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Chelsea vs Liverpool

Following their victory over Leicester at Anfield, Liverpool has had quite a good week.

In addition to the fact that confidence is oozing through the atmosphere at Melwood, the Reds have received some good news on the injury front with the likes of Emre Can and Dejan Lovren returning to full training and new goalkeeper Loris Karius achieving full recovery from a broken hand.

Chelsea would’ve felt that their 2-2 draw at Swansea was more two points dropped than it was a single point gained. They were tipped to take advantage of whoever lost out in the Manchester derby and they just struggled to do so – albeit because of some poor officiating. The news of captain John Terry’s absence through injury will come as a big blow to them but it will, of course, serve as an opportunity for summer signing David Luiz to return to the side and make an immediate impact.

The prospect of Luiz making his second debut for the Blues has been an on-going topic amongst Reds fans. Make no mistake about it, the Brazilian is a great footballer, but from a Liverpool point of view, he’s what we’ve come to know as a ‘Moreno’ – outstanding in attack, horrifying in defence. I would like to think that part of Jürgen Klopp’s game-plan for Friday is to encourage the likes of Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mané to get at him and cause both him and Gary Cahill a lot of problems.

With that said, there’s also no doubting that part of Antonio Conté’s game-plan will be to encourage striker Diego Costa to do the very same to our back-line.

Either way, this will surely be a close encounter as both sides are well capable of winning at Stamford Bridge. I just think that scoring the first goal will be crucial to Liverpool’s hopes of earning the three points here.

Chelsea is more likely to drop deep and defend in their numbers, if or when they take an early lead, an approach I am very critical of in the big games – they used the same approach to beat us 1-0 in pre-season.

But, I see a few goals being scored and I’m just going to back the Reds to edge this one.

Prediction: Chelsea 2-3 Liverpool

Hull City vs Arsenal

Hull left it late to earn a point at Burnley last week thanks to a bullet free-kick by Robert Snodgrass.

Considering the Tigers have only lost once this season, they will be pleased with themselves and will be up for another fight against an Arsenal side who drew their opening Champions League match away to French giants Paris Saint-Germain.

The Gunners weren’t too flattering in both that match and their last Premier League tie at home to Southampton, they only just got away with respective results but manager Arsene Wenger will no doubt be looking to build on that.

The KCOM Stadium is already one of the league’s toughest grounds. Having already given both Manchester United and champions Leicester City a run for their money, Mike Phelan’s men will be confident of getting a result against the Gunners and few would be surprised if they did.

However, I am going to predict a result on the safe side and back Arsenal to grab the three points.

Prediction: Hull City 1-2 Arsenal