You BetWeekend action promises plenty of entertainment

The two Manchester clubs bookend the English Premier League programme this weekend with matches against the northeastern teams that should provide plenty of entertainment.

Manchester City vs Sunderland is the curtain-raiser and it will be well worth watching if it is only half as good as last season's equivalent fixture, which ended 3-3. That game was almost the death knell for City's title hopes, but they fought back from 3-1 down with five minutes to play and from there they took 18 points out of 21 to emerge as champions.

Although City were at home, a draw was not such a bad result because Sunderland at the time were one of the form teams in the league. Under Martin O'Neill they had taken 29 points from 16 games - form that would take them to fourth or fifth place in the table if it was reproduced over an entire season.

Sunderland remain hard to beat, with just eight defeats in 29 league games under O'Neill, and most of the losses have been against high-class teams (Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and Everton). The one major weakness in Sunderland's record is their poor form away to top sides - no win in nine against teams that finished in the top half last season or are in the top half this season.

While that suggests a strong win chance for City, the negative for the champions is the number of goals they are conceding. They haven't kept a clean sheet in ten games in all competitions and it is notable that Sunderland have lost only two of the 19 league games in which they have scored under O'Neill.

Overall it's a difficult match to weigh up, and perhaps the safest bet is over 2.5 goals, even though the odds are skinny.