The first weekend of the 2026-27 Premier League season offered a sharp reminder that early-round drama is already in full flow. High-scoring contests, late comebacks and a few sobering results set the tone, and Gameweek 2 now brings another full slate of fixtures with several teams looking to build momentum or steady themselves after a difficult start.<\/p>\n
At Selhurst Park, Manchester City head in needing a cleaner performance after their opening win over Bournemouth. Crystal Palace\u2019s own campaign has begun shakily, with Pierre Sage already facing pressure after a difficult summer and an opening defeat to Everton. Even so, City are still expected to leave with the points.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s first home league outing of the season comes against Nottingham Forest, who arrive after back-to-back home defeats to Leeds United. The Reds were far from convincing in their draw at Newcastle, but their stronger overall squad and home advantage point toward a narrow victory.<\/p>\n
Bournemouth, meanwhile, should find Everton a more measured opponent than the counterattacking challenge they faced at the Etihad. David Moyes\u2019s side have shown signs of resilience this summer, and a draw feels the likeliest outcome.<\/p>\n
Elsewhere, Brentford\u2019s opening demolition of Tottenham underlined their attacking threat, but Leeds have begun the season with back-to-back clean sheets and may be able to blunt them. Sunderland and Fulham are tipped for a tight, low-scoring meeting at the Stadium of Light after mixed starts from both sides.<\/p>\n
Tottenham are expected to respond against Newcastle, while Chelsea\u2019s attacking trio should again be central to the conversation when Brighton visit Stamford Bridge. Arsenal, still perfect after their opening wins, are predicted to continue their smooth start away to Aston Villa.<\/p>\n
The one major question in the title picture remains the same: can anybody stop Arsenal from sauntering to consecutive Premier League titles? On current evidence, the early answer is no.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal headline a Gameweek 2 forecast shaped by early-season form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18792,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[1836,1982],"class_list":["post-18793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-epl","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-gameweek-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}