Sutton and Only The Poets frontman Longhurst clash in Premier League predictions ahead of Manchester derby

Chris Sutton, BBC Sport’s football expert, and Tommy Longhurst, frontman of Reading band Only The Poets, have made contrasting predictions for the 197th Manchester derby at the Etihad Stadium as part of Sutton’s season-long project to forecast all 380 Premier League matches.

Sutton said the derby was “so hard to call, for many reasons,” pointing to Manchester United’s recent win over Burnley and doubts about Manchester City after their defeat by Brighton. Sutton’s pick for Sunday was a 2-1 City victory; Longhurst backed a 3-2 win for Pep Guardiola’s side while an AI forecast generated with Microsoft Copilot Chat predicted a 2-2 draw.

Sutton’s predictions are being made against an assortment of opponents each week: AI, BBC Sport readers and invited guests. For week four, Longhurst joined Sutton in previewing Saturday and Sunday fixtures and offering his scorelines. The BBC uses the single most popular reader selection for each game to build its public scoreboards and tables. Under the competition rules, correctly forecasting a match result — win, draw or defeat — earns 10 points; an exact scoreline is worth 40 points.

Sutton provided picks for all fixtures across the weekend, beginning with Arsenal’s match at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday. He forecast a 2-0 Gunners win at home to Nottingham Forest; Longhurst agreed on 2-0 while the AI tool predicted 3-1. Sutton anticipated a 1-1 draw between Bournemouth and Brighton at the Vitality Stadium, with Longhurst favouring Bournemouth 3-1 and the AI 2-2.

At Selhurst Park, Sutton predicted Crystal Palace would edge a narrow 1-0 victory over Sunderland; Longhurst expected a 2-0 Palace win, and the AI forecast 2-0. Sutton predicted a 1-1 draw in the match billed at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, while Longhurst saw a 1-0 result. Sutton was confident Fulham would beat Leeds 2-0 at Craven Cottage, a score Longhurst opposed with a 1-1 draw and the AI settling on 2-1.

Sutton expected Newcastle United to beat Wolves 3-1 at St James’ Park and predicted Liverpool to win 3-0 away at Burnley on Sunday. He also forecast that Tottenham would recover to win 2-1 at West Ham’s London Stadium. For the west London derby between Brentford and Chelsea, Sutton backed a 1-1 draw while Longhurst gave Chelsea a 3-1 victory and the AI foresaw a 0-2 win for the Blues.

The two men diverged most notably over the Manchester derby. Sutton cautioned that City’s recent capitulation to Brighton raised questions about their form and argued the selection of Gianluigi Donnarumma in goal could be pivotal for the champions. Longhurst, meanwhile, highlighted United’s counter-attacking threat and Bryan Mbeumo’s potential to trouble City’s defence in his reasoning for United getting on the scoresheet.

Longhurst, who grew up supporting Reading, also spoke about his hometown club’s longer-term prospects. He recalled players from Reading’s Premier League years — including Kevin Doyle and Leroy Lita — and said he sees the club’s new ownership as a positive step in a rebuilding process. “If we could get back to the Premier League again in my lifetime, that would be unbelievable,” he told BBC Sport, pointing to the stadium, Category One academy and training ground as infrastructure that could support promotion back to the Championship.

Sutton noted the involvement of AI in the weekly comparisons. BBC Sport asked Microsoft Copilot Chat to “predict this weekend’s Premier League scores,” and its outputs were included in the publicly posted predictions for each fixture alongside those of Sutton, the guest and readers.

The predictions come two days after the international break and ahead of a weekend that Sutton said could be decisive for some clubs’ title hopes or early-season momentum. He singled out Manchester City’s run of fixtures — including a Champions League match against Napoli before visiting Arsenal the following weekend — as potentially pivotal in assessing their campaign.

Sutton’s forecasting project has produced a running leaderboard. After week three, Sutton had accrued 87 points (an average shown on the BBC guest leaderboard), while AI and readers were tied on 60 points in the aggregated standings. Sutton’s own form dipped in the previous set of fixtures: he achieved three correct results from 10 games and 30 points in week three, falling short of the weekly win that went to guest panellist Orlando Bloom, who earned 50 points.

Longhurst’s involvement underscores the BBC’s approach of pairing expert analysis with fan and guest perspectives. His band, Only The Poets, are due to play the O2 Academy Brixton in February 2026 and have previously supported artists including Lewis Capaldi, Yungblud and Bastille; the group recently performed a set at Reading’s Select Leasing Car Stadium prior to the Royals’ win over Port Vale.

Sutton and Longhurst were interviewed by BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan ahead of the weekend fixtures, with both contributors highlighting specific players and tactical questions that could determine outcomes. Sutton emphasised goalkeeper selections at City and United as elements that could influence the derby’s result, while Longhurst combined local loyalties with a willingness to back attacking displays in his scorelines.

The BBC will publish aggregated reader choices and the weekly scoreboard after Sunday’s final kick-offs, and the most popular predicted scoreline for each game will again be used for the site’s public tables. Exact-score predictions remain the most valuable in the scoring system, but Sutton and his weekly challengers will continue to weigh team form, recent results and individual player availability as the season unfolds.