The Premier League is back with some interesting matchups
After a week of international football, we’re back to the club football that we all love, and maybe even missed, this upcoming weekend. The Premier League has some cracking matches in store for Matchweek 4.
Here are the three matches I’m most looking forward to watching.
Leicester City vs Manchester City
The Foxes welcome the reigning champions to their den on Saturday morning. This will be a match where both sides will be eager to take all three points but will surely not want to leave empty-handed.
Leicester and Man City sit level on six points. A solid but not overly impressive start to the campaign for both sides makes this match all the more intriguing.
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Leicester recorded their six points with a notable, but not quite convincing, wins over Wolves and Norwich City. They were battered 4-1 by West Ham at the London Stadium — an Ayoze Pérez red card in the first half did not help their cause.
Unsurprisingly, Man City looks the stronger of the two sides as they’ve coolly brushed off Norwich and Arsenal with a couple of 5-0 wins. Their lone loss came in the opening weekend at the hands of league leaders Tottenham.
The big story in this game is the possibility of Man City calling on the No. 3 goalkeeper Scott Carson as a result of South American players being forced into a 10-day quarantine upon returning to England. Carson has only started one other match for the club.
This quarantine would rule out starting goalkeeper Ederson and fellow Brazilian Gabriel Jesus.
The match will be a solid test for both sides and should give the fans a real clue about who these teams are. Is City ready to show their league wide dominance once again or will Leicester prove tough to beat again this season?
Leeds vs Liverpool
Elland Road will surely be rocking for this fixture. The Leeds supporters need to back their side and help them get going after a sluggish start to the season.
Leeds enters the clash with just two points in their bag — drawing against Everton and Burnley. They were outclassed the opening weekend at Old Trafford and look to be a shell of themselves in the early days of the campaign.
There have been brief moments where they look like the Leeds of last season, but those moments are too few and far between for people to say Marcelo Bielsa has everything under control.
Liverpool turns up with seven points after a pair of convincing wins against Norwich and Burnley. The Reds played a thrilling match against Chelsea that ended in a 1-1 draw, but left many LFC fans with more to desire after being up a man for the entire second half.
Liverpool will also suffer from the South American quarantine as Alisson Becker, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino are expected to be ruled out. A massive blow for the Reds but they will still feel confident they have a good enough squad that can take all three points.
Leeds will be without Brazilian winger Raphinha as he will have to quarantine as well.
Even without these talented players, we should be in for a cracking match. These two sides played a couple of memorable matches last season where they combined for a total of nine goals.
Expect a fast-paced, counter-attacking heavy match Sunday morning when these two sides lock horns. That is if Leeds can sort themselves out.
Arsenal vs Norwich
Yes, this game is intriguing to me but for all the wrong reasons. It’s an early season bottom-of-the-table clash!
Both sides have kicked off the campaign looking about as bad as they possibly could — zero points in three games played.
Norwich has had a challenging run of games to be fair — playing Liverpool, Man City and Leicester is not the ideal way to make your return to topflight football. Arsenal hasn’t had it much easier as they’ve faced Brentford, Chelsea and Man City.
Norwich appears to be finding their footing somewhat as they played noticeably better in their last match against Leicester — it’s easy to argue they deserved at least a point. Away from home they should set up a little deeper but if they can find the attacking play from last week, they could make things interesting.
There’s a lot to unpack with this Arsenal side so I’ll keep it light. The pressure is now smothering Arteta. It’s win and then begin to build into the season or lose and probably be out of a job.
This feels like a must-win for Arteta’s Arsenal given they have lost three straight, are playing at home and facing a newly promoted side. But don’t expect Norwich to roll over and hand them the three points.
Both clubs sit at the bottom with zero points. Points are at a premium in this one with Arsenal desperate to right the ship.