With Welbeck out, Sanchez needs to sparkle against West Brom

Very unusual Premier League fixtures this week: 8 games on Saturday.

Newly-promoted clubs Brighton (16th) and Newcastle (4th) meet on Sunday at 4pm.

The mid-table teams featuring on Monday are Arsenal (12th) and West Brom (10th).

Arsenal, short of goals at the moment, could have played till midnight without scoring if Sanchez had not supplied that sublime assist for Walcott against Doncaster Rovers.

With Welbeck injured, I reckon Wenger has to start Alexis Sanchez to give himself a chance of winning on Monday night.

Sanchez has carried Arsenal, and kept Wenger in his job, ever since he was signed in 2014.

Arsenal will be playing catch-up on several decent teams who are all on eight points today. Spurs and Huddersfield are on 8 points. Burnley and Liverpool are on 8. And Southampton, West Brom and Watford are all on 8 points as well.

Which of those seven clubs can put a run together?

I definitely don’t know that. But West Brom’s last away game was at Burnley, where they won 2-0. That was the same weekend that Arsenal lost 2-0 at Stoke.

And Tony Pulis is a wily tactician who can grind out a draw with just about any English team you care to name.

Looks like one of the Manchester clubs will win the 2018 title.

Both teams have firepower but United have Matic and De Gea.

Those star defenders make Manchester United very hard to bet against.

But let me see 10 games. We’ve only had five so far.