1) Rodgers returns to try to derail Klopp’s perfect start
Brendan Rodgers returns to Anfield on Saturday, sensing an opportunity to end his former club’s perfect Premier League start. Last season, a much less adventurous Leicester side got a point at Liverpool, triggering a costly spell of self-doubt for Jürgen Klopp’s title chasers. There has been virtually no sign of weakness from the Reds in the league this term, but Salzburg’s dramatic Champions League fightback may have shown Rodgers the way forward. Andrew Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold made surging infield runs against Salzburg, a tactic that helped Liverpool race into a three-goal lead as Robertson scored. As the game changed, the hosts were left exposed in wide areas as their opponents poured forward. Leicester will be a threat on the counter and have plenty of pace and craft on the flanks, not least through their own full-back pairing of Ben Chilwell and Ricardo Pereira. Rodgers’ side are dangerous opponents, and Klopp will hope the reliable Joël Matip is available to slot back into central defence. NM
• Liverpool v Leicester, Saturday 3pm (all times BST)
2) A classic cannot be expected at St James’
Manchester United travel to St James’ Park on Sunday, a year to the day since a 3-2 defeat at Old Trafford where Alexis Sánchez’s late winner saved José Mourinho from the sack. A year is a long time in football. While much has changed since, both teams are still dealing with the same fundamental issues. Manchester United cannot conjure any kind of consistency or fluidity, and Newcastle are short of goals and fearing relegation. Last year, Rafael Benítez’s safety-first approach got them out of trouble. Under Steve Bruce, they have lost their solidity at the back without getting any better going forward; they are the league’s joint-lowest scorers. Since beating Chelsea 4-0 in their league opener, Manchester United have scored seven goals in nine games, with turgid draws against Arsenal and AZ Alkmaar this week. In short, don’t expect another five-goal thriller in this Super Sunday showpiece. NM
• Newcastle v Manchester United, Sunday 4.30pm
3) Wolves need to keep discipline to have hope
Wolves’ shaky start appears to be behind them now, with two victories and two clean sheets inside a week. Before the trip to Besiktas, captain Conor Coady had targeted defensive improvement and they delivered in Istanbul, with centre-back Willy Boly grabbing a last-gasp winner. Boly was a key figure in both fixtures against Manchester City last season, scoring a handball opener at Molineux and getting sent off early at the Etihad in a 3-0 defeat. That was Wolves’ only league red card last term; this year, they have already doubled that tally, with Boly dismissed at Everton and Romain Saiss sent off at Crystal Palace. Defensive discipline is not all about keeping clean sheets, and while Wolves may travel in hope rather than expectation after such a long midweek trip, concentration will be key. In midweek, Dinamo Zagreb showed the benefits of taking on City with a clear defensive strategy; two weeks ago, Watford showed the pitfalls of not doing so. NM
• Manchester City v Wolves, Sunday 2pm
4) Pochettino’s men punished by allowing sides to shoot
It is hard to put a positive spin on a 7-2 defeat, but it is certainly possible to make it appear less negative. “Tottenham were fantastic at the start of the game, they could have been two- or three-nil up. Some real impressive play, pressing, put them under pressure,” said Graham Potter, for whom Spurs’ pummelling at the hands of Bayern Munich was probably too extraordinary to be particularly useful. Bayern had just 11 shots on target; Philippe Coutinho was the only player to test Hugo Lloris without scoring, and he only did it once. The xG statistics suggest that Bayern should have scored no more than two goals (1.24 to be precise), which indicates the Tottenham defence isn’t that broken (or that xG statistics really are). Still, Tottenham could certainly do with restricting opponents’ shot-taking a bit: they have let their opponents have 112 this season (24 more than Brighton), and the 44 shots on target they have conceded is the most in the league, and already 40% of their figure for the entire 2016-17 season, when they finished second to Chelsea. Lloris was unlucky to be beaten so often on Tuesday, but he is being tested much too frequently. SB
• Brighton v Tottenham, Saturday 12.30pm
5) West Ham look to build on positive start
It remains early days but West Ham appear to have bridged a gap they been trying to bridge for a while. A spluttering of mid-table finishes failed to stimulate much excitement around a club that harbours explicit hopes of qualifying for Europe, but there are signs they could make a reasonable play for those places under Manuel Pellegrini. Sébastien Haller came at a cost, but the £45m striker looks more than just a 6ft 3in handful and, behind him, Pellegrini has a plethora of options to pick from, including the fit-again Manuel Lanzini. How they will fare without the injured Lukasz Fabianski remains to be seen, but with Everton and Wolves yet to convince, it would be wrong to overlook Pellegrini’s credentials to deliver a top-seven finish. The Chilean has form for parachuting unfancied teams into the upper echelons, having propelled Villarreal and Málaga into Europe, and early evidence suggests West Ham, who finished 10th last season, have the tools to go close. BF
• West Ham v Crystal Palace, Saturday 5.30pm
6) Farke hopes faith in promoted squad can pay
These teams last met when the Canaries secured the victory that brought them last season’s Championship title. The extent of Aston Villa’s post-promotion recruitment drive is no secret but here is a telling illustration: of the 14 players who played either from the start or from the bench for Norwich that day all are still at the club, every one has played in the Premier League and most are doing so regularly, having between them played 5,378 league minutes. Of the 13 players who appeared for Aston Villa six have left the club, two remain but have not been used and just two have started a top-flight match since promotion. Between them those 13 players have played 828 minutes, of which Neil Taylor is single-handedly responsible for 568. Take away Taylor and the remaining 12 have, on average, played a mere 21 minutes and 40 seconds of league football for Villa this season, or a still unimpressive 43 minutes 20 seconds if you discount the departed players. Take away the one member of that Norwich side who has been most used this season, Ben Godfrey, and the remainder have averaged 360 minutes and 23 seconds. For all that the sides are currently separated by only one point, but this is a chance for one of them to prove that their methodology is superior. SB
• Norwich v Aston Villa, Saturday 3pm
7) Bournemouth seek statement scalp at Arsenal
Bournemouth have made a decent start to the season but a scalp would make the rest of the division truly sit up and take notice going into the international break. Last season they earned notable victories over Chelsea and Tottenham on home soil but failed to take points off any of the top six away from Dean Court, mustering three goals along the way. They were thumped 5-1 by Unai Emery’s side in February and in their last eight meetings, the aggregate score reads 20-8 against Eddie Howe’s side. There is no doubt Bournemouth can hurt teams and Philip Billing has formed a promising midfield partnership with Jefferson Lerma, but a defence that is susceptible to leaking cheap goals – one without a clean sheet in the Premier League this campaign – will likely be tested again in north London. If Howe can find a defensive remedy, Arsenal could be in for another difficult afternoon. BF
• Arsenal v Bournemouth, Sunday 2pm
8) Saints need points fast as tough spell arrives
It was made abundantly clear to Ralph Hasenhüttl that beating Portsmouth was non-negotiable, and that Southampton supporters would happily shrug off defeats in the league games that bookended that Carabao Cup tie at Fratton Park safe in the knowledge they had recorded victory over their despised rivals. But they can ill-afford league form to suffer too much. If they fall to defeat at home to an in-form Chelsea, they will have lost three Premier League games on the bounce. After the international break they travel to Wolves and host Leicester before November presents trips to Manchester City and Arsenal. Victory over Pompey was priceless but they need to pick up points and fast – particularly at home, where they are yet to taste victory this season – if they are to avoid getting dragged into another all-too familiar relegation scrap. BF
• Southampton v Chelsea, Sunday 2pm
9) Dyche determined to make amends for last season’s 5-1
Everton’s last visit to Burnley will provoke unusually conflicting memories for the home side. It was, on one level, a complete humiliation: they were a goal down inside two minutes, three behind by the time the opening period was halfway through, and went on to lose 5-1. After that game, however, Sean Dyche made a few changes – Dwight McNeil had started once all season but has only failed to start one league game since; Joe Hart had played every league game but has not got off the bench since – Burnley won five and lost none of their next eight and proceeded to finish comfortably clear of relegation. “I thought we bottomed out that day,” Sean Dyche said as the season neared its conclusion. “It is a hard thing to put your finger on but it is a collective thing of, ‘That’s enough.’” Now they will want to show the extent of their improvement against the side that pushed them to the bottom. “It’s one we want to put right,” Ben Mee said. “We’ll definitely be up for it and it will be a good buzz if we get a good result.” SB
• Burnley v Everton, Saturday 3pm
10) Watford must find shooting form to arrest tailspin
Of Watford’s last 19 league games, amounting to exactly half of a top-flight season, they have won only four, and taken a total of 15 points. That is point accumulation at a rate that would guarantee relegation if continued over an entire campaign, and partly explains the haste with which they disposed of Javi Gracia last month, after he led his team to one point from four winnable matches. More worrying still, all but one of those four victories came against teams now playing in the Championship. Not since Andre Gray’s last-minute goal brought a 2-1 win over Leicester more than seven months ago have Watford beaten a current Premier League side. They took 16 of a possible 18 points against the teams that eventually went down last season, and this first meeting of the season with a recently-promoted side is a chance for them to see if they feel equally at home against sides that eventually came up. Watford’s defence is seen, not unreasonably, as the side’s great weakness but it is surely time for their attack to contribute a little more: they have taken 105 shots – more than every side except Manchester City (150), Chelsea (120) and Liverpool (105), but of those only 30 have been on target and just four have gone in. SB
• Watford v Sheffield United, Saturday 3pm