Man City travel to West Brom for Premier League opener

This is a fixture that is certainly laden with intrigue. Manuel Pellegrini, after finally resolving his future, signing on for two more years, takes his Manchester City side to West Bromwich Albion for the club’s first game of the Premier League season and the visitors are odds-on at 8/13 with Coral to win the match.

City have won their opening Premier League fixture five times out of the last six, drawing just once, while the last time they lost on the opening game of the season was a trip to the West Midlands in 2008 in a 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa.

David Silva has scored three times in four appearances against the Baggies and to score anytime again, he is definitely good value with a 15/8 price. The jury is out on Sergio Aguero, who will likely face a late fitness test, though the awesome Argentinian has dispatched nine times in his last seven Premier League appearances and is 4/1 to score two or more.

Baggies fans will be keen to see how the pairing of Rickie Lambert and Saido Berahino fares in attack with respective odds of 11/4 and 2/1 available in the anytime market.

While Berhaino has been the subject of transfer speculation this summer, Pulis is keen to keep hold of the 21-year-old, though maintains that whatever happens, the club is in a good place: “I’ve always worked with the material I am given and that’s always been my philosophy, to try to squeeze everything out of everybody,” Pulis said.

“The club has a good structure and we haven’t made too many changes but most things are in place.”

For the visitors, Raheem Sterling will come under the radar, to see how he can perform after his £49m move from Liverpool. The 20-year-old has never scored against West Brom, though he was productive in pre-season getting on the scoresheet in the International Champions Cup, so odds of 2/1 in the anytime market could be worth a punt.