The pick of the weekend is at St James' Park (Sunday, 16:30 UK time): Newcastle, the model's most arresting projected faller, against a Liverpool side it narrowly favours on the road - 40.7% to 31.7% - with Alexander Isak leading the visitors' line against the club he left. No fixture on the opening slate carries more narrative per minute.
Kickoff is at 16:30 UK time on Sunday 23 August. All numbers below come from the live Statz match centre, where the projections re-run through to kickoff.
Liverpool's expected XI is strong where it matters - Wirtz, Szoboszlai and Gakpo behind Isak, Van Dijk marshalling - but the treatment room is full: seven players are out, including Ekitiké, Bradley and Gomez, which thins the bench dramatically. Newcastle's rebuilt side hands starts to Bamba, Ramsey and Osula in front of Horníček in goal, with Livramento a doubt and Miley out - an XI that explains the model's twelfth-place season projection at a glance.
Newcastle predicted XI (4-3-3): Horníček, Burn, Botman, Thiaw, Hall, Bamba, J.Ramsey, Joelinton, Barnes, Elanga, Osula.
Liverpool predicted XI (4-2-3-1): A.Becker, Kerkez, Virgil, Araujo, Frimpong, Mac Allister, Gravenberch, Gakpo, Wirtz, Szoboszlai, Isak.
Line-ups are predicted, not confirmed - the Statz team news page tracks every club's expected XI up to kickoff.
Neither arrives in form: Liverpool's closing WLDLD, Newcastle's LWDWL. The projections have it 1.55 goals to 1.35 in Liverpool's favour with weak clean-sheet numbers both ways (25.9% and 21.2%) - the shape of a game decided by whoever's front line clicks first.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
The streak lines cluster in Newcastle's back line, oddly: Schär has had a shot in five straight (set pieces), while Botman and Thiaw have both made a tackle in five straight - they will be busy. For Liverpool, Gakpo has a shot on target in four of his last five. And the fixture's emotional centre, Isak, returns to the ground where he became one of Europe's most valuable strikers.
See the live Statz numbers for this fixture.
Liverpool at 1.90 with bet365 at the time of writing is a shade shorter than the model's 40.7% strictly earns - the market is paying for the front four, not the depleted bench. The number the model shouts is both teams to score at 58.4%, the strongest BTTS of the entire round (1.44 at the time of writing), with over 2.5 at 55.5%. The Bet Builder above pays 4.0 on the defensive streaks.
The weekend's best fixture and its clearest goals game: the strongest BTTS number of the round, two soft defensive projections, and Isak walking back into St James'. The model leans Liverpool, quietly - but it's far more confident about what kind of game this is than who wins it.