Game to watch – Arsenal v Chelsea
After an infuriatingly underwhelming performance in a London derby last weekend, Saturday evening offers Arsenal the chance of swift redemption. If Unai Emery genuinely harbours hopes of a top-four finish, it is a chance his side must take.
Chelsea go to the Emirates with a six-point advantage over the fifth-placed Gunners and the chance to effectively bury those ambitions. Should Maurizio Sarri’s side triumph, can anyone really see Arsenal making up a nine-point deficit when they have another avenue down which to travel towards the Champions League?
Emery’s squad is not robust enough to fight on two fronts so there is a theory that defeat could do Arsenal a favour by focusing their minds on the Europa League prize. But the last thing the Gunners need is more doom and gloom that would inevitably come with another defeat and the descent to sixth place, even if some supporters acknowledge that is exactly where they belong.
Arsenal are unlikely to achieve anything more while Emery continues his search for a balance between old and new. He acknowledges the need for greater defensive stability, but last weekend at West Ham his attack failed to compensate. It is a blend Arsene Wenger struggled to perfect in his later years and half a season into his reign, Emery appears no closer, with little prospect of outside intervention.
Sarri too is having to make do and mend, at least for the moment. With no centre-forward deemed good enough to start – until Gonzalo Higuain lands at least – then the Chelsea boss will presumably plough on with playing Eden Hazard through the middle. It’s not a bad compromise until reinforcements arrive and the threat of the Premier League’s best player heaps greater pressure on Emery to come up with a defensive solution while also giving Arsenal fans an instant attacking improvement on last week. Good luck, Unai.
The Arsenal boss had the same problem when the two sides met at Stamford Bridge in August, particularly in the first half. Arsenal cut through the Chelsea defence often at will and wasted several clear chances, but they allowed Chelsea similar opportunities. For the neutrals among us, our best hope is that both sides again abandon the principle of defending, even if the managers might take a more conservative tone.
Team to watch – Newcastle
For the loser between the Magpies and Cardiff on Saturday, a place in the bottom three awaits. To the winner: six points. Sort of.
Last weekend’s defeat at Chelsea saw Newcastle slip back into the drop zone after a couple of months away but at least the visit of Brexit warrior Neil Warnock allows for a quick getaway. It is an opportunity Rafa Benitez’s men must seize.
Fortunately, these are the games Newcastle don’t lose. The Magpies have yet to lose to another side in the bottom seven, having won two and drawn four against six other teams in the mire. United have only scored three times in those games, but they have only conceded once.
The onus this weekend, though, is very much on Newcastle to be positive and go for all three points to lift themselves out of the relegation places. How they handle that burden of expectation will be fascinating. Five of the six games they have played against their direct rivals have been away from home when the reasonable expectation was of a single point. At St James’ Park, where they have lost more games on their own turf than any other Football League team, they have to show more ambition.
Benitez could take some encouragement, if he chooses, from the FA Cup third-round replay at Blackburn on Tuesday. At Ewood Park, they scored as many goals as they have in their last seven Premier League games, with a couple of academy graduates getting on the scoresheet. Sean Longstaff has started the last three games amid a growing injury list and the sight of another Geordie in the side is a rare treat for the Toon Army.
It would be too easy for Benitez to set aside that cup triumph and adopt a typically cautious approach. Against Man City and Tottenham, their next two Premier League opponents, that would be the correct call. But the visit of a Cardiff side as rotten away as anyone other than Fulham offers the Toon a chance to show a different side – if they have it.
Manager to watch – Mark Hudson
Huddersfield’s former skipper was at one point this week the favourite to become the permanent Town manager following the end of David Wagner’s reign. The German’s departure has been much mourned in West Yorkshire, despite his side propping up the Premier League table when he made for the exit door on Monday. After Sam Allardyce said he wasn’t interested in a job he was never going to be offered, Hudson was installed as the frontrunner while punters scrambled around for other runners in the race.
It seems unlikely that Hudson will be offered the full-time gig. The Terriers need a manager to reignite the spark at the John Smith’s Stadium so a completely fresh face seems a more apt appointment than promoting the club’s elite development coach. So this may be Hudson’s only game in charge, which makes it a free hit for the 36-year-old.
The fact it is the champions coming over the Pennines into Huddersfield this weekend also relieves the pressure. Town were not expected to get anything other than a hiding before Wagner walked. Even if the spirit of Herbert Chapman took the team this weekend, the outlook for City’s visit would be little less pessimistic.
Hudson, and everyone with eyes, knows that Huddersfield are woefully impotent in front of goal. They have scored only 13 Premier League goals all season – even Newcastle’s not-fit-for-purpose attack has notched three more – while only five have come from open play.
In contrast, their opponents on Sunday are looking for their 100th goal in all competitions. So stepping into the spotlight, how does Hudson handle the daunting task of taking on City: does the caretaker boss set up to avoid the kind of six-goal pummelling Pep Guardiola’s side inflicted on Town in August, or does he go balls out to score a goal or two and at least give the supporters something to cheer? The fact that it will matter little in the long run should encourage Hudson to start unzipping his trousers.
Player to watch – Fernando Llorente
Sunday’s trip to Fulham could well be the former Spain striker’s final audition to act as Harry Kane’s stand-in. It was widely expected that Llorente would be leaving Spurs this month, with only half a season remaining on his contract and little prospect of much action. But then the leading man got injured in the final seconds of last weekend’s defeat to Manchester United and everything changed.
Mauricio Pochettino would normally turn to Heung-min Son to fill in for Kane but the South Korean has jetted off on international duty at the worst possible time. Next, Pochettino might opt to use Lucas Moura through the middle, but the Brazil attacker has been sidelined with a knee injury and it remains doubtful that he will recover in time to go to Craven Cottage.
So Pochettino could have no choice this week but to play Llorente. The trepidation with which such a prospect is met by Spurs fans speaks of how disappointing his time with the club has been.
Llorente was superb for Swansea, netting 15 goals in a struggling side, before moving to Spurs in 2017. Prior to that, he had scored goals regularly in La Liga and Serie A while earning 24 Spain caps. No one foresaw that Llorente would be quite so poor for Tottenham.
But his last start brought him a hat-trick, which makes up a third of his total goals in a Spurs shirt. Granted, it was Tranmere’s defence that was dismantled in the FA Cup third round, but those goals should offer a confidence boost when he, and Spurs, need it most.
And, as luck would have it, Llorente’s likely last chance comes against a defence renowned for giving out loads of them. Fulham’s is the ropiest rearguard in the Premier League, a mishmashed unit that has conceded 49 goals this season. Claudio Ranieri has almost halved the number of goals conceded per match but still they are allowing an average of 13 shots per game.
If Llorente is to have even a short-term future at Spurs, then he needs to be making the absolute most of the hosts’ generosity.
Football League match to watch – Norwich v Birmingham
Leeds’ trip to Stoke is the most intriguing match this week, what with the furore around Marcelo Bielsa’s snooping being stoked by his brilliant press conference this week. The United boss revealed he has watched a lot of Luton of late in an attempt to get an idea of how new Stoke boss Nathan Jones might line up. If Bielsa has sussed it, perhaps he could tell Potters fans, who have watched Jones chop and change his way through his first two matches, both defeats. Maybe it’s all a ruse…
Unfortunately, this is one of the rare weeks that Leeds aren’t on the box. Instead, Sky Sports get the weekend started with Birmingham’s trip to Norwich.
The Canaries are slipping after one win in their last six. They sit four points off Leeds in third behind Sheffield United on goal difference. Brum have been equally inconsistent of late, though they remain unlikely play-off contenders. Garry Monk’s men are four points away from Derby in sixth and two goals better off than ninth-placed Forest, who will expect to benefit from the new manager bounce under Martin O’Neill.
If you’re worried about missing Corrie, you could just turn over straight after; Norwich don’t tend to get going until late on, with Daniel Farke’s side having scored 16 Championship goals in the final ten minutes of matches this season – four more than any other side in the top four divisions.
European match to watch – Monaco v Strasbourg
Annoyingly, Borussia Dortmund’s clash with RB Leipzig kicks off at the same time as Arsenal versus Chelsea but if the Emirates battle hasn’t satisfied your appetite, then upon the final whistle you can flick over to join Thierry Henry’s Monaco midway through the first half.
Monaco remain second from bottom but there are signs of recovery. They didn’t have a fit striker nor enough players to fill the bench at Marseille last week but they claimed successive draws to make it four without defeat in all competitions. That trip to Stade Velodrome offered Cesc Fabregas his debut, when he looked immediately at home in Ligue 1, while fellow January recruits Naldo and Fode Ballo-Toure also impressed.
Seventh-placed Strasbourg are even more buoyant having embarked upon a run of five wins in all competitions, but Monaco’s need for momentum is rather more dire, particularly with the six-pointer at Dijon next Saturday.
Ian Watson