The Premier League returns this weekend, bringing another thrilling instalment of the world's most expensive exercise in collective confusion.

Six matches into the season, Manchester City have won everything, several supposedly elite clubs are defending like they've entered a competition to concede the most embarrassing goal, and Newcastle United remain about as predictable as a drunk uncle operating a forklift.

It's a competition in which clubs employ performance analysts, sports psychologists, tactical consultants, nutritionists and people whose sole responsibility appears to be telling footballers when to go to bed. And yet, every weekend, somebody will still concede a goal because two defenders have simultaneously decided that the other one is dealing with it.

Welcome to Matchweek 7.

Everton v Chelsea

We begin at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, where Everton welcome Chelsea for a lunchtime kick-off that feels suspiciously like a trap disguised as a football match.

David Moyes has assembled an unbeaten Everton side, apparently by introducing the revolutionary concept that defenders should occasionally prevent the opposition from scoring. It's a bold strategy, particularly in the modern Premier League, where defending has increasingly become something that happens between elaborate passing routines and lengthy discussions with the fourth official.

Chelsea, meanwhile, have conceded thirteen goals in six matches.

Thirteen.

Their defensive organisation currently resembles eleven men receiving slightly different instructions in a WhatsApp group, three of whom have muted the conversation and one of whom has accidentally left.

The Chelsea recruitment department has spent enough money to purchase a reasonably sized Caribbean island, yet the defence continues to behave as though its members were introduced to one another in the tunnel.

Everton will fancy this. Chelsea will presumably have a plan. Whether anybody at Chelsea knows what that plan is remains an entirely separate question.

Brentford v Liverpool

Across London, Brentford welcome Liverpool, who arrive with injuries, a wounded ego and the lingering psychological consequences of being dismantled 3-0 at Anfield by Manchester City.

Brentford are unbeaten and have drawn enough matches to qualify for a loyalty scheme. One more and they receive a complimentary cappuccino and a voucher for a replacement goalkeeper.

But they're awkward opponents, particularly at home. They have that irritating ability to make substantially more expensive football teams look as though they've turned up expecting a pleasant afternoon and accidentally wandered into a disciplinary hearing.

Liverpool, meanwhile, are discovering that reputation doesn't actually mark anybody, track runners or stop the opposition putting the ball in the net.

This is precisely the sort of fixture where Liverpool's superior quality ought to prevail, which naturally means Brentford will spend ninety minutes making the entire exercise look like an industrial dispute.

Expect Liverpool to dominate possession, Brentford to make life thoroughly unpleasant, and at least one television pundit to explain that Liverpool's difficulties are somehow Manchester City's fault.

Manchester City v Ipswich Town

At the Etihad, Manchester City entertain Ipswich Town in what promises to be a deeply moving celebration of competitive equality.

Six matches. Six victories.

City have developed the air of a team who've stopped noticing that opponents exist. The other eleven players are simply an administrative inconvenience between kick-off and the collection of another three points.

Ipswich will arrive with a tactical plan, a tremendous sense of occasion and, one imagines, several emergency telephone numbers.

Naturally, the neutral will be encouraged to get behind the underdogs. The romance of football. The magic of the Premier League. Anything can happen.

And indeed it can.

A meteorite could strike the centre circle. A herd of escaped cattle could invade the pitch. City's manager could announce that he's abandoning positional football in favour of a traditional English 4-4-2 and a large centre-forward called Keith.

But Ipswich winning would still come as something of a surprise.

With the financial controversy surrounding City continuing to dominate the conversation, there will doubtless be another round of solemn discussions about what their success means for football.

Ipswich might reasonably suggest that what it means for them is a very long afternoon.

Fulham v Hull City

Fulham welcome Hull in a fixture that could produce anything from a thoroughly entertaining five-goal thriller to ninety minutes that leave you wondering whether you remembered to renew the car insurance.

Fulham have the advantage of home comforts, while Hull have the opportunity to demonstrate that promotion to the Premier League needn't involve spending every Saturday afternoon being treated as a charitable organisation.

These are precisely the matches that tend to disappear from the national conversation until somebody scores an outrageous goal, a manager gets sent off or a goalkeeper attempts a Cruyff turn in his own six-yard box.

At which point everybody suddenly becomes an expert.

Newcastle United v Aston Villa

And then there's St James' Park.

Newcastle against Aston Villa. Two clubs with substantial ambitions, expensive squads and defensive records that suggest both managers have recently been introduced to the concept of marking and remain unconvinced.

Between them, they've conceded twenty-four league goals in twelve combined matches.

Twenty-four.

That's not a defensive statistic. That's a cry for help.

On paper, this has all the ingredients of a magnificent attacking spectacle. Two ambitious teams, fifty-two thousand supporters, and enough defensive uncertainty to make every forward in the stadium feel like Christmas has arrived early.

So naturally, it will finish nil-nil.

Not an entertaining nil-nil, either. Not one of those thrilling goalless draws featuring heroic goalkeeping, desperate clearances and twenty-seven shots against the woodwork.

No. This will be the other sort.

A match so spectacularly uneventful that the highlights package consists of a throw-in, somebody eating a pie and both teams walking out of the tunnel.

A match in which the most exciting incident is a substitution that takes slightly longer than expected.

Somewhere in the stands, a man who has spent £90 on petrol, parking and refreshments will begin quietly questioning every major decision he's made since leaving school.

Of course, given the defensive records, it could equally finish 5-4.

Which is precisely why this ridiculous competition continues to exist.

Bournemouth v Sunderland

Sunday brings Bournemouth against Sunderland, a fixture with the potential to become gloriously chaotic.

Both clubs have reasons to be optimistic, reasons to be nervous and supporters who will regard any optimistic prediction as an invitation for the football gods to administer a swift kick in the bollocks.

Bournemouth will look to impose themselves at home. Sunderland will have absolutely no intention of turning up merely to admire the south coast.

This feels like the sort of match where the first goal could lead to a tactical chess match, or alternatively cause everybody to abandon defending altogether.

Given the way the season has started, the latter seems a perfectly reasonable possibility.

Brighton v Crystal Palace

Brighton and Crystal Palace renew their peculiar rivalry, one of English football's more entertaining examples of two clubs deciding they dislike one another despite being separated by a considerable stretch of the A23.

There's history, there's needle, and there's the usual opportunity for somebody on television to explain the origins of the rivalry while everyone else wonders whether the explanation is going to involve a railway timetable.

Brighton will want control. Palace will want to disrupt it. Both sets of supporters will insist that this fixture matters considerably more than outsiders understand.

And, as with most football rivalries, they're probably right.

Expect intensity, arguments, tactical adjustments and at least one player receiving a booking for an offence that would ordinarily warrant a mildly disapproving look from a supermarket security guard.

Leeds United v Manchester United

At Elland Road, Leeds welcome Manchester United, with Michael Carrick already discovering that managing United comes with approximately the same job security as being the drummer in Spinal Tap.

It's early in the season, admittedly, but patience at Old Trafford has become a commodity rarer than an affordable pint at a motorway service station.

United managers traditionally receive about fifteen minutes of optimism before somebody produces a statistical comparison with Sir Alex Ferguson and the entire enterprise begins to unravel.

Leeds, meanwhile, will relish the opportunity to make United's afternoon as uncomfortable as possible.

Elland Road is not a venue that tends to extend a particularly warm welcome to visitors from Manchester, unless you count an exceptionally enthusiastic reception involving a great deal of shouting.

United have the talent to win. Leeds have the motivation to make sure they don't.

And somewhere in the television studio, a former United player will be preparing to explain precisely what's wrong with the club, a subject on which there has apparently been no shortage of material for the past thirteen years.

Nottingham Forest v Arsenal

Nottingham Forest against Arsenal has all the makings of a classic title-race banana skin.

The last two league meetings at the City Ground have finished nil-nil, which suggests this fixture has occasionally resembled ninety minutes spent assembling flat-pack furniture without instructions.

Arsenal will arrive with their usual mixture of technical excellence, tactical sophistication and supporters who regard every dropped point as evidence of a wider conspiracy involving referees, fixture scheduling and possibly the Freemasons.

Forest will be determined to make the afternoon unpleasant.

The longer it remains goalless, the more the tension will rise, until eventually somebody attempts a speculative thirty-yard effort that lands in the Trent and is described by the commentator as 'worth a go'.

For Arsenal, these are the matches title challengers are expected to win.

Which is precisely what makes them so horrible.

Tottenham Hotspur v Coventry City

Finally, Monday night brings Tottenham against Coventry.

Spurs are still searching for their first league victory, which is a sentence that somehow manages to be both surprising and completely unsurprising.

Tottenham possess one of the finest stadiums in world football, an extraordinary commercial operation and a seemingly limitless ability to turn promising situations into existential crises.

It's like watching somebody build a magnificent new kitchen and then discover they haven't connected the oven.

Coventry will arrive knowing that the longer Tottenham go without scoring, the more nervous the home crowd will become.

And there are few sounds in football quite like forty thousand Tottenham supporters collectively realising that something familiar and deeply unpleasant may be about to happen.

The first twenty minutes could be crucial.

After that, depending on the score, we may be treated to a fascinating examination of the relationship between sporting ambition and collective psychological trauma.

And there we have it.

Ten fixtures. Twenty teams. Several hundred million pounds' worth of footballers who may or may not remember how to defend.

Manchester City will probably win again. Chelsea may concede another three. Liverpool will attempt to restore their dignity. Tottenham will attempt to locate theirs.

And Newcastle and Aston Villa, having spent the opening six matches conceding goals with the enthusiasm of a pair of malfunctioning vending machines, will somehow produce a nil-nil of such monumental tedium that archaeologists will one day mistake the match footage for a documentary about concrete.

That's the Premier League.

You can spend billions, employ the finest minds in world football and analyse every conceivable statistical variable.

And still have absolutely no earthly idea what's going to happen next.

Except City.

They'll probably win seven-nil.