It may not be a weekend, but it doesn’t get much bigger than Boxing Day when it comes to the ol’ football. Lovely set of games to look forward to as well…
Game to watch: Newcastle United v Aston Villa
It’s quite a plum fixture list we’ve got here, actually, with lots of top v bottom narratives, teams coming off the back of disappointing results looking to bounce back (Lynn), and even a West London derby. And all of it – all of it – will be available to watch if you have the right streaming services. Merry bloody Christmas indeed.
But this one is about as even an encounter on paper as we’re likely to get over the Boxing Day fixture list, and finds both sides at an interesting junction.
The only thing that gave us slight pause is that both Newcastle and Aston Villa will be desperately hoping they have already had their bad run this season and are now on the ups again, which has ‘we’d take a draw’ written all over it.
But then…you can’t help but think both sides are looking at Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth ahead of them in the running for a Champions League place and thinking ‘these lads are eating their lunch from a bag with our name on it’.
There’s a reason pundits still talk about the Big Six before hesitating slightly and then adding ‘or Big Eight, as it may be now’. Newcastle and Villa are those two peripheral, half-forgotten sides, and will remain so until they manage to string together a couple of seasons looking convincing in their top-four aspirations.
A victory here could push one side or the other firmly into that conversation, while the loser could well slip back down into the mid-table pack they have just done so well to claw themselves out of.
Both have good reason to be full of confidence. Unai Emery’s Villa have won four of their past five in all competitions, capped with a convincing victory over Manchester City (a statement that admittedly means less with every passing week).
Eddie Howe’s Newcastle have meanwhile finally shown signs they have a bit more about them than being a pure one-dimensional counter-attacking threat (and nothing else) with three impressively comprehensive victories in the space of eight days.
It’s either going to be a belter or it’s going to be stodgy and rubbish. Either way, we’re all going to learn something. And isn’t that what Christmas is all about? Studious attention to detail?
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Team to watch: Ipswich
Arsenal and Ipswich are not technically playing each other on Boxing Day, if you want to be pedantic about it, which is just typical of you. Why can’t you just let the simplest little thing slide for once? Now shut up and carve the turkey.
Ipswich have struggled this season, as you would expect of a side who have come straight up from League One. But actually, they’ve not been anywhere near as bad as we’ve predicted.
They’ve still lost a lot, because of course they have. But from day one, Ipswich have at least acted like they believe they belong at this level, showing a level of fight and determination that other managers must wish they could inject into their own under-performing sides.
But they failed to live up to that on Saturday, and Kieran McKenna made no secret of the fact he felt his Tractor Boys had dropped way below their usual standard in their four-goal defeat to Newcastle. That marked the first time since losing 2-0 at home to Everton in mid-October that Ipswich have lost by more than a respectable single goal.
Going to Arsenal and then hosting Chelsea gives McKenna two games where there will be absolutely zero expectation on his side, but as an absolute minimum, he will want to see that grit and resilience make a return.
The sad truth for Ipswich is that even if they can regain that anything-is-possible mentality, they probably just don’t have enough quality to stay up. There’s no shame in that, either, given where they’ve come from. But they will have no chance whatsoever if they go into games looking as defeated as they did right from the off against Newcastle. If you can’t get up for the possibility of giving a title contender a bloody nose, then what are you even doing here?
That’s just as important to McKenna’s future job prospects as it is to Ipswich’s chances of survival. Even going down bravely would keep McKenna’s reputation as one of the hottest up-and-comers in the country intact. But if they get into bad habits and sink without trace…well, it might just give some of those more established clubs pause for thought.
Manager to watch: Fabian Hurzeler
Brighton are always a solid pick for Big Weekend, because whatever they do, it’s either going to be entertainingly brilliant or gloriously stupid.
The South Coast Tottenham are firmly in the midst of their traditional mid-season wobble, and have not won a game for over a month; since then they’ve dropped points to Southampton (uh oh), Fulham (yeah, alright, fine), Leicester (awful, given they were two goals up with four minutes to go), Crystal Palace (yikes) and a thoroughly underwhelming West Ham (parentheses).
Friday’s (again, not technically Boxing Day but they all merge into one big mush, don’t they? The days? At this time of year?) clash with Brentford at the Amex feels a little bit two-spidermen.jpg, but with the notable distinction that Thomas Frank is by now well-established as a very capable Premier League manager. After his excellent start to life at Brighton, baby manager Hurzeler is now facing his first serious test of his own credentials.
Getting back to winning ways at home is the first job to tick off, especially as Brighton have some making up to do on that front: they’ve already hosted four of the current bottom five and failed to beat any of them.
Their record against their fellow mid-tablers has been more solid, though, with victories recorded over both of the Manchester clubs and The London Tottenham. Adding Brentford to that list would help alleviate some of the doubts about whether this is all just a bit too much a bit too soon for their 30-year-old manager.
Player to watch: Marcus Rashford
If, indeed, we can watch him at all. The scorer of the first goal of the Ruben Amorim era is also the first player to publicly ask to bid adeus to the new manager.
The United boss said in response to Rashford coming out and saying he is looking for new opportunities: “I understand that these players have a lot of people around them, making choices that are not the first idea from the player. I am always here to help Marcus as another player. I have to do what I have to do. They chose to do the interview as it is not just Marcus. I understand that.
“As a coach I focus on performance and the way you train. The rest, it is better for me and the club to deal with that when the time comes. At the moment I focus on improving Marcus and we need a talented guy like Marcus. I forget the interview now and see what I see on the pitch.”
Hmmm. We’ll see how true that is, won’t we?
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Football League game to watch: Huddersfield Town v Stockport County
The idiot’s answer is Sheffield United v Burnley, but that’s just a crap Premier League game wearing an interesting Championship game’s hat. And so we dip into the upper end of League One instead.
The third tier looks to have opened up into a pack of automatic promotion contenders and the rest, and this fourth v fifth clash could be decisive in showing just how serious the two sides are about making up the gap to Birmingham, Wycombe and Wrexham.
Newly-relegated Huddersfield are on an 11-game unbeaten streak in the league that has lifted them out of an awful early-season slump to go within five points of the top two, while newly-promoted Stockport have just three more games to enjoy the services of the division’s top scorer, Louie Barry, before his already-confirmed recall by Aston Villa takes effect. It could be a belter.
European game to watch: Hearts v Hibs
Boxing Day’s lunchtime kick-off sees Edinburgh’s big boys go head to head midway through disappointing seasons for both sides, with both exhibiting tentative signs of a revival.
Three of Hibs’ wins this season have come in their past four games, with a defeat on their trip to Celtic an acceptable exception, and have hit a particular purple patch in front of goal: they scored three in each of those victories, as well as in (twice) rescuing a ridiculous injury time draw against Aberdeen just beforehand.
Hearts have at least started to find ways to win since Neil Critchley took over in October and have come out victorious in two of their last three, but are yet to string together back-to-back Premiership victories this season. What better time to do it than at home in your big derby game?
