Premier League 2024/25 Matchday 6 - Preview & Predictions

An Old Trafford clash between Manchester United and Tottenham headlines the action from matchday six of the 2024/25 Premier League season.

Each matchday I’ll be focusing on a couple of Premier League matches from an in-depth perspective and then giving score predictions for the rest. At the bottom of each article will be a running count of how many winning results and correct score lines I mange to pick out throughout the season.

The pick of the bunch

Newcastle United vs Manchester City

Two sides who have taken their fair share of the headlines this week clash on matchday six of the 2024/25 Premier League season at St James’ Park as Newcastle United welcome Manchester City to the North East.

For the Magpies, it’s been a case of ‘how quickly things can change’ as after enjoying a largely successful start to this new campaign, a 3-1 loss to Fulham last weekend undid plenty of the hard work that manager Eddie Howe and his side had put together on the training pitch. In truth, Newcastle could have conceded more in that match given their poor overall performance and although it should have been a case of moving on in an instant after the full-time whistle, Howe has been the certain of attention off the field since instead.

That’s due to the fact that his relationship with sporting director Paul Mitchell has apparently fallen on tough times, with the pair reportedly not seeing eye to eye due to recent comments made by Mitchell. It’s impossible to know how far those problems go overall, but it’s hardly the backdrop that Newcastle fans would have been hoping for as their side look for a Champions League return this term.

Matters look like they’re almost certainly going to get worse with a visit from Manchester city then, the side who sit top of the standings after five matches following their highly contentious 2-2 draw with Arsenal last weekend. A late John Stones strike finally broke the ten-man Gunners’ backline, and manager Pep Guardiola will now be keen to extend his team’s fantastic run against Newcastle to capitalise on that, after losing just one of their last 33 Premier League matches against this opposition.

That task will be made all the more harder by the fact that midfielder star Rodri looks set for a lengthy spell on the sidelines though, after he picked up a seemingly serious knee injury against Arsenal. The Spaniard has been key to City’s success over recent seasons as highlighted by his 74.1% win-rate when featuring for City in the league as opposed to their 61.9% win-rate when he doesn’t.

Nevertheless, Guardiola is built as a manager to deal with these situations and with a plethora of quality that he can call upon from the bench, it’d take a brave person to bet against City form returning home with the three points from this highly anticipated clash.

Prediction: Newcastle 1-3 Man City

Chelsea vs Brighton

In fairness to new Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca, he’s really got his new side playing some splendid football which has resulted in the London side picking up 10 points through their opening five matches of this new Premier League season.

Three wins have been found against Wolves, Bournemouth and then West Ham last weekend in a 3-0 success, as the former Leicester boss continues to try and stamp his playing style on the former English top-flight champions.

After the club brought another lengthy list of new talent to Stamford Bridge over the summer, it was always going to be a case of trying to give individuals in his playing squad enough time to impress and through the use of the Blues’ routine 5-0 cup win against League Two’s Barrow on Wednesday, he’s done just that this week.

Christopher Nkunku netted an impressive hat-trick in that match as he continues to perform well this season following his injury ravaged campaign in 2023/24, whilst youngsters such as Cesare Casadei got a long overdue run out.

This weekend it’ll be back to his strongest squad for the visit of Brighton though, who arrive in London on the back of their own impressive early season form. To this point, the Seagulls remain unbeaten in the Premier League, the furthest they’ve ever got into a campaign in the competition without recording a loss. A 2-2 draw against ten-man Nottingham Forest last time out was hardly an ideal result but with a return of just one defeat across their last four away league games against Chelsea, the visitors will still have plenty of confidence that they can get the job done here.

That said, Chelsea produced a league double over this opposition last campaign, despite having a player sent off in both of those games, and at the minute, they just seem to be able to find a way past teams. After now also winning eight of their last ten league outings overall, the Blues are the team to back here, even if they remain winless across their two home Premier League outings to this point.

Prediction: Chelsea 2-1 Brighton

Manchester United vs Tottenham

Arguably the match of this Premier League weekend comes on Sunday at Old Trafford, as Manchester United look to improve upon their early season form a little more after largely disappointing so far.

It’s already been a season of false dawns for the Red Devils who enjoyed a solid summer transfer window on paper but have since really failed to get their act together on the pitch. That’s best shown through their results in the two weeks or so, beating Southampton and then Barnsley in the cup with complete ease before struggling to draws against Crystal Palace and FC Twente in the Europa League.

Due to that, manager Erik ten Hag remains under sizeable pressure on the red side of Manchester and unless he can begin to consistently get his side winning matches, he remains in danger of being sacked by the new board not too far down the line.

The arrival of Tottenham on Sunday acts as one that could go either way then on the results front, especially considering the recent scorelines between these sides. That’s headlined by the fact that after winning each of their four league games against Spurs between 2021 and 2022, United are now winless in their last three against the London outfit. But as usual that doesn’t tell the whole story.

That’s mostly due to the fact that Tottenham has begun their own Premier League campaign in wayward form, much like their opposition this weekend. In fact to this point of the campaign, Ange Postecoglou’s team have matched Manchester United’s results, winning two, losing two and drawing their other league outing. Their leaky backline remains a key reason for that, keeping just one clean sheet throughout that time, whilst their away form leaves them susceptible to another defeat here.

That’s because Spurs have won just three of their last 15 league games on the road, a run which continues to put pressure on their Australian manager who is seemingly becoming frustrated with his side. There’s also the small problem that Tottenham have lost 24 of their prior away Premier League matches against the Red Devils, their most against any side by a decent margin so unless they can rally here, a draw seems to be their best-case scenario to an extent.

Prediction: Man United 1-1 Spurs

Predictions for the rest of the matchday

Brentford 1-1 West Ham

Everton 2-0 Crystal Palace

Arsenal 4-0 Leicester City

Nottingham Forest 1-1 Fulham

Wolves 0-3 Liverpool

Ipswich Town 1-3 Aston Villa

Bournemouth 1-0 Southampton

Predictions outcome so far this season