Our Premier League Tips for Gameweek 13 - 27/11/21

Liverpool looked back to their glorious best with their 4-0 win over Arsenal at the weekend, after losing their first game of the season at the London Stadium 3-2 before the international break. Goals from Sadio Mane, Diogo Jota, Mohamed Salah as well as late sub Takumi Minamino saw Jurgen Klopp’s men stay within touching distance of Chelsea at the top and move above the Hammers into third.

Southampton, on the other hand, saw their four-game unbeaten run come to a grinding halt on Saturday, with Che Adam’s 4th-minute opener cancelled out by goals from Teemu Pukki and Grant Hanley to secure Norwich’s first home win of the season.

This summed up Southampton’s slow start to the season, being nine points worse off then at this stage last year. Southampton may have a full week to prepare for this game, but with Liverpool already assured of top spot in the Champions League before their game against Porto on Wednesday night, Klopp had the luxury to rest a few key players such as Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

This allows the German to focus on the league in the run-up to the busy Christmas period. In all of Liverpool’s wins this season, they have yet to concede a goal and we can’t see this trend buckling against the Saints.

We never thought we’d say this but Norwich City come into this game with back-to-back wins in the Premier League and have finally climbed off the bottom of the table to the lofty heights of 19th. In Smith’s first game in East Anglia, the former Villa manager overcame Ralph Hasenhüttl’s Southampton, the man he lost to in what proved to be his final game at Villa Park just 15 days earlier.

Wolves' start to the season has brought back memories of the Wolves side from their first two seasons back in the Premier League where the men from Molineux got back-to-back seventh place finishes. A 1-0 win over high-flying West Ham United at the weekend lifted the team in orange back into the European places.

Though both teams are in the bottom four in terms of scoring goals this season, we’ve got a feeling on both Teemu Pukki and Raúl Jiménez both getting on the scoresheet with their defensive wide open.

Brighton’s sensational start to the Premier League season has slowed down in recent weeks, having not won a league game since their 2-1 home win against Leicester City on the 19th of September. This continued last Saturday as Graham Potter’s men couldn’t land a blow against Aston Villa, as Steven Gerrard won at the first time of asking.

Leeds United are yet to get started, only winning two of their opening 12 and sitting just two points above the relegation zone. Marcelo Bielsa’s men had gone unbeaten in three and dominated Spurs in the first half in north London on Sunday, but a second-half comeback by Antonio Conte’s men left the men from Yorkshire still yet to produce consistent form in their second season back in the Premier League.

Many may be suggesting that second season syndrome might be affecting the Whites, but one player looking to single-handedly stop that from happening is Raphinia. Only one behind last year’s total goal tally of six, the Brazilian will be looking to make another goalscoring impact, after opening the scoring in his last two starts for Leeds.

Only two points separate Brentford and Everton after 12 games of the season and in many ways, the two clubs' seasons have followed a similar path. Both teams only lost one of their first seven games and both teams have not won in their previous five.

Thomas Frank will be the happier of the two, with this being Brentford’s first season since 1947 and the goal always being to stay up. But, the Dane will be concerned about having no clean sheets in seven and conceding at least two goals in their last four league games.

Rafael Benetiz will be concerned with the Toffees' sliding form, with the fans on Merseyside unwilling to be too patient with the former Liverpool manager. Goals are starting to become a problem for the men from Goodison too, with Dominic Calvert-Lewin still injured and not scoring in their last two.

However, with both teams current defensive records, we fancy some goals in this encounter at the Brentford Community Stadium, with both teams to score and over 3.5 goals a good shout.

Chelsea have been almost faultless this season, with the home defeat to City the only noticeable blot on their copybook. Thomas Tuchel reached his 50th game in charge of the Blues in their 4-0 win over Juventus on Tuesday, which also resulted in Chelsea’s 31st clean sheet in that timeline - a simply magnificent record.

Saturday's 4-1 humiliation against Watford for Manchester United was the final nail in the coffin for Ole Gunnar Solskajer meaning Michael Carrick took charge for Tuesday’s game against Villareal and to be fair for the interim manager and managed a perfect away European performance to gain a 2-0 win in Spain.

The Red Devils, however, will be facing a much tougher challenge than the 12th best team in Spain on Sunday. Their horrendous defensive record is unavoidable, conceding 21 goals already in the league, the joint second-worst in the league.

Chelsea’s mighty defensive record is also backed by an impressive offensive one, with their 30 goals only behind Liverpool’s 35 so far this season. A Chelsea win seems inevitable here and we would back it further by saying Chelsea will get the better of United in both halves and run out comfortable winners.