Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend

1) United can help Palace towards unwanted record

After six league games, six defeats and still no goals, Old Trafford would be very close to bottom of the list of ideal destinations for Crystal Palace, but it may be a fine place to find some sympathy. After all, as nonagenarian United fans might recall, their team’s start to the 1930-31 season remains the most disastrous in Football League history. They were wildly unfortunate to lose their opening game to the champions Aston Villa – Joe Spence suffered a twisted knee and Tom Jones cracked a collar-bone, leaving United playing for a draw with nine and a half men (Jones gamely tried to carry on as best he could). With a minute and a half to play, Jack Wilson passed back to Alf Steward, the United goalkeeper, who inexplicably dropped the ball and Tom Waring capitalised to grab the winner. “The pass was made with complete accuracy,” we reported, “but Steward fumbled the ball and the insatiable Waring dashed in to dash out the Manchester hopes.” Eleven straight defeats followed – they shipped four to Manchester City and Portsmouth, five against West Ham, six against Chelsea and Huddersfield and seven against Newcastle before finally beating Birmingham on 1 November. Palace are only halfway to matching United’s miserable run but with a visit from Chelsea to follow Saturday’s game, United’s 87-year-old unwanted record could be under genuine threat. SB

2) A showdown to savour at Stamford Bridge

One of the first things Pep Guardiola said after his team’s 6-0 demolition of Watford a few weeks ago was that he would not get a truly accurate indication of the strength of his side until they go to Chelsea, who beat them home and away last season. Since that win at Vicarage Road, City have been weakened by the injury to Benjamin Mendy, which a pity both for them and for all admirers of rampaging left-backs, and Sergio Agüero’s car accident in the Netherlands. Fabian Delph has done a decent job since filling in for Mendy but he is no like-for-like replacement. City, then, might not be as dangerous and balanced as they would otherwise have been. But they are still have enough creativity to blow Chelsea away. Antonio Conte’s men have reason to be confident, too, especially if Fernandinho is left to hold midfield by himself. Hyped-up matches have a habit of letting us down but this one should be exceptional. PD

3) Seagulls lacking firepower for overdue trip to Arsenal

Brighton and Arsenal have met three times in the last 34 years, all of them cup meetings played on the south coast – making this the Seagulls’ first trip to this corner of north London since a 3-1 defeat in February 1983. Any buoyancy Brighton may have felt at the fixture’s timing, coming less than 72 hours after Arsenal’s Europa League trip to Belarus, lasted only as long as it took for their strikers to start falling. Glenn Murray and Sam Baldock, who scored 34 league goals between them last season, are both injured while the Israeli Tomer Hemed, responsible for two of the team’s five league goals this season, is starting a three-match suspension. This leaves on-loan Izzy Brown – whose top-flight experience amounts to 11 minutes for Chelsea in 2015, and 24 minutes in Brighton’s defeat to Manchester City on the season’s opening day, which for him was curtailed by a hamstring injury, and who in Chris Hughton’s words “has only just come back from injury and is really a No10” – as the most likely option up front. SB

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4) Liverpool have a frightening attack but need to be more clinical

Liverpool’s newest Fab Four produced an encouraging enough display at Spartak Moscow on Tuesday night but the task now is for them to become clinical. Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mané, Philippe Coutinho and Mohamed Salah had not started a competitive game together before and at times their movement and interplay – particularly Salah’s when he darts in from the right – was dizzying. They should only get better but the big concern on Tuesday was that chances were once again missed and final passes frequently went awry. It is difficult to see a natural goalscorer in Jürgen Klopp’s ranks – if we are to assume that Daniel Sturridge, who in fact missed the most glaring opportunity in Moscow, is destined for little more than a cameo role – but they will need their whirlwind of an attack needs to be topped off by some cold-blooded finishing. Sunday may be one of those occasions; Rafa Benítez and Newcastle have, defeat at Brighton notwithstanding, been on decent form and look a tough nut to crack. Can Liverpool, for all their energy, demonstrate top-level composure regularly enough? NA

5) Huddersfield should ditch caution and go for it against Spurs

Huddersfield face their first test against one of the Big Six and David Wagner’s approach will be intriguing. The German manager has been an advocate of energetic pressing at the John Smith’s Stadium, while calling for a more belt-and-braces defensive approach on the road – at Turf Moor last weekend, Huddersfield had only three touches of the ball inside the Burnley penalty area. The Terriers have conceded just three goals in their opening six Premier League matches and, against a Tottenham Hotspur side that are a class above anyone they have faced so far, Wagner may be tempted to err on the side of extreme caution. We can but hope he doesn’t – after a fine start to the season this amounts to a free swing for Huddersfield and by showing the courage of the convictions that have brought them this far, Huddersfield can get a real measure of where they rank in the firmament, even if that means risking a heavy defeat. BG

6) Time for Hughes to give Stoke’s youth a chance?

It is a common complaint that teams such as Chelsea and Manchester City are reluctant to give youngsters a chance, but when a mid-ranking Stoke City show similar reticence it is even more depressing. Against Chelsea last weekend, Mark Hughes was faced with the absence of the defenders Kurt Zouma, Ryan Shawcross, Kevin Wimmer and Geoff Cameron for one reason or another. Rather than give the teenage defenders Josh Tymon or Harry Souttar some valuable minutes, he left them on the bench throughout, chose to start Ramadan Sobhi and Mame Biram Diouf instead and watched his team ship four goals in a heavy defeat. With Bruno Martins Indi now injured and doubts surrounding the availability of Shawcross and Wimmer for Stoke’s match against Southampton, Hughes could face similar selection problems this weekend. Whether or not he considers the youngsters for even a cameo role remains to be seen. BG

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7) Unlikely villain Nyom faces Watford fans again

Though this fixture might not leap off the page as being one of the weekend’s more appealing, there has been just one goalless draw in 39 meetings between these teams – and none ever at the Hawthorns. The last three times the teams have met there have all been memorable: the Midlands side sauntering to a 5-0 win in the Championship back in 2009, Heurelho Gomes saving two Saido Berahino penalties as Watford won 1-0 two seasons ago, and Roberto Pereyra being controversially sent off as West Brom eked out a 3-1 victory last December. As it happens the referee that awarded those two penalties in April 2016, Michael Oliver, will be wielding his whistle again on Saturday. Visiting fans won’t know who to boo louder – Oliver or the mystifyingly unpopular former Watford full-back Allan Nyom. The Cameroonian started 29 league games for the Hornets two seasons ago, performances of unwavering effort and commitment if only intermittent quality, before moving to West Brom. Despite his hard work in the Hornets’ name, Nyom was booed by some of the away fans at last season’s meeting at the Hawthorns. As a result of this unwanted attention he enthusiastically celebrated his new side’s eventual victory, and was subsequently booed by almost all of the home fans when he turned up at Vicarage Road in March. Quite how unpopular he now is in Hertfordshire will become clear on Saturday. SB

8) If West Ham fail to beat Swansea, Bilic could face the axe

Swansea’s last visit to the London Stadium proved a godsend for West Ham and Slaven Bilic. The Hammers won 1-0 back in April and arrested a run of five straight defeats that had sent them plummeting. Their recent form is not quite that bad but nor is it far off; this really feels like a game in which Bilic cannot afford to drop points and, if Swansea come away with something this time, you sense the axe may be hovering. Clear, strategic thinking will be required – not the kind that saw Andy Carroll brought on to replace the injured Michail Antonio, who will miss this game, which disrupted the balance of a strong start last weekend against Tottenham. Paul Clement has his own problems, even if the Swansea manager is still operating amid a healthy dose of goodwill. He needs to find an attacking threat that his team has lost since selling Gylfi Sigurdsson and Fernando Llorente, otherwise they seem set for a very hard winter. In truth it is hard to see anything different for either of these sides at the moment – will Bilic get many more chances to alter the pattern? NA

9) Shakespeare now needs results to back up performances

Considering the speed with which a sizable proportion of Leicester City fans turned on Claudio Ranieri – who masterminded the most unlikely Premier League title win of all time on their behalf – it can’t be too long before the man who replaced him incurs their wrath. Craig Shakespeare’s side have won and drawn one of their opening six matches and have conceded more goals than 17 other teams in the top flight. It could legitimately be argued that Leicester have not played particularly badly against particularly strong opposition in defeat this season, but many of the fans who wanted Claudio Ranieri gone justified their impatience by pointing out that football is a results-based business and Premier League survival is all important. Results so far this season have been largely poor and the same logic must dictate that another bad one against Bournemouth, one of only three teams below Leicester in the table, may well prompt unrest among the more entitled in the club’s fan base. BG

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10) Balanced Burnley aim to complicate things for Koeman

It would be interesting to see what sort of side Sean Dyche would produce if entrusted with £150m. But we are unlikely to find out any time soon so we will have to make do, for now, with seeing how Burnley go about trying to sabotage Ronald Koeman’s plans. The visitors will go to Goodison Park with confidence, having already returned with points this season from Stamford Bridge, Anfield and Wembley. And they are a better balanced team than Everton, who may have more quality in patches but still are not working well as a whole. PD