Bluffers’ Guide to the Premier League weekend: Guardiola vs the Hard Men, and who is the dirtiest of them all?

It is Weekend Two in the world’s most competitive league, and Martin Bly has all the ammo you need to win your footie battles

It is a little early for Bluffers to discern trends in the Premier League season, but they may find it illuminating to compare styles as suggested by the coming weekend’s key fixtures.

For example, Pep Guardiola has stated that one of his main motivations in coming to take charge of Manchester City was to measure his undoubted talents against different styles of football. City’s opening games of the season have certainly offered early opportunities for that, first of all against rumbustious, Defoe-centric Sunderland, and on Saturday away to Stoke City, a forthright outfit managed by former City gaffer Mark Hughes.

On the basic stats, bluffers will wish to point out, Guardiola has little to fear. The two teams have met 16 times in the Premier League and City have won half of those encounters, Stoke only three. But Hughes’s men won 2-0 the last time the sides met at Stoke’s Bet 365 Stadium, and while his side have the third worst disciplinary record in the PL they are evolving from kick-and-rush thugs to something more subtle and resilient.

They won more of their home games than they lost or drew last season, and Hughes’s most significant summer transfer activity was hanging on to Marko Arnautovic, who could well cause Guardiola’s work-in-progress defence major problems.

At the sharp end of the field City will be looking to Sergio Aguero, who bluffers will note is not only in cracking form after a double in midweek, and ten goals in his last nine club appearances, but is also the Premier League’s leading scorer this year (note: not this season) with 18 goals in 19 PL outings.

Meanwhile, Liverpool seek back-to-back Premier League wins at top table returnees Burnley, and the question as usual for Jurgen Klopp will be whether he can muster any sort of competent defence. The swashbuckling style of the Reds’ opening day victory over Arsenal will have put many older bluffers in mind of Liverpool’s epic 4-3 win over Newcastle United 20 years ago.

Sadio Mane and Philippe Coutinho looked to be in terrifying form at The Emirates, but bluffers will wish to point out that Burnley were by far the most defensively resilient team in the Championship last season, losing just five of their 46 matches, and they should be a lot better organised at the back than Arsenal were.

Arsene Wenger’s team will be looking to recover from the trauma of that opening day defeat at the expense of the champions when they visit Leicester City at the King Power Stadium. Wenger seems to believe that there is a a Fifa or Uefa regulation stating that players must be given a certain amount of time off after a major championship, which is why he rested a number of key players last weekend.

Bluffers might like to point out that there is no such regulation. But they might also like to point out Arsenal’s awesome historic Premier League record against Leicester, 13 wins to one including two victories against Claudio Ranieri’s almost-indomitables last season. Leicester looked anything but indomitable against Hull City on opening day, and both sets of fans will be hoping to see much improved performances in this fixture.

A word, finally, about the comprehensive table of disciplinary failings compiled by FourFourTwo.com, which uses a weighting system to assess the dirtiness of every side in the top four tiers of English football over the past five seasons.

No surprise, perhaps, to find that Millwall are reckoned to be the dirtiest of all, while in the Premier league the worst collection of yellows and reds goes to Watford, followed by Sunderland and Stoke City. At the angelic end of things we find Leicester City, not only top of the table last year but the top table’s most virtuous side over the past five.