ipswich and Nottingham Forest, and they then had a very bad time in a 4-2 defeat to Chelsea.

Before the international break Brighton managed to overturn a 2-0 deficit to beat Tottenham 3-2, though whether that was Brighton showing admirable grit and determination or Spurs going full Spurs is really quite hard to say. When Brighton have been good this season they have been very exciting to watch, in large part because they press very aggressively and keep a very high line. But this is also why I don’t like their chances against Newcastle. The magpies have their shortcomings, but they have a lot of speed going forward and love to attack directly when they regain possession. Whereas Anthony Gordon struggled to find space against Everton, this should not be a problem here.

The visitors sport an array of exciting, technical attackers like Yankuba Minteh and Kaoru Mitoma, but Newcastle have a pretty rugged backline and a hard working midfield. It will be a test for Eddie Howe and his team, for sure, but they have the tools to exploit Brighton’s high line and I think that’s what they will do. I’m expecting Newcastle to cause trouble for Brighton in the same way they caused it for Tottenham earlier in the season, so my third and last pick for our weekly treble will be a Newcastle win here.

Normally this treble would get you a price of 5.65, but Betsson have increased the odds to 6.50! Good luck!

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Selected singles

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Ipswich – Everton

Before losing 4-1 to West Ham in their last game before the international break, Ipswich had actually gone four games unbeaten in the league. Granted, those four were all draws, but they did at least seem to suggest that the tractor boys can be competitive in this division. But as with Leicester City, the underlying numbers tell a slightly worrying tale. Ipswich have conceded the highest xG number in the league so far and produced the lowest. Young striker Liam Delap has caught the headlines by scoring four goals, but those four have come off an xG of 1.2. Unless Liam Delap is the best finisher in the history of football, that scoring rate is unlikely to be sustainable over time unless the team starts producing more chances for him.

Everton had a very poor start to the season but appear to have stopped the bleeding with two draws and a win in their last three games.

Stylistically they are exactly what you expect from a Sean Dyche team:

They have the lowest amount of possession in the league and the lowest pass accuracy, but they also win the most aerial duels. Welcome back Burnley, we’ve missed you. Kinda. In their first games this season there was some worrying and uncharacteristically slack defending from Everton, but at least in the games against Crystal Palace and Leicester City they appeared to have tightened up a fair bit. Against Newcastle they conceded more chances, but they were able to ride it out. Jarrad Branthwaite being unavailable for most of the season so far was definitely a problem for Everton defensively, but he should be back here.

Ipswich’s xG numbers are a little bit skewed by the fact that they’ve played both Manchester City and Liverpool, and to be fair to them they were pretty good against Aston Villa in their previous home game. But generally speaking, they’ve created very little going forward in most of their games so far, and with Everton showing signs that they’ve started to tighten up at the back again I think Sean Dyche can go and get something here. Backing an outright Everton win feels like a bit of a big step and maybe a degree of trust that Everton haven’t quite earned yet, so instead I am going to use the bet builder and take “Everton or draw” + “under 3.5 goals”. This gives us a price of 2.16 and I think that is eminently backable. It won’t be pretty, but I think Dyche can Dyche his way to some kind of result here.

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Bournemouth – Arsenal

We’re going to go for a similar variant in the Bournemouth – Arsenal game, except here we’re taking a straight Arsenal win and adding “under 3.5 goals” – which gives us a price of 2.60. For all the reasons mentioned in the treble analysis, I think Arsenal will get the job here in a quietly efficient manner so I think 2.60 on Arsenal and under 3.5 goals is good value here.

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Wolves – Manchester City

Lastly, we’re going to be a little bit more counter-intuitive, but I have a pretty simple reason for doing so. Wolves have been pretty poor this season, and they were particularly terrible in their last game before the international break whey they 5-3 to Brentford. Gary O’Neill will no doubt have put in some hard work on the training ground over the international break, but the squad has limitations and there is only so much you can do.

Manchester City got the job done against Fulham before the international break, but not convincingly so. That win came off the back of two draws in the league, against Newcastle and 10-man Arsenal.

City have the second best xG numbers in the league, just behind Liverpool (who have had a kind fixture list to open the season), but the injury to Rodri is a huge blow. Simply put, the team doesn’t quite look the same without him. And while five wins and two draws is a perfectly decent start to the season, City have actually kept just one clean sheet in their first seven games in the league. The numbers also suggest that City are not exactly impenetrable at the back: Liverpool, Aston Villa, Arsenal, Chelsea and Nottingham Forest (!!!!) have all conceded a lower xG number at the back than City so far this season, according to stats website Fbref.com.

I think Wolves are in trouble and I have very little doubt that City will win this game, but then they are priced accordingly. A City win is priced at 1.31 and City win by more than one goal at 1.86, and neither of those are particularly interesting to me – especially in light of how much trouble Fulham caused for City before the international break. I am more drawn to “City to win and both teams to score”, priced at 2.59. The City defence is looking much more vulnerable in the absence of Rodri, a player with no real like-for-like replacement in the squad. Wolves are pretty short on firepower, with Pedro Neto having left for Chelsea and Hwang Hee-chan still expected to be absent through injury. But they do have the energy and the dribbling prowess of Matheus Cunha, who was one of the top 10 dribblers in the league last season and does have it in him to create things out of nothing. Is it entirely impossible that a Rodri-less City could see Wolves exploit their high line and hit them on the counter at some point? I don’t actually think so. After seeing Adama Traore repeatedly trouble City in their last game, I think Cunha could do something similar here. City should win this, and they could well win it comfortably, but I think a price of 2.57 for “City to win + both teams to score” is pretty generous and worth a punt this weekend.

Good luck!

PS: Please note that the odds might have changed after writing and publication.

Last Updated: 18.10.24