The final round of Premier League fixtures before Christmas arrives with all 20 clubs scheduled to play between Saturday and Monday. Absences and recent form shape the first-goal markets across the weekend.<\/p>\n
Liverpool will be without Mohamed Salah because of the Africa Cup of Nations. Their striking burden has fallen to Hugo Ekitik\u00e9, who has displaced Alexander Isak in the starting line-up. No, not Alexander Isak! Ekitik\u00e9 arrives in strong form, having scored successive Premier League braces, and Liverpool remain capable of finding goals despite defensive questions.<\/p>\n
Newcastle\u2019s choice up front has struggled for frequency. It\u2019s only one goal since October for Newcastle striker Nick Woltemade, yet a home game against a talented but inexperienced Chelsea side feels suited to him. Against Manchester United, Antoine Semenyo struck and that goal was his seventh in the Premier League this season, signalling a return to scoring form for him, while Burnley continue to hold one of the poorest defensive records in the division.<\/p>\n
Sunderland veteran Danny Welbeck has seven Premier League goals this season at the age of 35. He has not scored in recent weeks, but Sunderland have managed only one clean sheet away from home.<\/p>\n
Manchester City are heavy favourites to beat West Ham. Erling Haaland has been responsible for 45% of Manchester City\u2019s entire Premier League output this season and has returned to his very best.<\/p>\n
Brentford\u2019s Igor Thiago has been a surprise contributor in 2025\u201326 with 11 goals, and his form looks significant against a Wolves side conceding at an alarming rate.<\/p>\n
Viktor Gy\u00f6keres is sufficiently recovered from injury to be starting again and is statistically well placed to score for Arsenal by virtue of his role on the pitch. Jean-Philippe Mateta leads the line for Crystal Palace with seven Premier League goals this season and looks overdue, especially against a Leeds defence described as poor. Finally, Ollie Watkins benefits from Manchester United\u2019s ongoing defensive fragility, leaving him in a promising position to open the scoring at Villa Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GW17 first-goal picks: Salah at AFCON, in-form finishers, defensive frailties and smart choices 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5236,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1328,172,1125],"tags":[1211,195,801],"class_list":["post-5237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gameweek-17","category-epl","category-strikers","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-alexander-isak","tag-antoine-semenyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237","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=5237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}