Opta facts

• Crystal Palace have won just three of their 22 Premier League matches against Southampton (D6 L13), with this the first time they’ve met on the opening day.
• Southampton have won their last three away Premier League visits to Crystal Palace without conceding a single goal; Saints have never won four consecutive away top-flight matches against an opponent.
• Although this is their first Premier League meeting on the opening day, Crystal Palace and Southampton did meet on MD1 in 2007-08 in the Championship, with the Eagles winning 4-1 at St. Mary’s and James Scowcroft scoring a hat-trick.
• The home side hasn’t won any of the last six Premier League meetings between Crystal Palace and Southampton (D2 L4). The hosts had won five in a row in this fixture prior to this run.
• In the six opening day Premier League matches when Crystal Palace have played at home, they are yet to win (D2 L4); their last top-flight win at home on opening day came back in 1971-72, winning 2-0 against Newcastle United.
• Among teams to have played in at least 10 Premier League seasons, Southampton have the worst win percentage on MD1 in the competition, winning just two out of 21 (9.5%).

Fulham v Arsenal

• 12:30 BST - BT Sport
• Big match preview

A Premier League season like no other has had its knock-on effect for the 2020/21 campaign and while everyone has had to adapt to a shortened off-season, Fulham have been dealt the toughest cards.

They secured their promotion back to the top-flight of English football with victory over Brentford in the play-off final. That took place on August 4, a year and one day after the start of their successful campaign got underway. That was also over a week after the Premier League season ended.

This season has to be different to the last time they were at this level and Scott Parker is aware of that. That's not just down to trying to avoid relegation but also how they prepare their squad and the transfers they make. They welcomed 13 new faces before the start of their last Premier League campaign; this window has seen five with two being at the club last season.

If the shortened time away from competitive action wasn't bad enough for Fulham, they kick-off the season with a contest against an Arsenal side who look like they are capable of being at the right end of the table under Mikel Arteta. Top-four will surely be their aim, and based on what we saw during the second-half of last season, they could well do it.

I'm not going to go into greater detail as to why that may be here, you can find all that in our outright preview, but Arsenal will be more prepared for this contest than Fulham, even if the hosts are coming in to the game with decent momentum from the Sky Bet Championship.

That's partly down to time of course but they were also successful over Liverpool in the Community Shield. A glorified friendly some might say; but that is to take nothing away from an Arsenal side who performed well on the day.

That game again further highlighted the importance of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to this Arsenal team. The best bit of business that the Gunners could have done during this transfer window was keeping him at the club; that appears to be something that they will achieve.

He's a fancy for the Golden Boot and this will be a game where he'll back himself to be on the scoresheet. Aubameyang is odds-on for a goal anytime, but the real value is in backing overs in the match goals market.

It's always difficult to make certain predictions based on it being the start of the season and one of these teams not even being in this division last time out, but it must be acknowledged that Fulham should have conceded more goals than they did in the Championship.