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Sunday 3 September 2023 16:25, UK
Fresh from a frenzy of winners, our tipster Jones Knows takes aim at the Premier League card and thinks Brighton can scupper Newcastle.
This is a second chance for Aston Villa to deliver on some bulky pre-season expectations that went up in smoke in their 5-1 opening day defeat to Newcastle. That result may prove to be a huge outlier though on what is shaping up to be an exciting season for Unai Emery and his boys.
Despite Liverpool's potentially season-lift-off result at Newcastle, I'm still unsure of their position as a top-four ranked side. It's a defence that remains unconvincing without the structure of the midfield looking secure. Villa can certainly make some noise at Anfield.
They did tempt me on the double chance at 5/4 with Sky Bet but my eyes were drawn to the total goals market where the goal expectancy looks too high for this clash.
Aston Villa are a cagey team away under Emery on the road, where they sit a little deeper than their fantastically aggressive high line plays at home and soak up a bit more pressure. Eleven of their 13 road matches have fallen under the 3.5 goal line, including this fixture that ended 1-1 towards the end of last season. This makes the 8/11 with Sky Bet for under 3.5 goals look a solid starting point for a wager.
Eberechi Eze buys lots of tickets but hasn't won a raffle yet this season. His time is coming though, as if he keeps posting the same level of attacking metrics, a goal glut is on the way such is his quality in front of goal. Eze has fired 16 shots this season, the joint-most of any Premier League player with Erling Haaland but, unlike to City striker, Eze has yet to score.
Eze was Palace's top scorer last season with 10 Premier League goals and his form since Roy Hodgson took charge suggests he'll surpass those figures this campaign - but he does need to get going. Unfortunately for our bank balances, the markets agree with Eze's goalscoring potential despite him drawing a blank so far. He is 5/1 with Sky Bet to open the scoring and just 2/1 to score at any time - prices that aren't exactly soaked with value - but now might be the time to catch him.
The case for goals in what should be a pulsating Super Sunday clash is an easy one to make but sometimes the most profitable and successful angles are the glaringly obvious ones. In their last 21 home matches in the Premier League, the total average goal output in Arsenal matches stood at a whopping 4.11 with 15 of those games seeing both teams score and the over 2.5 goals line surpassed, including both fixtures this season.
We can back that angle of both teams scoring and over 2.5 at 4/5 with Sky Bet here which implies a 55 per cent probability.
When factoring in the raw numbers but also adding a little ingenuity to the equation in terms of the problems Marcus Rashford is going to cause Arsenal on the counter-attack - he scored or assisted four of United's five goals vs Arsenal last season - I'd have that percentage closer to 65 per cent, meaning we've got a healthy value play there.
