Premier League Gameweek 2 Best Bets, Picks & Odds

Gameweek 1 started well with both Manchester United corner bets cashing against Hull City, while Liverpool’s late collapse at Newcastle cost us on the moneyline. Gameweek 2 brings a more complicated board with the transfer window still open and several lineups unsettled.

Gameweek 2 arrives with the transfer window closing in a matter of days, and that’s scrambling lineups more than any other week is likely to this season. We’re picking things up with Saturday’s slate through Monday night, when Aston Villa try to field a functional team against Arsenal after one of the stranger deadline-week sagas we’ve seen in a while.

Odds referenced below were discussed Friday and are already moving with the transfer window, so check our soccer betting odds board before locking anything in.

Premier League Gameweek 2 Best Bets

Coventry vs Hull City Best Bets

Coventry host Hull City in the only all-promoted matchup of Gameweek 2, and this has the look of another tight one. The two sides played to scoreless draws in both meetings last season, with the home team controlling more of the game each time without creating much separation.

The lineups are still worth checking. Coventry have added depth and could have Ben Sheaf and Gustavo Hamer available, while Hull brought in Mohammed Ali-Cho to add another attacking option. Even so, neither side has changed enough from last season to make me expect a completely different game script.

Coventry are around -115 at home, with Hull out near +340 and the draw around +250. That is a little shorter than I expected on Coventry, but they are still the side I prefer. Hull’s Gameweek 1 win over Manchester United has not moved the market much, and I am more comfortable backing Coventry’s home edge than chasing the promoted side off one result.

Coventry moneyline at -115 is the primary bet.

The lower-event angle also makes sense. Both meetings last season finished 0-0, and neither team generated much corner volume in Gameweek 1. Coventry were out-cornered 8-2 by Arsenal, while Hull lost the corner count 6-1 against Manchester United.

That makes under 8.5 total corners at +130 the secondary play.

I also lean under 2.5 goals at around -110, but I would rather take the plus-money corners number than stack three bets on essentially the same low-scoring game script.

Best bets: Coventry moneyline (-115); Under 8.5 total corners (+130)

Saturday Premier League Best Bets

Bournemouth hosting Everton is one we’re watching more than betting. Both sides have things worth monitoring early in the season, but neither gave us a number we felt strongly enough about to put in this card.

Tottenham hosting Newcastle is a genuine head-scratcher on the odds. Spurs are priced at +130 to win despite getting beaten by Brentford last week, and we think the market is pricing in the fresh faces rather than what we actually saw on the pitch. Pedro Porro and James Van de Ven both looked like they could return to the lineup after appearing in midweek, which would tighten up a back line that got picked apart in the first half against Brentford. Newcastle, for their part, arguably should have won last week. They dominated large stretches against Liverpool before conceding a stoppage-time penalty that let Liverpool escape with a draw, and they’re dealing with a forward injury of their own here. Between two teams we can’t fully trust with settled lineups this deep into deadline week, we’re leaning toward goals rather than picking a side outright. Over 3.5 goals is out at +150 if you want the straight number, or you can build a double chance on either side combined with a team total to get to a similar payout with a little more safety net attached.

Leeds United hosting Brentford at Elland Road is the Saturday game we like best. Brentford’s attack has been the story of the early season, with 20 goals across their last four matches between preseason, the Tottenham win and a midweek cup tie, though it’s fair to discount some of that given the level of competition. Leeds present a different problem entirely. They may have a legitimate top-five defense in this league, and Elland Road was a fortress for them last season: nine wins, five draws and just five losses at home, which did a lot of the work in their second-half surge up the table. It’s no surprise The Athletic’s fan optimism poll had both Leeds and Brentford supporters feeling better about their teams than almost anyone else in the league right now. We like Leeds’ moneyline at +160 as the value side in a genuine coin-flip matchup, and if you’d rather not pick a winner, under 2.5 goals at -110 is the number that lines up with Brentford’s attack running into a defense built to slow it down.

Sunday Premier League Best Bets

Chelsea host Brighton in their Stamford Bridge opener under Xabi Alonso, and we’re on Chelsea’s moneyline at -125. Brighton were already thin heading into deadline week after losing players over the summer, and now they’re banged up on top of it, missing a key piece from their spine and uncertain on Ferdi Kadioglu‘s availability. They also played a midweek continental qualifier on Thursday, which they won comfortably, but that’s still a shorter turnaround than Chelsea had. It’s a bit of a boring pick two weeks running, but Chelsea at home against a thin, tired Brighton side is close to as clean a read as this card offers.

Sunderland hosting Fulham is one where we like the home side generally, but the number we actually want is the total. Fulham’s midweek match against Chelsea was wide open, end to end, and created chances for both sides in a way that doesn’t usually describe a newly promoted team’s approach. If that’s how Fulham want to play, it should produce more goals than a Sunderland home game normally would. Over 2.5 goals is priced around +110, which is a bet we probably wouldn’t have made on a Sunderland match last season, but Fulham’s style under their new setup is genuinely different enough to change that math. There’s also a version of this same idea in the corners market. Fulham playing an open game tends to generate looks from wide areas too, so a lean toward the over on Sunderland’s own corner total isn’t unreasonable if you want to build that into the same card.

Manchester United vs Ipswich Best Bet

Manchester United hosting Ipswich Town on Sunday is a bounce-back spot after last week’s loss to Hull, and it’s fair to be a little gun-shy given what we just watched. United didn’t play as poorly as the result suggested, a couple of set-piece goals did most of the damage and they never found an equalizer, but a home game against the weakest of the three promoted sides is about as favorable a get-right spot as the schedule offers. Marcus Rashford could be in line to start after coming off the bench last week, and if United’s front line clicks the way it’s capable of, this has the look of a comfortable win. We like Manchester United -1.5 goals at +105 over the straight moneyline, since it pays a real price while still reflecting how lopsided this matchup should be on paper. United’s corner count was oddly low last week for a team that spent most of the match chasing the game, so we’re not loading up on the corners angle again here, but the total is set at 6.5 and a lean to the over at plus money isn’t unreasonable if United dominate the ball the way they should.

Monday Night Football: Aston Villa vs Arsenal Best Bet

Aston Villa host Arsenal on Monday, and honestly, we’re not sure what Villa’s lineup is going to look like by kickoff.

Nicolas Jackson appears to have gotten his registration sorted and could start up top as Villa’s only fully fit senior forward, with Tammy Abraham still working back from injury and Emi Buendia holding down the position out of necessity until Jackson was available. Just before we recorded, news broke that Villa are closing in on a deal for PSG’s Ibrahim Mbaye at a reported 55 million pounds, and that’s on top of Leon Goretzka arriving Thursday and Aaron Wan-Bissaka signing earlier in the week for fullback depth. Throw in the Ollie Watkins situation, where he reportedly sat out Gameweek 1 by choice while pushing for a move elsewhere before apologizing to Unai Emery and staying put, and this is about as much roster chaos as one club can absorb in the days before a Premier League match against the odds-on title favorite.

That’s the exact kind of spot where new faces without training-ground chemistry tend to get exposed, and Emery has had success setting up conservatively against Arsenal in the past, which could mean extra bodies behind the ball rather than an open game. Arsenal’s title price has kept moving throughout the week, floating somewhere between -120 and -150 depending on when you looked, and even we lost track of the exact number in real time. Whatever it settles at, this feels like as close to a formality as Gameweek 2 offers. We took an Arsenal same-game parlay last week that missed on the corners leg, so this week we’re keeping it simple: Arsenal -1.5 goals at +145. We’d lean toward something like a 2-0 or 3-0 scoreline, and if you’d rather avoid the spread entirely, both no on both teams to score and Arsenal to win to nil are sitting at close to even money, which is a fair price given how little Villa’s attack has had time to gel.

Premier League Gameweek 2 Betting Picks

Check our Premier League injury news hub before kickoff, especially for Brighton, Newcastle and Aston Villa, since all three are dealing with genuine uncertainty heading into the weekend. Good luck out there, and here’s hoping we play a cleaner card than last week’s Newcastle heartbreaker.