English Premier League odds, predictions: Two best bets for Saturday

The third Matchday of the English Premier League season has arrived and bettors should be treated to some great fixtures.

The obvious headline of the slate is Monday’s battle at Old Trafford between Manchester United and Liverpool, but the slate also features a battle between European hopefuls West Ham & Brighton on Sunday.

However, we’re here to focus on the Saturday slate and our best bets for those six fixtures. So, without further delay, allow me to present my pair of plays for tomorrow’s action. All odds come courtesy of BetMGM and are reflective at time of writing.

After rescuing a point at the death against Chelsea, Tottenham return home to battle an overrated Wolves side, in my opinion.

Given my projections make manager Bruno Lage’s side a bottom-half team over the course of the season, that brings a profitable historical trend for Tottenham into play. Including their Matchday One home victory against Southampton, Tottenham has now won 10 of its last 11 home matches against bottom-half sides.

In those 11 fixtures, manager Antonio Conte’s side has won six by at least one expected goal and has generated 2.01 expected goals per 90 minutes. All told, Spurs have a +1.04 xGDiff per 90 minutes in those 11 fixtures.

On the flip-side, Wolves struggled defensively away from home last season, particularly against good teams. In road matches against the top-nine last season, Lage’s side conceded 2.01 xG/90 minutes while generating only 1.06 expected goals per 90 minutes.

Although I’m slightly concerned it’s a letdown spot for Tottenham, I’ll lay the goal line at +100 or better.

I expect this match will be pure chaos with both sides playing little defense.

Although it’s only a two-match sample, both of these sides rank in the bottom-six of the expected goals table. Plus, their two head-to-head meetings last season were WIDE OPEN and featured a number of scoring chances. In the most recent fixture at the King Power Stadium, Leicester won 4-1 in a match that saw a combined 4.35 expected goals and eight big scoring chances, per fotmob.com.

In the reverse fixture at St. Mary’s Stadium, there were 3.66 combined expected goals and six big scoring chances in a 2-2 draw.

Although it’s slightly concerning neither of these attacks have created much in the first two matches -- both are averaging below one xG/90 minutes -- I rate this is a good buy-low spot. Across its last 20 home fixtures, Leicester has failed to score only four times, two of which came against Manchester City and Chelsea.

At the same time, Leicester’s defense has kept only two clean sheets in its last eight head-to-head meetings against Southampton, which created 1.32 xG/90 minutes against non-Big Six sides on the road last season and failed to score in only three of those fixtures.

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