Chelsea shedding Palmer dependency
Calling Chelsea “Cole Palmer FC” is not much of an insult. Oh no, you have one of the best attackers in the world. Oh no, you got him for a bargain price. Oh no, he won you the Club World Cup last month. Still, no side ever wants to be completely reliant on one player. Chelsea aim to depend more on the collective than the individual. They have struggled without Palmer in the past but thrived in his absence against West Ham last week. Palmer withdrew with a groin injury during the warm-up and is a doubt to face Fulham in the Saturday lunchtime kick-off. However, Enzo Maresca has options. Estêvão Willian came in for Palmer against West Ham and was exceptional on the right wing. João Pedro and Pedro Neto were excellent. Chelsea have enough talent at their disposal to beat Fulham without Palmer. Jacob Steinberg
Chelsea v Fulham, Saturday 12.30pm (all times BST)
Will stubborn Amorim get ruthless?
Ruben Amorim has to end Saturday afternoon with only one thing achieved: a first victory of the season that will quieten the noise around him and Manchester United. Burnley will arrive at Old Trafford with the opposite aim and should closely study how Grimsby took Amorim’s insipid men apart in Wednesday’s 12-11 penalty shootout knockout in the Carabao Cup. So now is the time for the head coach to be ruthless and select an XI that has Bruno Fernandes as one of his 10s, Kobbie Mainoo in central midfield, Benjamin Sesko at centre-forward for a first Premier League start and, dare this correspondent suggest it, a tweak of formation to 4-3-3 as his beloved 3-4-3 just is not working. Will the stubborn Amorim do any of this? The last of these, almost certainly not. Jamie Jackson
Manchester United v Burnley, Saturday 3pm
Frank will work his Spurs players hard
A niche statistic, this, but hugely important for the nine individuals destined for a day of extended heel-kicking on the Tottenham bench. Last weekend, in the Premier League’s second matchday, the average time of the first substitution made by top-flight teams was the 54th minute; ignoring those forced by early injuries bumps that up to the 63rd. Tottenham made their first substitution in the 78th minute, and in this young season they and Nottingham Forest are already the only teams yet to have made a change before the 70th minute of a Premier League game. The average Spurs substitute this season spends just 11 minutes on the pitch, joint lowest in the league (level with Forest and also Bournemouth, whose number is skewed by the two 89th-minute changes they made in response to falling behind late in their opening game at Anfield). Last season the team whose substitutes spent the least time on the field was Thomas Frank’s Brentford. This may be surprising, given the intensity the Dane demands of his players and that particularly characterised Spurs’ win at Manchester City last week, but his starting XI need to get used to hard work and long shifts, and the rest of his squad to splinters. Simon Burnton
Tottenham v Bournemouth, Saturday 3pm
Wissa to miss out on friends reunion
Although Yoane Wissa yearns to move to north-east England, the Brentford forward seems unlikely to feature against old friends at Sunderland. The problem is Wissa wants to join Newcastle but his club are determined to keep him and the resultant upset has prompted his absence from Keith Andrews’s team sheets this season. That may please Régis Le Bris. Sunderland’s manager knows Wissa very well after spending countless hours honing the DR Congo forward’s game during his time as a coach at Lorient. Wissa – who also played alongside Sunderland’s Enzo Le Fée at the Breton club – moved on to Brentford before Le Bris’s promotion to Lorient’s head coach and shortly after a horrendous life-changing event. For a while an unprovoked attack involving acid being thrown in the striker’s face placed that move to west London in jeopardy. Initial fears that Wissa, who still needs daily eye drops, could be blinded explain why the 28-year-old’s subsequent success has so delighted Le Bris, Le Fée and his old pals from Brittany. Louise Taylor
Sunderland v Brentford, Saturday 3pm
Moyes to unleash Dibling in attack?
The pieces are slowly falling into place for David Moyes. Everton’s manager, whose priority has shifted towards beefing up his defensive options, made it clear he needed reinforcements after starting pre-season with 15 senior players and in Tyler Dibling he landed a key target. The 19-year-old right-winger, who at £42m is the club’s second-most expensive buy, is a raw but talented performer who has been tracked by Europe’s elite and, even if his early promise faded at Southampton, his arrival at Everton should be seen as a coup. Dibling entered off the bench in Everton’s Carabao Cup victory over Mansfield in midweek and is building fitness after a disrupted pre-season. A trip to Molineux gives Moyes a first real opportunity to blend his new-look attack after the arrivals of Dibling, Jack Grealish, Thierno Barry and Carlos Alcaraz, the Argentinian who spent the second half of last season on loan at the club. Ben Fisher
Wolves v Everton, Saturday 3pm
Longstaff to prove point against old club?
The knee injuries sustained by Ao Tanaka and Ethan Ampadu are bad news for Leeds. But they do open a door for Sean Longstaff to start in midfield for Daniel Farke’s side when his old team visit Elland Road. Earlier this summer Rafael Benítez, Longstaff’s former manager at Newcastle, congratulated his former protege on deciding to make a new start in West Yorkshire after losing his first-team place at the club he has loved since boyhood. Now Longstaff has a chance to show Eddie Howe what he is missing and, with injuries to Sandro Tonali and Joelinton weakening Newcastle’s midfield, opportunity beckons for the £12m Tynesider. If Farke will be relieved at Alexander Isak’s continued non-involvement, Leeds need to banish the memory of last Saturday’s chastening 5-0 defeat at Arsenal. Without the striking Isak, Newcastle have taken one point from two games but were unlucky to lose 3-2 at home to Liverpool on Monday. Even with Anthony Gordon starting a three-match suspension, they must not be underestimated. LT
Leeds v Newcastle, Saturday 5.30pm
Brighton’s Tzimas could stake his claim
Brighton have spent more than £50m on the Greek teenagers Stefanos Tzimas and Charalampos Kostoulas, and got the first return on their investment on Wednesday when the former scored twice in seven minutes during the 6-0 thrashing of Oxford United in the Carabao Cup after coming on as a substitute. Kostoulas, an 18-year-old striker who cost an initial £30m from Olympiakos, was also handed his debut by Fabian Hürzeler for the last 12 minutes at the Kassam Stadium as his experimental side set up a trip to Barnsley in the next round. Brighton are keen to shift some of their fringe players before next week’s transfer deadline, meaning there should be more opportunities for both to establish themselves in the coming weeks. But Hürzeler is clearly in no rush and would not confirm if Tzimas, who cost £20m from Nürnberg in February, could face Manchester City on Sunday. “For sure he’s closer but I’m not sure if he might be an option for the weekend, we have to see how he reacts,” said the Brighton head coach. “We have to be very patient with him and let’s see what will be the next step.” Ed Aarons
Brighton v Manchester City, Sunday 2pm
Freakish West Ham numbers mean only way is up
There was a period at the end of last season when it felt that perhaps West Ham were close to getting somewhere – they may have won only four of their last 16 games but of their seven defeats in that period not one was by more than a single goal and they would have banked several more points had they not conceded result-changing goals in the 89th minute or later against Everton, Liverpool, Southampton and Brighton. But if they were unlucky then, it was nothing compared with their start to this season. Sure, they have played poorly, but they have also converted 24 shots into one goal, no points and last place while Forest, for example, have turned 20 shots into four goals, four points and fifth. Meanwhile at the other end of the pitch 55% of all shots taken against them have been on target, and two-thirds of those – 36.4% of the total number of shots they have conceded – have gone in. These are unsustainably freakish numbers: in none of the last five completed seasons has any team seen as many as 16% of the shots their opponents have taken go in. Things can only get better – can’t they? SB
Nottingham Forest v West Ham, Sunday 2pm
An Anfield baptism for excited Eze
Eberechi Eze’s reaction to being handed the No 10 shirt by Arsenal demonstrated what a return to the Emirates Stadium meant to the boyhood Gunners fan. It was a combination of astonishment and childlike joy, the response of a genuine fan rather than a hardened professional, and prompted Eze to pledge to “give everything I have” to pay back the honour of following in the footsteps of Dennis Bergkamp and other Arsenal favourites. There could be no better place to start repaying a £67.5m investment than at Anfield, a ground where Arsenal have not won since 2012 and where their title pretensions have withered on several subsequent visits. With Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard injury doubts, and Kai Havertz a confirmed absentee, Eze is likely to make his Arsenal debut against the Premier League champions. He may well start as a 10, or in his expected role on the left, depending on the options available to Mikel Arteta. Either way, Eze will relish wearing that shirt in competitive action for the first time. Andy Hunter
Liverpool v Arsenal, Sunday 4.30pm
Malen could pep up flat Villa
Aston Villa host Crystal Palace with the clubs in contrasting moods. Palace will arrive at Villa Park fresh from qualifying for the Conference League proper after progressing against Fredrikstad in Norway, while Villa are stuck in the mud. Villa’s season is only two games old but an uninspiring stalemate against Newcastle and a defeat at Brentford have doused optimism. Unai Emery’s side have dropped their intensity and the Villa manager has to find a formula to hurt a stubborn Palace defence. Emery must be tempted to turn to Donyell Malen, who has been almost exclusively used as a substitute since signing in a £20m deal from Borussia Dortmund in January, having made just two league starts for Villa. Malen would be a more natural winger than John McGinn, even if the captain is capable of operating off the flanks. Evann Guessand, who provided a spark off the bench on his debut, is another obvious option. Another flat performance is unthinkable, even at this early stage. BF
Aston Villa v Crystal Palace, Sunday 7pm
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 2 | 6 | 6 |
| 2 | Tottenham Hotspur | 2 | 5 | 6 |
| 3 | Liverpool | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| 5 | Nottm Forest | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| 6 | Man City | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 7 | Sunderland | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 8 | Everton | 2 | 1 | 3 |
| 9 | AFC Bournemouth | 2 | -1 | 3 |
| 10 | Brentford | 2 | -1 | 3 |
| 11 | Burnley | 2 | -1 | 3 |
| 12 | Leeds | 2 | -4 | 3 |
| 13 | Fulham | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 14 | Crystal Palace | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 15 | Newcastle | 2 | -1 | 1 |
| 16 | Man Utd | 2 | -1 | 1 |
| 17 | Aston Villa | 2 | -1 | 1 |
| 18 | Brighton | 2 | -2 | 1 |
| 19 | Wolverhampton | 2 | -5 | 0 |
| 20 | West Ham | 2 | -7 | 0 |
