Final Premier League fixtures of 2022: betPawa BIG match insights
The Boxing Day Premier League action served up just 1 home win to go with a draw and 5 away successes. Overall, the round delivered 3 home wins and 6 triumphs on the road. We’ve got those and all the other tasty trends, facts and figures covering 5 more matches to round off 2022.
Friday 30th December
Danger on the flanks for the Foxes
The Reds brought Unai Emery back down to earth with an impressive 3-1 Boxing Day win at Aston Villa courtesy of goals from Mo Salah, Virgil van Dijk and teenage Spaniard Stefan Bajcetic. Andy Robertson laid on Salah’s opener and, in the process, he became the leading assist-making defender in EPL history with 54.
Not to be outdone, Salah now has 172 goals in a Liverpool jersey, which takes him level with the legendary Sir Kenny Dalglish on the all-time scoring charts. He’s also just the second Liverpool star to amass 50+ for both goals and assists in the EPL (club icon Steven Gerrard is the other).
Jürgen Klopp’s team will feel confident, having just secured 3 consecutive league wins for the first time all season, but they have failed to keep a clean sheet in their last 5 and will be determined to tighten up at the back.
Leicester desperately missed the creativity and thrust of James Maddison in their loss to Newcastle and the Englishman will again be absent for the visit to Anfield. Brendan Rodgers’ team have lost 7 of their 8 matches against sides currently occupying the top half of the table, drawing the other. It’s not a statistic that will fill Foxes fans with much confidence.
Saturday 31st December
Goals forecast in the West Midlands
Wolves lifted some of the current gloom with a stoppage-time win against Everton on Boxing Day, underlining the solid start made by new boss Julen Lopetegui. That result halted a league winless streak of 5 games. They are still in the relegation zone, however, and their home form remains a deep concern with 3 consecutive top-flight defeats at Molineux and 9 goals shipped in that sequence.
United’s defensive record on the road isn’t too sharp either, with 16 goals conceded in 8 matches away from Old Trafford. Marcus Rashford will be key for the visitors: he’s got 10 goals and 4 assists across all competitions for the Red Devils this term, with his direct goal contributions arriving every 113.8 minutes on average.
Can Erling be stopped?
“I recharged my batteries. To see other players score at the World Cup kind of triggers, kind of motivates and irritates me.”
Pep Guardiola’s men were comfortable 3-1 winners at Leeds on Wednesday night, a match in which they enjoyed 69% of the possession and racked up a collective xG of 4.41. Erling Haaland’s brace took his EPL tally for the season to 20 after just 14 games, which is a ridiculous number if you think about it.
He has creative players all around him and, as the above quote demonstrates, sounds motivated to match and then eclipse Mo Salah’s single-season (38 games) record of 32 strikes. Jack Grealish was the provider for both of the Norwegian’s goals at Elland Road; the Englishman’s first assists of the campaign.
Everton arrive here off the back of 3 consecutive EPL defeats and they’ve scored just 1 goal in their last 4 league matches. If the Toffees come unstuck again, they'll have chalked up 13 defeats on the road in 2022, more than any other top-flight team.
St James’ Park will be bouncing
Newcastle’s 3-0 win at Leicester continued their astonishingly good form from before WC22. Miguel Almirón is their unlikely leading league goalscorer with 9; only Aleksandar Mitrović, Ivan Toney, Harry Kane and Haaland have more than the Paraguayan in 2022/23. It’s quite a turnaround for a player who was roundly criticised for his lack of end product.
Newcastle boss Eddie Howe is only the third English manager to win more than 20 Premier League matches in a single year (21 in 2022 so far), after Kevin Keegan (24 in 1994 and 23 in 1995 with Newcastle) and Roy Evans (22 in 1996 with Liverpool).
Leeds’ last 5 EPL matches have produced a total of 26 goals and they’ve conceded 14 in that time. They now face, arguably, the most in-form team in the land.
Tough examination for Arteta’s title challengers
New Brighton boss Roberto De Zerbi has won 3 of his last 4 league games at the helm, which underlines a promising start to the Italian’s tenure. The visiting Gunners have kept 6 clean sheets in 8 away top-flight encounters this term, which already matches their tally of shutouts on the road from the whole of 2021/22, but their historical record at Brighton is mixed with just 1 win from their 5 EPL visits to the Amex (W1 D2 L2).
World Cup winner Alexis Mac Allister won’t feature again for the hosts as he takes another week off. After a late booking against Southampton, Ecuadorian dynamo Moises Caicedo is suspended so the Seagulls will stick with the impressive Pascal Gross in central midfield. He completed 90 passes in Brighton’s comfortable Boxing Day win over Southampton and won possession 10 times too. He will likely partner Billy Gilmour in the engine room.
That pair will be tasked with nullifying Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard, whose combination of creativity and steel was too much for West Ham on Boxing Day. The Norwegian bagged a brace of assists and generally ran the show for an Arsenal side very much picking up where they left off in November. Right now, they are the team to beat.
This fixture brings the curtain down on the year 2022 and it should do so in entertaining fashion.