Welcome to week four of The Athletic’s Premier League predictions challenge, where I have spent the international break stewing over my disastrous performance last time out.

Hear me out, readers. Was it really so short-sighted of me to pick away wins for Newcastle and Manchester City at Leeds and Brighton respectively? What about Tottenham to beat Bournemouth? Aston Villa to beat Crystal Palace? Nottingham Forest to beat West Ham United was a banker, surely? And even if tipping Arsenal to win at Liverpool looks quite naive in retrospect, it was hardly an outrageous suggestion, given that game hung in the balance for 83 minutes.

And yet nothing from those six matches. Nul points, not a sausage. I got a measly total of three points from the entire weekend, which is the joint-lowest return of any of us — our guest subscribers, six-year-old Wilfred, a data algorithm, and me — have managed so far. The shame of it.

All season long, we’ll be predicting the 10 Premier League scores, with three points awarded for each correct scoreline and one point for each correct result. There’s also a bonus point for any correct “unique” prediction, so the algorithm got a bonus point as the only one to predict a draw between Leeds and Newcastle. Boring, boring algorithm.

Last week’s big winner was Wilf, who got a bonus point for his first spot-on of the season, Chelsea’s 2-0 victory over Fulham. He also called Bournemouth’s win at Tottenham — as did the algorithm, annoyingly. After a few agonising near-misses over the first two weeks, Wilf’s season is up and running now.

With so many surprise results, though, it was the lowest-scoring weekend so far. Sunday’s four games were a washout — not a single point for any of us. I mean, seriously, where did West Ham’s 3-0 win at Forest come from?

But Chelsea fan Katherine’s three points kept the subscribers top of the table, so now we move on to week four, where our guest subscriber is Robert Kelly, a 67-year-old Everton fan from Adelaide, Australia.

Our subscriber’s match of the week

Everton vs Aston Villa, Saturday, 3pm UK/10am ET

Robert says: “The most-played fixture in the top flight of English football moves to a new home at Bramley Moore Dock, where a new Everton hero, Jack Grealish, will remind his boyhood club what they are missing. Hopefully.”

Everton 1-0 Aston Villa

Oli says: The first draft of this, written very early in the international break, just said, “Marco Bizot” and then the scoreline. But it was a joke that had aged like milk, so I chose to keep it to myself because there’s a lot to go at here. Can Everton add to the feel-good factor at their new stadium? Can Grealish build on a strong start in royal blue? Can Villa, having responded to a poor start with a flurry of transfer activity on deadline day, get their season going? Can Emi Martinez, having seen his hopes of a move to Manchester United evaporate, redeem himself in the eyes of Villa’s supporters? And what does all this mean for… Marco Bizot?

Everton 1-1 Aston Villa

It’s a big game for Grealish (Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)

Oli’s other predictions

Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest

How do you go from Nuno Espirito Santo to Ange Postecoglou, high priest of the high line? Even Tottenham didn’t attempt to do it in a single move. Had Nottingham Forest done it last May with a full summer and a full pre-season ahead of them — which would rightly have caused outrage, given Nuno’s performance over the previous 17 months — it would still have required quite a leap from a tactical perspective. Three games into the new season, with the transfer window closed, it seems pretty wild. Postecoglou is a fine coach, taking over a strong group of players with a nice run of games coming up, but Arsenal away, having barely had any time on the training pitch since the international break, looks like a tough start.

Arsenal 3-1 Nottingham Forest

Bournemouth vs Brighton

Bournemouth are the new Brighton. Their recruitment over recent years has been outstanding, underlined by the fact that three of last season’s back four, all acquired at relatively low cost, have been transferred to Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Liverpool respectively for a total approaching £150million ($203m). With such a model, the hardest part is continually replacing like with like so that one success story follows another. It is what Brighton have excelled at, but it gets harder each year. Anyway, I expect the algorithm will have this a draw, but I’ll be bold and go… Brighton.

Bournemouth 1-2 Brighton

Newcastle vs Wolves

Some felt Newcastle’s owners and management showed “weakness” by ultimately agreeing to sell Alexander Isak to Liverpool, but surely it was the only way out of an unenviable situation. “Letting him rot in the reserves” was not a viable option. The question is whether, from that difficult position in the transfer market, they have replaced Isak adequately. That will become clear as the season goes on, but — sorry Wolves fans — this fixture gives Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa an ideal opportunity to make an early impression.

Newcastle 2-0 Wolves

Crystal Palace vs Sunderland

Sunderland have started the season so encouragingly, winning their first two home games, but I’ve also been impressed by Crystal Palace in difficult circumstances. Palace had a tough run of opening fixtures — Chelsea away, Nottingham Forest home, Aston Villa away — and, as well as a two-legged Conference League play-off, they had the painful departures of Eberechi Eze and the uncertainty over Marc Guehi’s future to contend with before the transfer window closed. Given those difficulties, five points from those three games is more than decent. With Guehi still in their ranks, it should be eight points from four after this.

Crystal Palace 2-0 Sunderland

Fulham vs Leeds

It says something of the challenge facing newly promoted clubs that the big news at Leeds on transfer deadline day was the collapse of a bid to sign Harry Wilson from Fulham. Wilson is a fine player, but one who has made more Premier League appearances as a substitute (50) than as a starter (42) since Fulham’s promotion in 2022. At Fulham, he is primarily an impact substitute. At Leeds, he would have expected to start games. Bridging that gap in quality is not going to be easy for Leeds.

Fulham 2-0 Leeds

West Ham vs Tottenham

West Ham’s supporters want what their Tottenham counterparts have just had: a change at boardroom level. Daniel Levy’s departure has been celebrated by many Tottenham fans, but when he became chairman in 2001, they were in a cycle that frequently involved finishing below West Ham (four times in five seasons between 1997-98 and 2001-02). On the pitch as well as off it, they became a serious club again under Levy’s chairmanship — not as serious as their fans would like, but serious enough to achieve European qualification regularly, to go to London Stadium as favourites, and perhaps to add to the dissent aimed towards West Ham’s majority owner, David Sullivan.

West Ham 1-2 Tottenham

Brentford vs Chelsea

Another London derby, Chelsea’s fourth in a row. Since the season began, they have played games at Stamford Bridge, London Stadium, Stamford Bridge and now the Gtech Community Stadium. You could do that journey on public transport in less than an hour. Mad. Arsene Wenger used to say during his time as Arsenal manager that the plethora of derby matches put the London clubs at a disadvantage. I never really bought that claim. I’m tipping Chelsea again.

Brentford 1-2 Chelsea

Burnley vs Liverpool

All eyes will be on Alexander Isak, but, after three straight wins, Liverpool can afford to ease the £125m man into their forward line. What a luxury that is. As for Burnley, the last time Scott Parker managed against Liverpool, his Bournemouth team were thrashed 9-0 and he was sacked three days later. His Burnley team will put up more of a fight on Sunday, but surely this is a fourth straight win for Arne Slot’s side.

Burnley 0-2 Liverpool

Manchester City vs Manchester United

The last time Manchester City went into a Premier League derby match looking up at their neighbours, it was December 2020, the UK was in the grip of Covid-19 lockdown, and Manchester United were going through one of those periods where things briefly appeared to be coming together — in this case under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Now, with four points on the board to their rivals’ three and with the memories of a Carabao Cup embarrassment at Grimsby still fresh in their minds, their supporters are unlikely to be getting giddy before this one. That might change if they can pile on Manchester City’s early-season misery, but I can’t quite see it. At the start of a big week — Manchester United, Napoli, Arsenal — Pep Guardiola’s team should produce a show of strength.

Manchester City 2-1 Manchester United