Five Key Facts Ahead of the Premier League's Return
With things hotting up at both ends, the Premier League is Leicester’s to lose, but here we look at five stand out statistics ahead of the weekend’s action, starting with a game that could have a huge say in the title race.
In what could have a massive effect on the race to win the league, with Spurs playing a day before leaders Leicester, the title hopefuls will be desperate for a trend of Liverpool’s season to continue this weekend. The Reds haven’t won back-to-back league matches at Anfield all campaign, though having beaten Manchester City in their last home outing, it’s a trend sequence that could be broken.
Now with the longest unbeaten streak at home of any team all season (12 matches), West Ham will be hoping to heap more misery on Palace on Saturday. The Eagles haven’t won a league game since last year, with victory at Stoke in December taking the Londoners 5 points clear of Slaven Bilic’s side at the time. They are now 17 points behind the Hammers…
Undoubtedly the biggest game this weekend in the battle against the drop, Rafa Benitez will be desperate for a first win in charge of Newcastle when he takes his new side to Carrow Road. The Magpies are the lowest scorers in the top four tiers of English football (7 goals) and face a Norwich side that has kept back-to-back clean sheets.
Louis van Gaal’s men are still very much in the hunt for a top four finish and face an inconsistent Everton side that they thumped 3-0 earlier in the campaign. While the Toffees have underwhelmed though, it’s gone unnoticed that they have lost fewer matches away from home (1) than any other Premier League side.
Bournemouth vs Manchester City
Three consecutive wins have all but secured Bournemouth’s survival so they will be confident of upsetting the odds against a City side that seem to have given up in the league. The fortunes of the two clubs in recent months are highlighted by the fact that the Cherries have picked up three more points (18) than Manuel Pellegrini’s men since the turn of the year.
Click here to head to WhoScored.com's Premier League page to see the rest of the weekend's previews
