Welcome to week 31 of The Athletic’s Premier League predictions challenge, where I’m hoping Max Dowman’s dramatic late goal for Arsenal has reignited the title race that really matters.

Arsenal’s 2-0 home win against Everton, secured in stoppage time by 16-year-old substitute Dowman, was one of two correct scoreline predictions for me last week, taking me back to within eight points of the top of the table after my recent slump.

The subscribers are still leading the way, just one point ahead of six-year-old Wilfred, but last week gave me hope that it’s not over yet.

I got eight results wrong, but two correct scorelines, plus a bonus point for each — and in this stupid game, in which I have found myself outwitted by a child and by our wonderful subscribers, that has offered me a lifeline.

Each week since the season began in August, four of us — young Wilfred, a guest subscriber on rotation, an algorithm and I — have been predicting the Premier League scores with varying degrees of success.

We are awarding three points for a correct scoreline and one point for a correct result. We are also offering a bonus for any “unique” correct predictions, so for example, I got four points for Arsenal beating Everton 2-0 (cheers, Max!) and another four for Manchester United’s 3-1 win against Aston Villa. On the same basis, Liverpool fan Tim, from New York, picked up a bonus point for the subscribers as he was the only one to back Newcastle to come out on top away to Chelsea.

Overall, it was a low-scoring week: four points apiece for Wilfred, the subscribers and the algorithm … and a rather flattering eight for me.

That leaves the subscribers’ slender one-point lead over Wilfred intact. The algorithm, pleasingly, is languishing in last place.

There are only eight Premier League games this week, with those involving Manchester City and Arsenal (against Crystal Palace and Wolverhampton Wanderers respectively) being rearranged due to their meeting in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday. Arsenal’s game at Wolves was played last month — a crazy 2-2 draw, which none of us predicted — but City vs Palace is yet to be rescheduled.

This week’s guest subscriber is Elizabeth, a 42-year-old Newcastle United supporter from San Francisco. Good luck, Elizabeth!

Our subscriber’s match of the week

Tottenham vs Nottingham Forest, Sunday, 2.15pm UK/10.15am ET

Elizabeth says: “With both Tottenham and Forest hovering dangerously close to the relegation zone, expect a scrap. Neither Vitor Pereira nor Igor Tudor has any league wins. Can Spurs leverage home advantage and get the win, or will it get away again? Grab the popcorn!”

Tottenham 1-2 Nottingham Forest

Oli says: “This is such a huge game, which promises to boost one team’s survival hopes significantly while plunging the other towards the abyss. My feeling at the start of the week was that I would go for a Forest win; as encouraging as Tottenham’s 1-1 draw at Liverpool was, I still felt Forest were showing more application, togetherness and their stomach for the fight.

“The way Tottenham rallied to beat Atletico Madrid on Wednesday has prompted a dramatic rethink. That, plus an extra day to recover from their European exertions, with Forest also going to extra time and penalties in Denmark on Thursday, leads me to switch to a home win. I know I should stick to my instinct — not least to help The Athletic’s design team, who will have to redo the graphic — but for once this season, I’m going for a Spurs victory.”

Tottenham 2-1 Nottingham Forest

Oli’s other predictions

Bournemouth vs Manchester United

Bournemouth are unbeaten in five meetings with Manchester United (two wins, three draws; 13 goals scored, only seven conceded), so going for an away win in Friday’s fixture feels a bit lazy. Maybe it is, but I just feel United have more firepower and, in Bruno Fernandes, they have the Premier League’s most in-form player.

Bournemouth 1-2 Manchester United

Brighton vs Liverpool

Sorry, but this one comes into the same category as Bournemouth vs Manchester United: so many reasons to think the team from the south coast have the quality to make life very difficult for their opponents, but also a lazy fallback assumption that the underperforming heavyweights from the north-west will prevail on account of their superior attacking resources and their greater need. Liverpool’s performance against Galatasaray on Wednesday showed what they’re capable of when they’re on song. That just hasn’t happened anything like often enough this season.

Brighton 1-2 Liverpool

Fulham vs Burnley

I get why Marco Silva appears in no rush to extend his Fulham contract, which expires at the end of the season. But whatever the frustrations of life at Craven Cottage, can he be sure the grass would be greener elsewhere? Evangelos Marinakis is a long-term admirer, but nobody seems to retain the Forest owner’s favour for long once they are actually working for him. There have been murmurs of interest from Tottenham, but how much does that role appeal these days? Managing Fulham isn’t the biggest, most prestigious or most lucrative job, but it’s a more stable club than the one Burnley counterpart Scott Parker remembers from his time in charge there.

Fulham 2-0 Burnley

Everton vs Chelsea

I don’t remotely trust this Chelsea team, whose flaws I have written about many times. That 8-2 aggregate defeat by Paris Saint-Germain should be a wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee moment for those owners and executives who have spent the past few years congratulating themselves on a recruitment strategy that increasingly has the look of a social experiment. But even though Chelsea have won just 13 of their 30 Premier League games this season, I look at a fixture like this and the image that comes into my mind is Pedro Neto setting up Joao Pedro for a goal on the counter-attack. Maybe it’s because they’ve won more away matches (seven) than Everton have won home ones (five) this season.

Everton 1-2 Chelsea

Leeds vs Brentford

Leeds need wins as they try to avoid an instant return to the Championship. Everyone can see how well they have acquitted themselves over the past few months, but the goals and victories have dried up — five games without a win, three without a goal — which puts a lot of pressure on for Saturday. They’ve also lost their last two at Elland Road, but I like the look of their next four home matches (this, then Wolves, Burnley and Brighton). Winning here would offer some much-needed breathing space.

Leeds 1-0 Brentford

Newcastle vs Sunderland

Newcastle have not won a Tyne-Wear derby in the league since August 2011 (“Ryan Taylor, over the wall”) and, while that includes a nine-year hiatus when these two were in different divisions, it still equates to a run of seven Sunderland wins and three draws in 10 league meetings. I confidently predicted a Sunderland victory in December’s reverse fixture and my feeling at the start of the week was that I would cautiously back Newcastle to get their revenge on Sunday. That feeling has been shaken by the chastening nature of their defeat in Barcelona on Wednesday — so much energy expended over the two legs, such a brutal scoreline (7-2) at the Camp Nou ultimately — but, unlike with the Spurs vs Forest game a few hours later, I’ll stick to my initial instinct, with a raucous St James’ Park atmosphere a factor.

Newcastle 2-1 Sunderland

Aston Villa vs West Ham

Villa’s 3-2 win at the London Stadium in the reverse fixture in December came during that period when they were outperforming their xG (expected goals) metrics to a wild extent, summed up by Morgan Rogers’ spectacular long-range winner. Their xG overperformance has eventually caught up with them, while West Ham have had a curious relationship with xG in recent weeks: drawing games they dominated, a harsh 5-2 defeat at Liverpool and a battling 1-1 draw with Manchester City last Saturday when Konstantinos Mavropanos scored with their only attempt of the 90 minutes. Hard to predict, then. I expect others will go for a tight Villa win, so I’ll go for a cheeky draw to take West Ham another point closer to survival before the international break.

Aston Villa 1-1 West Ham