A packed Premier League programme begins on Friday with the Midlands derby between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa, setting the tone for a flurry of fixtures through the weekend. Chelsea\u2019s trip to Arsenal is the standout tie on Sunday, with several intriguing match-ups on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Aston Villa\u2019s recent slide is explained in large part by the absence of three integral midfielders: Boubacar Kamara, John McGinn and Youri Tielemans. Unai Emery\u2019s side have won just one of their last four matches and are struggling in the final third, forcing them to refocus on a Champions League qualification push rather than the title.<\/p>\n
Wolves sit bottom and, while Rob Edwards has shown signs of improvement, their season appears over. They will nevertheless seek to spoil their Midlands rivals\u2019 plans, and the expectation here is for a narrow Villa win.<\/p>\n
Bournemouth will look for revenge against Sunderland after surrendering a two-goal lead in their November meeting at the Stadium of Light. The Cherries are unbeaten in seven Premier League matches and should be able to extend that run at home, especially against a Sunderland side that has won only twice since Christmas.<\/p>\n
Burnley\u2019s character remains unquestioned despite their perilous league position. The Clarets earned a late draw at Chelsea and will make Brentford work at Turf Moor, but Brentford\u2019s consistency suggests a slender away victory.<\/p>\n
Liverpool have improved results recently and head into a favourable run of fixtures. West Ham\u2019s low block and counter-attacking threat will test the Reds, but a narrow home win is predicted.<\/p>\n
Newcastle rotated comfortably in midweek and are expected to beat a struggling Everton side that has scored more than once only once in their last eight league games. Man City travel to Leeds with momentum and squad depth, and are favoured to win.<\/p>\n
Nottingham Forest must find goals against an organized Brighton, while Tottenham and Fulham look set for a draw given Spurs\u2019 recent heavy defeat on debut under Igor Tudor and Fulham\u2019s inconsistency. Manchester United\u2019s uplift under Michael Carrick leaves them likely to beat Crystal Palace, whose manager urged fans to \u201cstay humble,\u201d ahead of Old Trafford.<\/p>\n
Final predictions (selected): Wolves 1\u20132 Aston Villa; Bournemouth 3\u20131 Sunderland; Burnley 0\u20131 Brentford; Liverpool 2\u20131 West Ham; Newcastle 2\u20130 Everton; Leeds 1\u20133 Man City; Brighton 1\u20131 Nottingham Forest; Fulham 1\u20131 Tottenham; Man Utd 2\u20130 Crystal Palace; Arsenal 2\u20131 Chelsea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gameweek 28 preview with score predictions, key absences and notes on form for each fixture. Sat-Sun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,969],"tags":[1498],"class_list":["post-7134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gameweek-28","category-premier-league","tag-preds-28"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7134","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=7134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}