EPL best bets: Use your head, and bet that Liverpool's Darwin Nunez uses his

Manchester City vs. Newcastle

This is it: a potential title decider in the second game of the season. (Maybe a bit premature to say that, given Newcastle has the extra challenge of the UEFA Champions League to manage this season, but still.) These two teams looked the most complete and ruthless of anyone during the first weekend, with City destroying newly promoted Burnley and Newcastle bestowing a mercy killing upon injury-stricken Aston Villa. City is the clear favorite in this match, but with midfield talisman Kevin De Bruyne out injured — and Newcastle showing off a new midfield talisman of its own in Sandro Tonali — one must imagine that things here are closer than they appear.

For adventurous souls and/or Man United fans, Bet365’s Double Chance option of "Tie or Newcastle" at +125 is an intriguing bet. It presumes City won’t win, but it doesn’t make any distinction around how; a draw or a Newcastle win will generate the same payout. It’s a lower-stakes way to bet against the Citizens in one of the tightest challenges the team will face in the beginning of its season.

Another interesting bet for this game: Newcastle’s Alexander Isak as an anytime scorer at +300. The man got two goals against Aston Villa and could’ve had about four more. Clearly, whatever he did during summer break is working for him.

Aston Villa vs. Everton

People are expecting big things from Villa, and for good reason: when coach Unai Emery joined last November he hoisted the club from just outside the relegation zone to the European places without breaking a sweat. On the other side of this matchup, though, no one expects anything from poor Everton. After avoiding relegation on the final day of last season, the team has done little to improve its situation.

Villa, ideally, will use this game to bounce back from its awful, gut-wrenching opening weekend, while Everton will just try to hang on. There aren’t many value bets hiding around the moneyline. But one interesting, and often overlooked, betting area for these two is cards. They’re two of the most carded teams in the Premier League after finishing sixth and seventh in overall yellow card accumulation last season. Villa even managed to rack up four on its own in last weekend. With that in mind, betting on a total of five or more cards in this game at +125 feels reasonable. Braver souls might also want to experiment with six or more at +240.