It’s a biggie in the Premier League, especially around Villa versus Man Utd and Arsenal going to West Ham, but it is absolutely huge in the Bundesliga and La Liga, before the AFCON final…
Game to watch: Aston Villa v Manchester United
Has the Villa bubble burst? Their charge to the Premier League title has certainly slowed and their FA Cup exit to Chelsea on Wednesday night means they have won one of their last five. And that was against Sheffield United.
The performance against Chelsea was as concerning as the result. The Villans, so good at home this season, were sloppy on the ball and disorganised off it. That on the back of their first home defeat since February when Newcastle were 3-1 victors last week, the cup defeat leaves Unai Emery responsible for sparking a reaction.
It will help that Pau Torres is due to return, while Manchester United’s defensive lynchpin, Lisandro Martinez, is missing Sunday’s trip to Villa Park.
Still, United’s recent form directly contrasts Villa’s. The Red Devils are unbeaten in five, winning all but one, while scoring two or more in each game. Has Erik ten Hag finally found a potent attacking formula?
Player to watch: Kalvin Phillips
The West Ham loanee has had a pretty wretched time since leaving Manchester City’s bench in January. Already, last week at Manchester United, the England midfielder found himself on West Ham’s bench. And when he was dispatched from it, he fared little better than his Hammers debut when he gifted Bournemouth a goal in a 1-1 draw at the London Stadium.
Phillips’ two appearances in claret and blue came as West Ham extended their winless run to six games. Not since a 2-0 win over Arsenal at the Emirates have they tasted victory.
The Hammers face the Gunners again on Sunday and at least they know their London rivals are beatable. David Moyes’ side have turned them over twice already this season. But their more recent form has once again sparked the debate over Moyes’ long-term suitability for his job.
Phillips can help his manager out, assuming Moyes makes changes from the side that went down rather meekly at United last week. Somehow, the Irons need to stiffen up and address an alarming lack of midfield creativity in Lucas Paqueta’s absence.
Phillips could be in direct opposition to England team-mate Declan Rice as the Arsenal record signing returns to his former club. Which would be a very good time – for West Ham and England – for Phillips to justify why the Irons are investing so much in him.
Team to watch: Luton
The difficulty of their relegation rivals’ assignments this weekend offers Luton a big opportunity against the worst team in the league.
The Hatters welcome a Sheffield United side 10 points from safety and seemingly resigned to a return to the Championship. If they don’t shape up, the Blades could find themselves on this s*** list.
Luton, in contrast, have adapted wonderfully so far to life in the top flight while giving themselves a great chance of defying the pre-season odds and sticking around for longer than a single novelty season.
With Burnley and Everton facing Liverpool and Manchester City respectively, the Hatters could conceivably finish the weekend four points clear of the bottom three with a game in hand. Likewise, it’s a chance for Sheffield United, perhaps scoffing sarnies in the last-chance saloon, to gain on those above them, but recent form makes Luton far more fancied to seize the opportunity.
Read more: Newcastle nonsense proves Garth Crooks, not Luton, is the one who ‘cannot be taken seriously’
Managers to watch: Mauricio Pochettino and Roy Hodgson
Monday Night Football brings together two managers both struggling to match some very different expectations.
Pochettino takes his Chelsea side back on the road for the short trip to Crystal Palace. Away from home, in the Premier League, the Blues have been wretched recently. Still, they might welcome the chance to get away from Stamford Bridge after they were quite reasonably booed off following last week’s shocker against Wolves.
Then, being the headf*** they are, they went to Aston Villa and dumped the high-flying Villans out of the FA Cup. A turning point, perhaps? Probably not, but Pochettino needs to hope so because dwelling in the bottom half is a terrible look for him, even if the manager will insist this season bears no resemblance to the last, when they finished only a place lower.
At Palace, it is hard to specify what the expectations are. All we know is Hodgson and the Eagles aren’t meeting them.
This will be Hodgson’s 200th match in charge of the Eagles but without a rapid upturn in form and fortunes, it is hard to envisage him going far beyond the double century.
He is hardly helped by injuries to his four best players: Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze, Marc Guehi and Cheick Doucoure. It is compelling mitigation, but Hodgson needs to find some way of sparking Palace before they tumble into a relegation scrap.
EFL game to watch: Ipswich v West Brom
Championship fixes fall across every day this weekend, with Sheffield Wednesday hoping to boost their forlorn-looking survival prospects when they face Birmingham on Friday night, while on Sunday, Coventry seek to crack the top six against a Millwall side looking over their shoulder.
In between those battles, Ipswich host West Brom on Saturday desperately looking to get back on track. The Tractor Boys have tumbled out of the automatic promotion places, below Leeds and Southampton after a poor run of eight games that featured only one win.
West Brom are directly below Town but with an 11-point gap, the Baggies are more concerned with consolidating their play-off place, with only four points separating them and Norwich in ninth.
European game to watch: Bayer Leverkusen v Bayern Munich and Real Madrid v Girona
Big? It’s a bloomin’ massive weekend on the continent, with potentially-pivotal top-of-the-table clashes in Germany and Spain, following last weekend’s in Italy.
It’s the same gap – two points – between Real Madrid and Girona at the head of La Liga as that which separates Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich in Germany. Annoyingly, the two games are also scheduled at the same time: 5:30pm on Saturday night.
We’re going to tune in to the Bundesliga and flick occasionally to the Bernabeu. There is less of a sense of inevitability in Germany than there once was that Bayern would eventually overpower Leverkusen, who remain undefeated this season, not only domestically, but across all competitions.
Bayern, though, would claim the ascendancy if they can halt Leverkusen’s unbeaten streak at 30. The Bavarians could top the table by Saturday night, or trail by five points. Upon which point, already-squeaky bums in Bavaria would get much twitchier over the prospect of coming second best for the first time in a dozen campaigns.
Thomas Tuchel and Xabi Alonso.
AFCON final to watch – Nigeria v Ivory Coast
The Super Eagles face the hosts in a showpiece repeat of a tight Group A clash that was settled by a single goal.
It got worse for Ivory Coast after the Nigeria defeat. A lot worse. In their next game, they were battered 4-0 by Equatorial Guinea. That seemingly tournament-ending humbling prompted a change of management, and under Emerse Fae, a former Reading midfielder who had never before held a senior management role, the hosts have eked through to a final on home soil on the back of three victories: one on penalties and another after extra-time, both of which made the 1-0 semi-final win over Congo seem straightforward.
Nigeria have been on a rollercoaster of their own. They led their semi-final as the 90th minute ticked over. By the end of added time, they had been pegged back and were lucky not to be defeated. The Super Eagles seized their lifeline to progress on penalties.
It has been a brilliantly bats*** tournament that deserves a fitting final.
