There is a clear headliner at the Emirates this weekend that could end up deciding the Premier League title with league leaders Liverpool traveling to London to take on Arsenal, but I'll be focused elsewhere for my SaturdayPremier League picks.
Read on for my Premier League predictions, featuring Aston Villa vs. Bournemouth, Brentford vs. Ipswich Town and Man City vs. Southampton.
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Saturday Premier League Picks, Premier League Predictions
BJ Cunningham's Premier League Picks
Coming into this match, Aston Villa have been pretty fortunate to be where they are given often they are falling behind. If we’re being honest, Aston Villa haven’t been that great at Villa Park. Sure, you can look at their results and underlying numbers and think everything is fine, but they fell behind against both Everton and Wolves, drew Manchester United in a bad performance and got dominated by Bayern Munich.
Fall behind at your own peril against Bournemouth because they are one of the most difficult teams to play against in the Premier League. Bayern are the closest thing Aston Villa have seen to how effective Bournemouth’s press has been. In that match, Bayern had a PPDA of 5.8 and forced nine high turnovers, with three of them leading to a shot. Bournemouth do a fantastic job of forcing teams into one end of the pitch and forcing them into turning the ball over. The Cherries have forced opponents into turning it over in dangerous areas at the highest rate in the Premier League through eight matches and they have played one of the more difficult schedules as well.
To beat the Bournemouth press requires teams to play very direct or attempt a lot of switches to the other end of the pitch. Unai Emery typically doesn’t want his teams to play direct and Villa have attempted the third-fewest switches so far this season.
The Aston Villa defensive structure, with their high line, works against teams that want to play out of the back and use a lot of short passes. So, against teams like Bologna and Manchester United it works, but against teams that are able to play direct balls over the top at a successful rate they get exposed. It’s how Fulham scored their lone goal over the weekend and Bournemouth are really good at those types of passes up to Evanilson.
I think Aston Villa are a little overvalued here at home, especially with Bournemouth having a rest advantage thanks to Aston Villa having to play in the Champions League on Tuesday, so I like the value on Bournemouth +0.5 at -102.
Aston Villa vs. Bournemouth Pick: Bournemouth +0.5 (-102 via bet365)
This is a perfect spot for Brentford.
They were pretty good against Manchester United over the weekend in a 2-1 defeat and what improved was their defending. Manchester United took a ton of low quality chances, which means Brentford are getting back to what made them so good: low block defending.
However, in matches like this you are going to see Brentford line up in a 4-3-3 as opposed to their usual 3-5-2 and they will be the ones that will try to control possession and build out from the back. They have done a fantastic job when playing out of that 4-3-3 in these types of situations against opponents like Ipswich over the years. Since the beginning of the 2022-23 season, Brentford are 13-8-2 with a +16.1 expected goal differential in home matches against the bottom half of the table. They won all three matches against newly promoted sides at home last year and have won three of four so far this year against teams in the bottom half of the table.
It’s really just the same story with Ipswich week after week. They allowed Everton to create 1.7 expected goals and two big scoring chances, so now for the season they have allowed 17.1 expected goals and 17 big scoring chances in only eight matches. The problem that exists for them is two fold. First, a lot of those big scoring chances have come as a result of them trying to build out of the back and turning the ball over in dangerous areas, which could very well happen again because Brentford have been pressing high quite often this season. Secondly, their mid block is flat out terrible and is allowing opponents to play right through it whenever they want because they are allowing the highest build up completion percentage.
Ipswich conceded a goal as a result from a set piece and for the season are 14th in xG per set piece allowed, which is bad news against Brentford, who are not only top five in xG per set piece, but second in the Premier League in aerial duel win rate.
I have Brentford projected at -211, so I love the value on the Bees at -140.
Premier League Prediction: Brentford ML (-145 via Caesars)
This seems very straight forward for Manchester City, but Pep Guardiola’s side has not been very good defensively this season and it’s a trend that has been happening for the past two years. This season, Manchester City are allowing 1.07 xG per 90 minutes, which I know doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you compare it to City two years ago when they were only allowing 0.78 xG per 90 minutes that is a pretty drastic increase.
It all centers around Guardiola’s tactical decision of how City cope without their anchor Rodri in the middle of the pitch. Last season, City’s press was below average at best, which meant that Guardiola had his team back off and play more of a mid block. This season, he has decided since Rodri isn’t there, he wants his team to press very intensely to try and win the ball back because in his eyes the reward is far greater than the risk. It’s hard to say he’s wrong because City have been able to generate a lot of chances off of high turnovers, but the risk is you leave yourself vulnerable to direct counterattacks over the top and in wide areas. That is why City haven't kept a clean sheet in a Premier League match since the opener against Chelsea.
Southampton’s offense isn’t a bottom feeder like Ipswich. They have created over 10 expected goals and nine big scoring chances in their eight Premier League matches so far and have shown more of a willingness to play in transition, as they showed in their last two matches against Arsenal and Leicester City. In addition to that, they will have an advantage on set pieces, as they’re second in xG per set piece, with Manchester City being 15th in that category defensively.
Given Manchester City’s defensive record so far, I like the value on Southampton to score in this match at plus money.
