It’s another tough assignment for Remi Garde’s Aston Villa as they face Arsenal and Dan Fitch thinks that they’ll fail again.

Remy Garde is still waiting for his first win since taking over as Aston Villa boss and an unkind fixture list is not helping him to achieve this modest goal.
 
 
 

With Germany (1.52) back on form after last year’s World Cup winning hangover lingered into the autumn, it would be difficult to make a case for a full strength Irish outfit (7.80) causing them problems in the Aviva Stadium on Thursday.

The fact that Martin O’Neill’s side are set to enter battle without a number of key players makes it even more unlikely……

Jose Mourinho could have been forgiven for hoping that his side had found their form after wins over Maccabi Tel Aviv, Arsenal and Walsall, only for Chelsea to struggle to draw with bottom-placed Newcastle and to lose away at Porto this week.

The trip to his old club Porto saw Mourinho prefer to put untried youngsters on the bench alongside the dropped Eden Hazard and Nemanja Matic……

Having lost Carlos Tevez, Andrea Pirlo and Arturo Vidal this summer, it was always going to be difficult for Juventus to rebuild. They’ve made some smart signings, but it takes time to recover from losing such influential individuals.

Manuel Pellegrini’s side have made a sensational start to the season. Five wins in five, 11 goals scored and none conceded has ensured that they’ve made their title statement early.

Before this year’s Wimbledon final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, I wrote that there was so little between the two - statistically speaking - that they should be the same odds to go on to secure the title.

The market for that final, though, viewed Djokovic as the slight favourite, making Federer, I argued, the value. That rationale might have been sound: a losing bet isn’t necessarily a bad bet.

The draw is out for the men’s singles at the US Open and as ever it’s thrown up some very interesting first round matches and some trickier than usual openers for the top stars.

Andy Murray faces Nick Kyrgios, while Roger Federer must overcome Leo Mayer, and Rafa Nadal takes on young starlet Borna Coric, who beat the slumping Spaniard in their only career meeting so far.