Midweek Premier League Tips: Back goals at the Cottage, plus positive results for Liverpool & Man Utd | OneFootball

Newcastle v Liverpool (Wed, 19:30)

Liverpool cemented their position at the top of the league with a dominant 2-0 win over Manchester City on Sunday. They had 18 shots versus eight, created five big chances to City's one, resulting in generating 3.57 expected goals - 0.84. They head to Newcastle on Wednesday night having won 18 of 20 matches this season across all competitions.

Despite Arsenal and Chelsea (joint 2nd) dropping points in six of their 13 games, Liverpool's lead at the top of the table is still only nine points and with 25 games to go, there's still plenty more wins up for grabs. With Man City having won the league three times by two points or fewer in this Guardiola-dominated era, Liverpool seem to have set the template of how to win the league with the start to their 2019/20 success where they won 26 of their opening 27 games.

Newcastle have underwhelmed so far this season to sit 11th in the table, scoring just 14 goals in 13 games. This despite having played six of the bottom eight. Statistically they've not looked great, registering the sixth fewest shots in the league (12.2 per-game), whilst conceding the seventh most (14.6).

They are creating the sixth fewest expected goals, whilst they are the second biggest overachievers defensively, having conceded 14 goals yet 21.39 expected goals. Therefore the likes of Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo and Darwin Nunez could be the ones to punish them.

On Saturday away at Crystal Palace, Newcastle managed just one shot whilst conceding 16 to really encapsulate their season. When Man City came here at the end of September they were 4/6.

Arsenal v Man Utd (Wed, 20:15)

Ruben Amorim has got off to a solid start as the new Manchester United manager with two wins in a three game unbeaten spell.

The opponents were only Ipswich, Bodo Glimt and Everton but as the old saying goes, you can only beat what is put in-front of you. The 4-0 and 3-2 wins suggest they've been great going forward but it's actually defensively where things have been good.

Across his three games, Utd have only given up 2.94 expected goals - less than one per-game. Contrast that with Eric ten Hag's tenure in the Premier League this season, where they had conceded 19.14 xG in 11 games - 1.74 xG per-game.

This is not to say things are fixed from a defensive standpoint, particularly given the standard of the opposition, but it's a step in the right direction.

Arsenal on the other hand have bounced back from their spell before the International Break where they only won one game of six across Premier League and Champions League, which seemed to coincide with the absence of Martin Odegaard.

Since the international break, they've beaten Nottingham Forest at home, whilst impressively winning at Sporting and West Ham. I'm wondering if some recency bias is playing a part in their price here as they are just 1.50 and we can back Utd with a decent handicap.

With games coming thick and fast it's about getting three points and not winning by big margins. Having already played three games in eight days, Arsenal will now play nine games in just 32 days, an average of a game just over every three days.

With having seen the impact with and without Odegaard, it will be crucial for Mikel Arteta to manage the squad effectively with the upcoming workload. We can get paid backing Utd on the handicap even with Arsenal winning by a single goal and that looks good to me given the start to life under new boss Amorim.

Fulham v Brighton (Thur, 19:30)

A really easy bet for me here between two sides who's games just love goals, including at both ends of the pitch. Fulham have scored 18 and conceded 18 in their 13 games, giving a total of 36 goals at an average of 2.77 per-game, whilst under new Brighton boss Fabian Hürzeler, they've scored 22 goals and conceded 17, giving a total of 39 goals at an average of 3.0 per-game. If you look at Brighton across all competitions, their matches have actually seen 53 goals at an average of 3.31 per-game. Looking at Fulham with a bigger sample size, since the beginning of last season, their matches have seen 152 goals - 2.98 per-game.

Craven Cottage has been particularly goal heavy, with 15 of their last 20 matches going over 2.5 goals (75%). With 11 of Brighton's 15 matches versus Premier League opposition under the new boss having three or more goals (73%), it makes sense to back goals.