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Gameweek 1 preview

Now it’s here, maybe one of the best days of the year for us who loves English football. The season starts with a Friday night game between Manchester United and Leicester City at Old Trafford.

The title is City’s to lose but their convincing 2-0 win over Chelsea in the Community Shield game last Sunday shows that they are ready to defend their title and that the title-challenging teams should be on top right from the beginning. If City are about to make an equally strong season with points around the 100 point-line there simply isn’t space for teams like Liverpool to have “a-day-off” and lose 3-2 away to mid-table team now and then or Man Utd to have two boring 0-0 draws in a row.

The games in the first gameweek are:

Manchester United - Leicester City

The opening game of the Premier League season will take place between two teams of which neither pre-season results have been especially good. While United have only managed one win (+ one on penalties) in their 6 pre-season games Leicester have two wins in five games. Mourinho has looked like a frustrated figure. Man Utd have some kind of injury crisis going on with Matic, Rojo, Valencia, Dalgot all out injured and a whole host of key men players only just returned to training following the World Cup.

Claude Puel does not have as many issues but his key men Jamie Vardy and Harry Maguire have also returned late to training following their World Cup participation. Puel has spoken to media claiming that neither will start on Friday, but you could never know for sure. One positive thing for Leicester is the fact that Kelechi Iheanacho has been in good form in pre-season scoring four goal in three matches.
Possible starting lineups
Man United XI: De Gea; Darmian, Bailly, Lindelof, Shaw; Herrera, Fred, A. Pereira; Mata, Rashford, sánchez
Leicester XI: Schmeichel, Chilwell, Morgan, Benalouane, Ndidi, Iborra, Pereira, Maddison, Albrighton, Iheanacho

Liverpool - West Ham

After a summer with several big additions for Champions League runners-up Liverpool and last seasons 13th West Ham, the two sides begin their Premier League seasons with a clash at Anfield.

Liverpool are going into this season with high expectations being tipped as the biggest threat to Manchester City's title hopes. It’s time to prove that they are the real deal. Jurgen Klopp has splashed out £176 million strengthening his squad with top names like Allison, Keita, Fabingo and Shaqiri.
West Ham aren’t tipped to fight for the title but with a new manager in Manuel Pellegrini and with seven new additions so far there´s for sure hope of a top ten place. In their starting lineup on Saturday more than half of the team could be new faces.

Possible starting lineups

Liverpool XI:Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van-Dijk, Robertson, Fabinho, Keita, Milner, Mane, Firmino, Salah
West Ham XI: Fabianski, Fredericks, Balbuena, Ogbonna, Diop, Masuaku, Noble, Wilshere, Yarmolenko, Anderson, Arnautovic

Arsenal - Manchester City

Here we got a real super-sunday match right in the beginning of the season. It will be Arsenal’s first match at the Emirates Stadium under their new manager Unai Emery and an really exciting one against fellow Spaniard Pep Guardiola and ruling champions Manchester City. As a Sevilla boss Emery did not win a single match from ten against Guardiola's Barcelona between 2008 and 2012 but maybe now is the time?

With 17 goals scored and just three conceded Arsenal haven’t lost a game in 90 minutes in pre-season. Gunners won matches against Boreham Wood, PSG, Chelsea and Lazio, and lost one on penalties against Atletico Madrid. This good pre-season form should have built some confidence in the Arsenal squad and that’s for sure something they will need against Manchester City.

Manchester City ended their pre-season with a comfortable 2-0 win over Chelsea in the Community Shield game and it seems like they are about to start this season in the same way the ended the previous one.

City’s Danilo and Mangala and Arsenal’s Kolasinac and Koscielny will all miss the game with injuries. Aaron Ramsey and Nacho Monreal face late test. Both teams World cups semi-finalists (Sterling, Walker, Kompany, De Bruyne, Stones and Welbeck) have made late returns from the World Cup and are unlikely to be involved from the start.

Possible starting lineups:
Arsenal XI: Leno, Bellerin, Mustafi, Sokratis, Maitland-Niles; Torreira, Xhaka, Ramsey, Ozil, Aubameyang, Lacazette
Man City XI: Ederson, Walker, Stones, Laporte, Mendy; Fernandinho, B. Silva, Foden; Mahrez, Sane, Aguero

“Steem-pick” for gameweek 1

In my steem-pick I will before every gameweek pick one (sometimes two or three players) player that should or could be in your fantasy team.This is not always the obvious one but could instead be a player I believe in, have a feeling for or who’s recent stats shows that there could be a big fantasy-point score coming...or not.

Joshua King (£6.5m)

Joshua King priced at £6.5m with an ownership of 6.6% is my steem-pick for gameweek 1. With 4 goals and 1 assist in pre season, good opening fixtures and playing as a froward in an attacking minded Cherriés team i believe King will got a lot of opportunities to score. He starts off with a home-game against newly promoted Cardiff on Vitality Stadium on Saturday and I can see no reason he couldn’t carry on his end-of-last season form into this season.

Please let us know your steem-pick for gameweek 1!

This Preview was written by @matinho!