Football and Rugby with some brave predictions!

Just two sports this week will be the subject of my predictions - Premier League football and the continuation of the autumn internationals in rugby union.

After last week's fairly neutral predictions I am going to be a bit braver this weekend. In the football I am going for Manchester City (the league's draw specialists) to hold Liverpool at Anfield in the big game of the weekend. In my second draw prediction I'm thinking that Arsenal who have been on a roll recently to be held at Sunderland as well. My other two predictions involve the second and fourth place clubs who I am forecasting will both complete home wins - Manchester United who host Everton and Spurs who are visited by Wigan on Sunday.

If you don't think those predictions are that brave then you may not think my forecast of Australia to beat Scotland in their rugby match all that unthinkable. However, my final two predictions are that England will triumph at Twickenham against the All Blacks and the Argentinian Pumas to beat Wales in Cardiff. There is some method in my madness and that is firstly England are due a decent performance and will want to end this phase of the season on a high, secondly the All Blacks have lost their aura in the last 18 months and having lost to France in the summer have not looked as invincible as their predecessors in their most recent games against the impotent Welsh and the Italians. Maybe like England they are due a big performance and if both teams do up their performance then I could be in for a special afternoon at Twickenham.

As for the Welsh, I mentioned above they looked impotent and even though Argentina lost to a poor England performance last week, they had only got together as a squad a few days before and I think the combination of their team being on the up and their hosts slipping from the levels they achieved a couple of seasons ago will see the result favouring the South Americans.

In summary therefore this week's predictions are:

Barclays Premier League Football

Liverpool to draw with Manchester City at 5/2
Sunderland to draw with Arsenal at 14/5
Manchester United to beat Everton at 2/5
Tottenham to beat Wigan at 1/2

Rugby Union Internationals

England to beat New Zealand at 7/1
Argentina to beat Wales at 4/1
Australia to beat Scotland at 2/9