In attack, their young forwards also reflect the success of Bournemouth’s recruitment and talent identification.

Junior Kroupi, 19, has 12 Premier League goals in his debut season in English football. Only four players have scored more as a teenager in a single Premier League campaign. January signing Rayan, also 19, has slotted into Semenyo’s former role: two goals in his past two games, taking him to four (and two assists) since joining. Bournemouth recently became the first club to have two different teenagers score in back-to-back Premier League games.

Fulham have failed to score in five of their past seven, and have managed just two wins in nine Premier League meetings with Bournemouth. Mexican striker Raul Jimenez will be their main threat. He has five goals against Bournemouth in six starts.

Sunderland vs Manchester United

Saturday, May 9, 3pm UK

Statistically, this is a fixture of two overachievers, where the first goal is likely to settle the game.

Only Aston Villa (+14.3) have overperformed expected points (xP) more than Sunderland this season (+10.2), while since Michael Carrick’s first game as interim coach in January, no side has overperformed xP more than Manchester United (+11.3, 32 points from an expected 20.7). Both are unbeaten in the league when scoring first. However, only Wolves, Burnley and Nottingham Forest have opened the scoring in fewer games than Sunderland’s 12.

For United, a significant share of that overperformance can be credited to 22-year-old Benjamin Sesko’s performances under his new manager. Since Carrick’s first game, the Slovenian signed from RB Leipzig last summer has scored seven non-penalty Premier League goals from an xG of just 4.3, and the location of his shots helps explain that efficiency. His average shot distance is 11.4 yards; only two of his 23 attempts have come from outside the box. His 15 shots on target are a league high in this period, as are his six shots from fast breaks.

Historically, among all players to feature 500+ minutes under any United manager in the Premier League era, Sesko’s ratio under Carrick is the best on record: seven goals in 595 minutes, or one every 85. He was withdrawn at half-time of last Sunday’s win against Liverpool with a knock, despite having scored, and remains a doubt for this match.

Sunderland have not beaten a side who started that day in the top four in 28 Premier League games (D9 L19), a run stretching back to Gus Poyet’s time as manager and a 2-1 win at Chelsea in April 2014. United, currently third, won the reverse fixture 2-0 in October and have lost on just one of their past 15 league visits to the Stadium of Light.

The one positive for the home side when looking at numbers is that their Regis Le Bris is 2-0 against Carrick from their meetings in the Championship last season, when the United coach was with Middlesbrough.

Manchester City vs Brentford

Saturday, May 9, 5:30pm UK

Pep Guardiola’s City have averaged just 1.4 goals per game across their nine Premier League meetings with Brentford, their lowest return against any club in his near 10 years in Manchester. Brentford have beaten City at the Etihad Stadium just once, though — a 2-1 victory in November 2022 that helped them become the only opponents to do the Premier League double over that season’s eventual treble winners, built on goalkeeper David Raya bypassing midfield to find striker Ivan Toney aerially.

Under Keith Andrews this season, Brentford are operating at that same level, but with more flexibility. They have taken more shots from fast breaks, scored more counter-attacking goals and registered more fast-break attacks than in the past two campaigns combined.

Defensively, only three sides have conceded fewer xG over the past six games than Brentford’s 6.42. Seventh in the table, one point behind sixth-placed Bournemouth and chasing a first-ever European place, they lean on Igor Thiago’s clinical finishing. He has 22 Premier League goals from 79 shots, a 27.9 per cent conversion rate that ranks fourth among the 67 players to score 20 or more in a single Premier League season since 2003-04. The Brazilian has scored 42 per cent of Brentford’s goals this term.

City have been formidable at home during the current season. They have not lost a Premier League game on their own pitch since a 2-0 defeat to Spurs in August, going 15 unbeaten (W12 D3) and scoring two or more in 13 of those matches. Rayan Cherki’s ambidexterity and Jeremy Doku’s explosiveness in particular have looked dangerous; together, they have used their centres of gravity and striker Erling Haaland’s ability to attract defenders to trouble defences.

Doku has six goal involvements in his past five appearances. He won City their FA Cup semi-final against Southampton off the bench, scoring their first and assisting the second after they went 1-0 down in the 79th minute, then dragged them back to a 3-3 draw with Everton with a stoppage-time goal that kept the title race alive. Across the season, no Premier League player has more successful dribbles (74) or carries ending in a chance (27) than the Belgian.

The data suggests this game, like City’s previous one, may not settle early.

Only Liverpool (19) have scored more times in the final 15 minutes of matches than Brentford (18) this season. In the same period of games, City have conceded the fewest goals (seven), but also dropped 17 points from winning positions, their most in any campaign since 2008-09, with 12 of those coming in 2026.

Expect Brentford to be unrelenting, industrial and persistent. This is shaping up to be another tough contest for would-be champions City.