Premier League Match Week 16 Preview

Top meets bottom when table leader Arsenal hosts cellar dweller Wolverhampton on Saturday. Wolves are unlikely to find their first win of the season at the Emirates despite Arsenal’s uninspiring form and injury issues of recent weeks. The Gunners injury driven problems at center back should not be visible against an opponent that has only managed eight goals in its 15 league matches to date. Arsenal goalscorers, meanwhile, will be excited to welcome a Wolverhampton defense which has shipped 33 goals this season.

A more competitive match could take place at Selhurst Park where Crystal Palace, now fourth in the Premier League table, will host Pep Guardiola, Erling Haaland and second ranked Manchester City on Sunday. The Eagles have never flown higher than their current ascension under miracle worker manager Oliver Glasner. Their 26 league points to date is the most in the club’s history after 15 matches and double their total of this time last season. Manchester City, meanwhile, has been giving every indication of returning to title contender form as they have closed the gap on Arsenal in recent weeks.

Aston Villa, however, is the club riding the league’s longest win streak as they visit relegation zone occupant West Ham on Saturday. West Ham could climb to safety with an upset win but to escape the drop zone this weekend, the Hammers will also need for Nottingham Forest or Leeds to trip up. Forest is home to Tottenham Hotspur while Leeds will travel to Brentford.

There will be more eyes than usual on Liverpool’s Saturday home match with Brighton. Mohamed Salah has dropped hints that this could be his final game at Anfield after a falling out with Liverpool Manager Arne Slot. Salah has even invited his mother such that he won’t need to take a walk alone. After Saturday’s match comes the African Cup of Nations and a potential January transfer to Saudi Arabia for the Liverpool legend.

Newly promoted Sunderland would never have expected to be above defending champion Liverpool in the table this late into the season, but such is the case, even if only based on goal differential. The Black Cats host Newcastle Sunday at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light fortress. Only Sunderland and league leading Arsenal remain undefeated at home this season. Newcastle is currently on a four-match unbeaten run in the league as it tries to recover from a shaky start to its season.

Chelsea, meanwhile, has hit a rough patch where the Blues have gone three matches without a win in the Premier League. A loss to Atalanta in the Champions League on Tuesday did nothing to brighten spirits as the club prepares to face Everton on Saturday. The Toffees have been good of late but are heading to one of their least preferred destinations, going winless in their last 30 visits to Stamford Bridge.

Bournemouth feels no such trepidation heading to Old Trafford on Monday where the Cherries have posted back-to-back 3-0 victories on their last two visits. Manchester United, however, has been on a rare run of good form under Manager Ruben Amorim. The Red Devils have just one loss in their last nine games and have climbed to a relatively respectable sixth in the Premier League table.

Perhaps the most uninteresting match on this week’s schedule features the most remarkable statistic. Fulham is mired in the bottom half of the table, not yet threatened with relegation but certainly going nowhere good this season. Burnley, meanwhile, looks dead in the water and headed for relegation. When Fulham visits Burnley this weekend, however, the Cottagers will be trying to snap a streak of futility which has seen them go winless in their last 29 league visits to Turf Moor. You have to go back to 1951 to find the last time Fulham won a league match at Burnley.

Premier League Match Week 15 Results

Arsenal lost its first Premier League game since August when Aston Villa’s Emi Buendia banged home a goal amid a mad scramble in the Arsenal box as time ran out. Buendia’s winner proved the final kick of the game as Aston Villa won its seventh consecutive match across all competitions. Arsenal will rue the chaotic nature of Buendia’s goal which might  not have happened if Arsenal’s normal starting center backs, Gabriel and Saliba, were available to lend calmness to the box proceedings. Unfortunately, both remain sidelined by injury. League leading Arsenal has failed to win three of its last five league matches and the lead in the table is down to two points after Manchester City easily disposed of Sunderland 3-0 at the Etihad.

🇦🇷💥 Emiliano Buendia (28) with a 95th minute winning goal vs Arsenal! 🥵 pic.twitter.com/rUMA1FcLsG

— EuroFoot (@eurofootcom) December 6, 2025

While Arsenal lamented the absence of its central defenders, each of Manchester City’s center backs Ruben Diaz and Josko Gvardiol scored against the Black Cats. It was the third goal, however, that will be most remembered. Midfielder Ryan Cherki executed a stylish rabona cross to set up Phil Foden for a headed goal to send Sunderland home.

Crystal Palace replaced Chelsea in the top four after the Eagles’ Marc Guehi scored in the 87th minute to defeat Fulham 2-1 while Chelsea was held to a goalless draw at Bournemouth. Chelsea has now gone three matches without a win as title dreams are beginning to fade for the Blues. The Eagles, meanwhile, have won three out of four matches with Manager Oliver Glasner only continuing to burnish his resume. Crystal Palace’s success is a double-edged sword as it will be difficult to keep Glasner from jobs with bigger clubs in the future.

Everton is also hovering around the European places after winning for a fourth time in its last five league matches. The Toffees were 3-0 home winners over a Nottingham Forest team which was also playing well entering the match. Forest Manager Sean Dyche would have hoped for more against the club that sacked him last January. Dyche is doing a decent job these days keeping the Trees above the drop line but Moyes has the Toffees dreaming of Europe.

Thomas Frank has been under increasing pressure at Spurs, so it was a nice weekend for him when his side defeated his former Brentford club 2-0 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Xavi Simons, a summer signing from RB Leipzig, powered the win for Spurs by assisting Richarlison’s opening tally and then scoring his own first goal of his Premier League career.

A second season at Anfield has gone nothing like the first for Liverpool Manager Arne Slot. Everything seemed grand as the Reds cruised to the Premier League title in Slot’s first season. This season, not so much. Liverpool now has just four wins in its last 15 matches after blowing two different leads in a 3-3 final at Leeds. Adding to the manager’s woes is the collapse of his relationship with Liverpool star Mohamed Salah. Slot benched Salah three matches ago and the gifted winger let his feelings be known to reporters after the Leeds match. Salah claims to have been “thrown under the bus” and made the scapegoat for Liverpool’s problems. He went on to describe how he has “no relationship” with Slot and that the upcoming Brighton game might be his last in a Liverpool shirt. The explosion was entirely predictable when Slot, beset with numerous on the pitch issues, elected to sit the temperamental but uber talented Salah who led the Premier League in goals and assists last season. Personnel and style changes made by Slot have contributed to Salah’s lessened effectiveness this season.

Things are looking a bit better at Manchester United after the Red Devils hammered dreadful Wolves by a 4-1 margin at Molineux Stadium. The Red Devils had some nervous early moments in a game that was tied at halftime, but a dominant second half moved Manchester United to sixth in the Premier League table and eased the ever-present pressure on Manager Ruben Amorim. Meanwhile there were no changes in the land of the lost where Wolverhampton rules at the bottom of the Premier League table. Relegation bound Burnley fell 2-1 to Newcastle while needing to play the entire second half while down to ten men after Lucas Pires was booted in the 43rd minute for an unlawful challenge to Newcastle’s Anthony Elanga. West Ham fared better than their relegation brothers Burnley and Wolverhampton by grabbing a point in a 1-1 contest at Brighton. Sadly though, the Hammers had a chance at all three points until Brighton’s equalizer came on a stoppage time goal by Georginio Rutterto. The loss of those two additional points kept the Hammers in the relegation zone below barely safe Nottingham Forest. 

Premier League Match Week 14 Results

A thriller at Brighton delivered as promised. Aston Villa fought back from a 2-0 deficit on the road to defeat the Seagulls in a 4-3 thriller. Ollie Watkins scored a brace to key the Villa comeback in an encouraging sign that the striker may be awakening from his season long slumber. Jan Paul van Hecke scored twice in the losing cause for shellshocked Brighton, which lost for the first time at home this season.

No one, however, was more shell-shocked this week than Chelsea, which was rocked 3-1 at Leeds. Leeds had won but one of its previous eight matches as calls intensified for the sack of Manager Daniel Farke. Wednesday’s performance threw a lifeline to the embattled manager as his side ended a four-match losing run to exit the relegation zone at least temporarily.

👊 Proper Leeds. Proper Football. pic.twitter.com/mQ2aDBd7LD

— Leeds United (@LUFC) December 4, 2025

The return of Cole Palmer from a lengthy injury absence did not have the desired effect for a Chelsea squad which clearly missed the defensive presence of suspended Moises Caicedo.

Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta demonstrated the depth of his league leading squad by introducing Ben White, Noni Madueke and Martin Odegaard to the side that had drawn with Chelsea in its previous match. The Gunners easily took care of business by registering a league best eighth clean sheet in putting down Brentford 2-0 at the Emirates on Wednesday. Arsenal has conceded just seven goals in 14 matches this season.

Good defense was less evident in a nine-goal shootout between Manchester City and Fulham. The Citizens went up 3-0 before Fulham scored in first half stoppage time. Balls then kept flying into the net for both sides before Manchester City emerged with a 5-4 win at Craven Cottage. Phil Foden scored a brace for Manchester City which also saw Erling Haaland score his 15th goal of the season while substitute Samuel Chukwueze scored a late brace for Fulham to threaten the visiting Citizens.

Crystal Palace was also a road winner as wing back Daniel Munoz scored the winner in a 1-0 win at Burnley. The relegation bound Clarets lost their fifth consecutive league match.

A Sunderland 81st minute own goal resulted in a 1-1 draw at Anfield and saved Liverpool from complete embarrassment in another poor performance by Manager Arne Slot’s defending champions. Mohamed Salah was a second half substitute for Liverpool after being excluded from Manager Arne Slot’s starting lineup for a second consecutive match.

Newcastle supporters were gutted when Tottenham Hotspur defender Cristian Romero delivered an overhead kick to score a 95th minute equalizer in a 2-2 final at St. James’s Park. The Magpies had taken a 2-1 lead on an 86th minute penalty kick by Anthony Gordon which had the Magpies temporarily on course for a third consecutive league win. Soft defense on Tottenham Hotspur’s late stoppage time corner, however, allowed for Romero’s heroics.

Bournemouth continues to slide down the table after an encouraging start to its season. The Cherries lost for the fourth time in a five-match winless run with a 1-0 defeat to Everton on Tuesday. Bournemouth managed just two shots on target in a match decided by a Jack Grealish goal for the Toffees in the 78th minute. Everton posted a third clean sheet in the Toffees’ last four matches, the outlier being last week’s  inexplicable 4-1 home loss to Newcastle. The tenth place Toffees are only three points removed from the top four in the logjammed top half of the Premier League table.

Certainty of standing can be found at the bottom of the table, however, where Wolverhampton has unchallenged title to the Premier League basement. Wolves failed to win for the 14th time this season in a 1-0 home loss to Nottingham Forest. A seventh straight defeat now has Wolves 12 points south of safety. Nottingham Forest, meanwhile, has won three of the last four matches under Manager Sean Dyche as the Tricky Trees continue to put potential relegation in their rear window.

West Ham, meanwhile, was cast into the relegation zone with a 1-1 draw with Manchester United following on Leeds’s surprising win over Chelsea. It could have been even worse for the Hammers who salvaged a point on Soungoutou Magassa’s 83rd minute equalizer.

The Premier League teams now have little chance to catch their breath before Match Week 15 unfolds this weekend. Saturday’s early match presents a marquee matchup when streaking Aston Villa plays host to league leading Arsenal in a top four clash. Later that morning the scrappy Black Cats of Sunderland will try to steal a result at the Etihad versus Manchester City. Sunderland has been punching above its weight as a newly promoted team, losing just one of its last seven league matches, a run that includes a win versus Chelsea and draws with Arsenal and Liverpool.