GW13 Premier League Previews and Free Bets with Samba Pools

Here we go then with round 13 of the season which is bound to prove unlucky for some.

The results are really not getting any easier to predict as the year continues. Defeats for Liverpool, City and United last week as well as Bournemouth dropping points at home to West Ham mean that it was a challenging round of results for our Samba Pools players to score points on.

That being said, on the games that they did call correctly, many of our regulars nailed not only the result but the scoreline itself which bumped up points tallies for the week.

Here's how the table for profit and loss stands and great to see @zusi78 getting a high score of 51 points in his first attempt - welcome to the community!

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Rank	Hive Account	Total profit/loss for the season (Hive)
1	@talesfrmthecrypt	24.072
2	@tengolotodo	19.386
3	@blancy	19.347
4	@thoth442	3.018
5	@doombot75	1.609
6	@zusi78	1.188
7	@seki	0.049
8	@amirtheawesome1	-0.320

Brentford will be ruing a missed opportunity to have taken points from the Amex last weekend after leading and then missing a late penalty to equalise. Still, they'll fancy their chances against this Burnley side particularly at home.

In fact, the Bees have the 6th best home record in the league so far this season with only City coming away from the Gtech with 3 points. That was also the last time that Brentford blanked in their last 9 home matches with the West London side having scored 22 goals in the same period.

By contrast, Burnley have just 1 win on the road this season and that was at bottom placed Wolves. They have scored 9 goals away from home this season which is the 3rd best record in the league and they have conceded 18, the worst defensive performance! On that basis BTTS looks a decent bet in this one.

West Ham and Forest's recent turnaround in form coupled with Burnley's 3 defeats on the bounce has seen them slip into the relegation zone and if anything the stats suggest they are over performing this year.

14 goals scored from an xG of 10.66, 24 conceded from an xG against of 27.82 and a points haul of 10 against an expected tally of 6.29. To put that into context the next worst expected points for the season is West Ham with 10.89. Burnley are looking like an atypical yo-yo team at the moment.

As noted in the FPL preview last week, City have been blowing hot at home and cold away with their latest set-back at Newcastle leaving them trailing the leaders by 7 points. This fixture then will be an opportunity to get back to winning ways and close the gap on the top 2 who play each other on the Sunday.

With Leeds having scored just 4 goals away from home this season with all of those strikes coming against sides below them in the table at that time (3 versus Wolves and 1 versus Forest) then I think we know how the pattern of this game is likely to unfold.

It will be all City in possession against a promoted side! Last season they had 75.2% possession versus Ipswich and 72.8% of the ball against Leicester (2 of their top 3 performances possession wise) while this season they've already beaten Burnley 5-1 at home with 68.4% possession.

I can't imagine anyone will be predicting Leeds to take anything from this fixture so the only question remaining is how many will City win by? 4 years ago at a similar stage of the season, City won this fixture 7-0. A similar result would at least ensure that the camera operators are safe from Pep's wrath this week.

For you Geography nerds, this represents the 2nd longest away trip in the Premier League this season as the Cherries travel the 350 miles up the country. That distance hasn't proved much of a problem for them in recent trips to the North East with a win and 2 draws on their last 3 league visits to Newcastle and a win and a draw in their 2 previous Premier League games at the Stadium of Light.

This though is likely to be a tough match for the visitors with Sunderland 1 of 5 teams who remain unbeaten at home this season although the Black Cats have needed late equalisers in both their last 2 home games to maintain that record. Sunderland's 9 points from losing positions this season is bettered only by Brighton.

We could be in for goals again in this game given Bournemouth's away record this season and defensive issues more generally. The Cherries have kept just 1 clean sheet in their last 6 matches, a run of fixtures which has seen them concede 13 goals - only Wolves have a worse defensive record in the same period.

Away from home, only Burnley have conceded more goals this season than Bournemouth but the Cherries do score on their travels as well. Their defeat at Villa a couple of weeks ago was the only away match they've failed to find the back of the net this season.

Fighting your own teammates isn't an area of the game that Newcastle can take the moral high ground on when these 2 sides meet! Although I hardly think that Gueye's fairly tame slap is enough to warrant a place on this list that I complied 6 years ago.

Handbags at dawn. When footballers fight their own teammates

As far as football is concerned, both these sides come into the match with wins against Manchester clubs last time out. If Everton can make it 3 victories on the bounce they could at least finish Saturday within the Champions League spots, once again demonstrating how tight the middle portion of the Premier League table is.

Their chances of doing that will be buoyed by Newcastle's continuing struggles away from St James Park. They are 1 of just 3 clubs yet to win away in the league this year and have scored the fewest goals (3) on their travels.

That being said, Everton aren't exactly banging in the goals at their new ground with just 7 strikes in the first 6 Premier League games at the Hill Dickinson Stadium suggesting that this has the makings of a match that will finish under 2.5 goals and probably be decided by a single goal either way if there is to be a winner.

Some of these evening kicks-offs (anything past 7pm) have provided pretty decent value for money for spectators this season with a total 54 goals scored in 18 games.

That being said, Spurs have looked laboured in many of their home performances so far this season with just 5 points and 7 goals at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium since Thomas Frank took charge. While Fulham's away record is the 2nd worst in the land. It suggests that we might not be in for a classic here!

The Cottagers got an important win in their last match to arrest any immediate fears that they were about to get sucked into the relegation zone but they need to start stringing results together or they will forever remain in the mix for the drop.

For Spurs, things might start to take a nasty turn if they don't turn up and put on a performance after a humbling defeat to rivals Arsenal on Sunday.

Spurs have just 1 win in their last 5 attempts against Marco Silva's Fulham and I've no doubt the West London club will arrive with the intent to make this a difficult night for the home team.

Speaking of kick-off times, here's an odd one - midday on a Sunday! Several managers have spoken about their dislike for early kick-offs which usually occur on a Saturday with Jurgen Klopp once describing them as 'a crime'.

United had strung to together a sequence of 3 wins on the bounce to propel them up the table and ease a bit of pressure on Amorim following a slow start to the campaign. However, they've taken just 2 points from their last 3 games including defeat to 10 man Everton on Monday.

Palace will presumably not look to shoot themselves in the foot in the same way the Toffees did but have been a little disappointing at home this season. Yes, they're unbeaten but 4 draws out of 6 means their home record is only slightly better than the majority of the teams in and around the relegation zone.

United haven't won at Palace since 2020 with 3 of those 5 matches since finishing in a draw. With United themselves having drawn 3 of their away games this season then perhaps the smart money is on another stalemate between these 2.

A massive game in any season but this one feels like it has extra significance particularly for Wolves who are still yet to win a game this season. A derby victory would certainly provide them with a springboard to kick start a comeback which really does need to commence soon to avoid the gap of 9 points to safety growing any wider.

Villa however are the team to beat right now in the Premier League with Unai Emery's men having taken 20 points from their last 8 matches, a record bettered only by top placed Arsenal.

They've won their last 4 matches here at Villa Park and having struggled to find the back of the net in the early part of the campaign are now averaging 1.88 goals a match in their last 8 fixtures.

Where they do continue to have issues, as evidenced in their last match against Leeds, is in conceding early on. Over a third of the goals scored against them this season have come in the first 15mins of matches, not a statistic that suggests they'll be able to maintain their good run of form.

Unfortunately for Wolves they've scored just once in their away matches this season and have failed to score in 4 of their last 5 league matches. Rob Edwards have a massive job on his hands to turn this one around and I doubt that Villa will be a charitable mood.

Forest are certainly benefiting from a bounce under new manager Sean Dyche with 7 points from his first 4 games in charge. Only Arsenal, Chelsea and Villa have managed more points in the same period and it's not as if Forest have had a particularly easy run of games with away matches at Bournemouth and Liverpool and the visit of United.

Brighton's primary issue this season continues to be falling behind. Yes they then have the best record in the league of gaining points (12 so far this season) from losing positions but ultimately they need to start establishing leads, particularly away from home, if they are to challenge in the top third rather than the middle third of the table. Forest themselves have only lead in 3 matches this season so someone's record is due to improve at the end of this game.

Where Forest are also excelling of late is in scoring goals. Having failed to score in 4 matches in a row, they've now hit 8 times in their last 3 games. With Brighton only managing a single clean sheet this season, it does suggest we might see goals in this match.

That was certainly the case last season when Forest put 7 past Brighton in the corresponding fixture and in 4 of the 6 meetings between these 2 since they both found themselves in the Premier League, there have been 4 of more goals.

Another side on the up and up, however West Ham will be disappointed not to have converted a 2 goal lead into 3 points at Bournemouth last weekend. For their part, Liverpool are in free fall and a defeat here will continue to turn the heat up on Arne Slot who has gone from hero to zero in the space of 6 months and £450 million.

Last December Liverpool were winning this fixture 5-0 but that seems unlikely in the current circumstances. Everyone can have a bad day at the office but the reigning champions barely laid a glove on Forest last weekend, a side who at the time were lower than West Ham in the league. In fact, Liverpool have lost just once to West Ham in the league in the last decade and have put 5 goals past them in 3 of their last 5 meetings in all competitions.

While the forward line isn't performing for Liverpool this season, it's hard to ignore the fact that they've conceded 20 goals. Only the bottom 4 sides which of course include today's opponents have conceded more. Liverpool have now let in 2 or more goals in 5 of their last 6 matches with West Ham having similarly conceded 2 or more goals in 75% of their games this season.

A nil nil draw then seems unlikely and I'd suggest backing over 2.5 goals in this one. Which way the result will go is tougher to pick.

A huge match in any season but particularly in the context of the current league table. An Arsenal win would put them comfortably clear of the chasing pack while Chelsea have the opportunity to put some pressure on a side that has squandered similar positions more than once in recent years.

Both teams also come into this game having faced significant opposition in the Champions League during midweek. Chelsea have already dispatched Barcelona 3-0 while at the time of writing Arsenal are warming up for their match with Bayern.

Chelsea have been better on their travels this season, a trend that has been apparent for a little while and spanning multiple managers. They've not beaten Arsenal in a Premier League match at Stamford Bridge since 2018. To understand the turnover in players at both clubs in the intervening years, Bukayo Saka (an unused substitute in that game) is the only survivor of that game on either side.

Chelsea haven't conceded in any of their last 3 Premier League games but you feel that their defence will be tested more by this opposition than by the likes of Burnley and Wolves. Arsenal have scored the first goal in 8 games this season and have gone on to win all 8 of those games. I'd be surprised if this was an open match particularly during the first half so under 2.5 goals and the half-time markets for a draw both look decent bets.