A tantalising clash between a pair of Big Six clubs in CRISIS and the introduction of the latest man charged with the impossible task of getting Manchester United to be Manchester United again. The Premier League returns with the biggest of weekends.
Game to watch: Manchester City v Tottenham
Don’t ask us to explain the science of it, because we can’t, but despite this obviously being the biggest and most watchable game this weekend it nevertheless feels entirely correct that it sits in the 5.30pm Saturday evening slot rather than as a Super Sunday headliner.
Just feels right, doesn’t it? What doesn’t feel right is the frankly sh*te football both these teams were serving up before the international break. Pep Guardiola’s team were doing so badly in their four-game losing run that he’s felt it necessary to sign a new contract, while Spurs continue their apparent quest under Ange Postecoglou to crystallise the very essence of what it is to be Spurs by following up a Carabao win that started City’s own run of woe and a thumping 4-1 win over Aston Villa by losing to Galatasaray in Europe and Ipswich in the league.
The thought of watching two of the Premier League’s biggest clubs tangle when playing well is always quite exciting, but let’s be honest; it’s a lot more fun to watch them play against each other when struggling horribly.
And games between this pair are famously ridiculous anyway. Spurs haven’t always been operating at their current levels of silliness during Guardiola’s golden reign at City, but they’re usually quite silly and have nevertheless emerged as the team perhaps above all others capable of inexplicably giving City the heebie-jeebies in a one-off game. Absurd as it sounds, there is perhaps no team City would less like to be facing when trying to turn around a losing run. Even though for literally every other team in the land Dr Tottenham is precisely who you want to see rolling into town.
The last three Spurs trips to the Etihad have all produced beautiful chaos. Spurs won dramatically 3-2 in 2021/22, Harry Kane capping off one of the great all-round striker performances with a late, late winner after City’s own late equaliser. The following year Spurs went 2-0 up only to lose 4-2, and last season Spurs somehow emerged from what was close to a 90-minute battering with a genuinely absurd 3-3 draw.
The good news for neutrals and Spurs fans hoping for further chaos in a fixture perfectly primed for it is that you don’t have to worry at all about Spurs being in terrible form. They don’t need such fripperies as form or confidence to come here and cause madness. If anything, their current strife increases the potential for nonsense.
That 3-2 win here in 2022 came, absurdly and Spursily, after a run of three straight defeats to Chelsea, Southampton and Wolves and directly before a fourth defeat in five games against Burnley.
Last season’s even dafter 3-3 draw in early December was the only point they managed in a five-game stretch of hilarious collapses that eased the nerves of anyone worrying their 10-game unbeaten start might actually mean anything.
It really does leave us with a fixture where absolutely anything could happen and none of it would surprise. City could absolutely return to form in fine 5-0 style against an injury-ravaged defence that has, frankly, got away with an awful lot so far this season. But Spurs somehow emerging with a high-scoring point or even a win would be massively on-brand for all concerned.
Typical City v Spursy Spurs – we can’t wait, to be honest.
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Manager to watch: Ruben Amorim
To continue the TV scheduling theme, Sky have nailed it, haven’t they? We nodded along at the absolute correctness of placing City v Spurs on Saturday evening where it instinctively sits most correctly, but it did rather leave something of a Super Sunday void.
Ipswich v Manchester United didn’t really look the part at all. What you’ve got there is a lovely Sunday 2pm appetiser, but surely not the main meal. Then along comes Ruben Amorim, and everything is all right.
Manchester United’s charismatic new manager making his grand Premier League entrance in the weekend’s headline slot is absolutely right and correct, and who knows, there may even be just enough time in the build-up to mention any of the players involved in the game. But probably not.
It’s going to be all Amorim, all the time. Whenever Amorim’s not on screen, all the pundits and commentators should be asking ‘Where’s Amorim?’
His arrival feels like a timely one. The established Main Character Managers in the Barclays are having a rough time of it this season, with quieter, more blend-into-the-background sorts like Slot and Nuno and Maresca going well as Guardiola and Arteta and Postecoglou struggle. The Premier League needs Amorim to make a big impression very nearly as much as Manchester United do.
Team to watch: Liverpool
That early Super Sunday appetiser is instead Southampton v Liverpool, which again sounds just about perfect for a 2pm kick-off. Also has a Saturday lunchtime vibe that Ipswich-United doesn’t for some reason, but Sunday is fine too.
Liverpool will know by the time they return to action just how big an opportunity this weekend’s trip to the Premier League’s bottom club provides. If Spurs have producePad any of their patented Guardiola-scuppering nonsense at the Etihad, then Liverpool could be going into this one looking at the possibility of a seven or even eight-point lead.
Whether they can sustain it all across a whole season under Slot remains to be seen, but there appear to be fewer and fewer reasons to doubt that they have what it takes as the new manager quietly and effectively finesses the rougher edges of Klopp’s football without destroying the whole thing.
Player to watch: Cole Palmer
To the shock of all, Palmer is available for Chelsea at Leicester despite having been forced out of the beloved November international break by very real and genuine injury. It was, it turned out, quite a bad one for Palmer – and Phil Foden – to miss with their very serious injuries, because England suddenly and belatedly under Lee Carsley got their attacking act together and looked far better for having only one No. 10 on the field instead of all of the No. 10s.
Palmer and Foden are wonderful players, but they are not Jude Bellingham. There will, perhaps, be greater scope for two 10s in a Thomas Tuchel midfield but whatever turns out to be the German’s preferred route, Palmer has seen his international standing suffer slightly. Which is rare; usually missing England games is just about the best thing you can do for your reputation. In Palmer’s defence, who could have predicted England would actually play well against Greece and Ireland? Certainly not a press pack who spent the build up to the game in Athens busy sharpening their knives ready to blame the upcoming defeat on a man who wasn’t even there.
Not Palmer, of course. Tuchel. It was all going to be Tuchel’s fault.
That didn’t pan out, and now Palmer returns to domestic action with perhaps a little bit of a point to prove. Not to Chelsea, who know exactly how good he is and has been for them this season, but everyone else.
Being in the very first game back after the break and it being at Leicester certainly provides the opportunity.
Football League game to watch: Sheffield United v Coventry
As we all try to get to grips with the disconcerting reality that Mark Robins is no longer Coventry manager and that Frank Lampard soon may well be, the managerless Sky Blues themselves must focus instead on an arduous trip to in-form Sheffield United, whose run of four straight wins has taken them level on points with draw-happy Sunderland at the top of the table.
A Saturday lunchtime TV slot gives the Blades the chance to put serious scoreboard pressure on their fellow promotion chasers, while Coventry must surely feel in ‘worse-before-it-gets-better’ territory here going into the weekend – and such a tough fixture – as high as 17th in the table but a single point above the bottom three.
European game to watch: Napoli v Roma
The 2022/23 Serie A champions Napoli endured a miserable 23/24 campaign but are back with a bang under Antonio Conte this year, and return from the international break sitting top of the table and with every chance to power on this weekend against a team currently attempting to show everyone what a miserable campaign truly looks like.
Roma are already on their third manager of the season having sacked club legend Daniele De Rossi, p*ssed off the fans by replacing him with Ivan Juric, and then replacing him two months later with a 73-year-old Claudio Ranieri.
Romelu Lukaku and the lads should be expected to ease to victory in this one, but if Roma need some good news it is right there on the horizon. They’ve got an appointment booked for Thursday with Dr Tottenham. Should sort them right out.
