Welcome to week nine of The Athletic’s Premier League predictions challenge, where Arsenal’s miserly defending has worked wonders for the dreaded algorithm.

Correct scoreline predictions have been a little scarce, but the algorithm has got Arsenal’s past two matches spot-on — a 2-0 victory against West Ham United and a 1-0 win at Fulham — and earned an extra seven points in our prediction challenge as a result.

Mikel Arteta’s men have conceded just three goals in their eight Premier League matches, putting them on course to break Chelsea’s record of 15 allowed in 38 in their 2004-05 title-winning campaign under Jose Mourinho. In all competitions this season, it’s nine clean sheets in 12 games.

When I predicted a 2-1 away win at Craven Cottage last weekend, subscriber Matthew M replied, “Given that Arsenal have conceded only three goals all season and just one from open play, I wouldn’t expect them to concede against Fulham.”

Matthew was right. I was wrong. And importantly for our competition, the algorithm was right to go for 1-0, extending its lead at the top of our table to five points.

Each week this season, four of us — a guest subscriber, six-year-old Wilfred, the algorithm and me — are predicting the Premier League results with varying degrees of success.

We’re awarding three points for a correct scoreline and one point for a correct result. There’s also a bonus point for any correct ‘unique’ prediction, so West Ham United fan Steve did the subscribers an impressively good turn last weekend by getting two results spot-on, including a bonus point for Burnley 2 Leeds United 0.

Steve’s eight points put the subscribers right back in the mix — particularly as I had a pretty grim week, paying the price for underestimating Bournemouth, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion and Sunderland again. (What have I got against teams with striped shirts?)

There were also eight points last week for Wilfred, who got Brighton 2-1 Newcastle United spot-on and another five results correct. He successfully predicted a clean sheet for Arsenal against Fulham but was left regretting their failure to add a second goal.

Nobody predicted Aston Villa winning at Tottenham Hotspur (though I was convinced I had until I went back to check my homework) or Manchester United beating Liverpool at Anfield.

You might think Brentford’s win at London Stadium on Monday night was a bit easier to predict, given how West Ham have been playing, but none of us did so. Steve could be forgiven for backing his team — it’s called trusting your heart over your head — but I had no such excuse. Madness.

This week’s guest subscriber is Andrew, 35, a Leeds supporter from beautiful Donegal in Ireland. Backing his team on Friday night might be more sensible. They are playing West Ham after all.

Our subscriber’s match of the week

Leeds vs West Ham, Friday, 8pm UK/3pm ET

Andrew says: “This is a crucial game under the lights at Elland Road. Leeds’ decent start is close to unravelling — they have picked up just one point from the last nine available. What’s more, there are difficult fixtures on the horizon. However, West Ham have a quick turnaround from playing on Monday and Nuno Espirito Santo has a massive job on his hands. While questions remain over Daniel Farke, home advantage will help Leeds.”

Leeds 1-0 West Ham

Oli says: Leeds have fared reasonably well on their return to the Premier League — their average of a point per game is survival form — but the fixtures look a lot tougher over the next couple of months, so the margin for error is smaller than it might appear. West Ham’s players might be grateful that they are playing away after four consecutive home defeats to start the season, but Elland Road on a Friday night is not for the faint-hearted. And that’s precisely what West Ham have been lately.

Leeds 2-0 West Ham

Leeds manager Daniel Farke could not find the solutions against Burnley (Richard Martin-Roberts – CameraSport via Getty Images

The rest of Oli’s predictions

Chelsea vs Sunderland

Oli says: I say this every week, but I’ve been so impressed by Sunderland. It’s not only the four wins and two draws, it’s also how competitive they’ve been in every game. I expect the same at Stamford Bridge, but Chelsea have won their last four in all competitions and, while this will be a tougher test than Nottingham Forest or Ajax in their past two, they should have enough quality to make it five victories in a row.

Chelsea 2-1 Sunderland

Newcastle vs Fulham

The initial draft of this preview, written on Tuesday afternoon, was about feeling a little frustrated watching Newcastle this season, that their football had become a little too scrappy and that they needed to get more out of their wide players, Anthony Gordon in particular. Their 3-0 win a few hours later against Benfica, with Gordon their standout performer, was a big step in the right direction and something to build on against Fulham.

Newcastle 2-0 Fulham

Manchester United vs Brighton

As encouraging as United beating Liverpool away undoubtedly was, match-winner Harry Maguire immediately said it will count for nothing if they fail to perform at home against Brighton this weekend.

It’s true. Victory over visitors Chelsea last month was followed seven days later by a grim defeat at Brentford. Derby victory at City last December was followed four days later by a chaotic Carabao Cup defeat at Tottenham. Brighton fall into the category of “Can beat anyone on their day”. They can certainly beat United, having won on three straight visits to Old Trafford, but I don’t think they will.

United 2-1 Brighton

Brentford vs Liverpool

Backing Liverpool is fraught with risk at the moment — and Brentford, with their speed on the counter-attack and those long throws from Michael Kayode, Mathias Jensen and Kevin Schade, are the type of team who can make life awkward for any opponent, especially ones who have lost their last three Premier League matches.

It’s easy to imagine Liverpool having 20 shots to Brentford’s six, but less easy to predict whether that will be enough for an away win. I’ll say yes — but very cautiously. As they finally demonstrated in Frankfurt on Wednesday, they have the firepower to make life so much easier for themselves.

Brentford 1-2 Liverpool

Arsenal vs Crystal Palace

Atletico Madrid coach Diego Simeone said Arsenal are the strongest team they have faced this season and, if anyone at Liverpool or Real Madrid is minded to take offence at that, they really shouldn’t because it seems pretty obvious on current form. Arsenal are looking so strong and, more than anything, it’s hard to see them conceding goals.

Palace are the type of opponents who could disprove that theory, but after everything I said above, I feel I need to learn from last week’s lesson and go for the safe option of an Arsenal win to nil. I’ll be doing that a lot over the next few weeks.

Arsenal 2-0 Palace

Aston Villa vs Manchester City

Villa have rediscovered their rhythm a bit domestically with three league wins in a row and I haven’t exactly been bowled over by City’s performances this season, but… just as it’s hard to see Arsenal conceding goals, I just can’t see Erling Haaland not scoring. The Norwegian registered 24 goals in 14 appearances for club and country this season. That is absurd. He’s a phenomenal player — not in the Lionel Messi sense, but phenomenal nonetheless.

Villa will put up a real fight, but really, it’s a question of whether they can score more goals than Haaland.

Villa 1-1 City

Bournemouth vs Nottingham Forest

In isolation, I approve of Forest hiring Sean Dyche. But it’s the type of appointment you make from a position of weakness — and in Forest’s case, that is having recklessly thrown away a position of rare strength. I firmly expect him to stop the early-season rot and return to something closer to last season’s gameplan under Nuno, but a) that seems a fairly drastic downscaling of Forest’s ambitions and b) I’m not sure the Dyche effect will take hold quickly enough to stop Bournemouth and particularly the in-form Antoine Semenyo.

Bournemouth 2-1 Forest

Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Burnley

I’ve somehow managed to get all Burnley’s results correct, which I would like to think reflects an appreciation of their strengths as well as their limitations. I’ve backed Wolves to win on a couple of occasions too, so it’s pretty alarming — for them rather than me — that they keep losing games that look winnable or at least drawable.

This is the last in a run of four home league games that appeared reasonably inviting (Everton, Leeds, Brighton, Burnley). I’ll go for third time lucky in predicting a Wolves win. If they don’t get a result, they really will be in trouble.

Wolves 1-0 Burnley

Everton vs Tottenham

The Tottenham fans in my life are fretting, uninspired by their early-season performances (even when results appeared encouraging) and anxious about a fixture list that now sees them face Everton (away), Newcastle (away), Chelsea (home), Copenhagen (home), Manchester United (home), Arsenal (away) and Paris Saint-Germain (away) over the next four and a half weeks.

Sunday’s game actually looks like one of the gentler matches among that lot… and it may not be very gentle at all, given that Everton are still unbeaten in competitive matches at Hill Dickinson Stadium. It could be a rough few weeks for Thomas Frank and his team.

Everton 1-0 Spurs