'Oh, Please Don't Play Mario & Edin, Roberto'

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The managers of Manchester
I'm sure some time ago you became as sick as I am of hearing about Sir Alex Ferguson's 'mind games', but that hasn't stopped the sly old dog from trying to manipulate Roberto Mancini into picking the team he wants him to pick.

When asked about Manchester United's admittedly ropey defence, Ferguson said: "It is a worry. If we perform like that on Sunday then God knows what's going to happen to us. We've lost 32 goals already - I can't remember us losing so many goals before Christmas.

"Saturday was like Cartoon Cavalcade and when you see City have Balotelli, Dzeko - really tall players - it's going to be a big challenge."

He was at it again on Thursday: "They are a really good, powerful team with massive players. It won't be easy and if we defend like we did at Reading we'll be in trouble."

The way United have been defending it's hardly a surprise that Ferguson is trying his best to goad Mancini into eschewing Carlos Tevez and Sergio Aguero in favour of Balotelli and Dzeko.

If it works then every City fan should tar and feather Roberto Mancini, for Balotelli only has one goal this season and they have only won one of the games Dzeko has started. By way of comparison, the Tevez/Aguero partnership has resulted in six wins from seven games.

The only problem is that Mancini hasn't paired the two Argentines since November 17 - five games ago. It's perfectly possible that he is simply adopting an ostensibly sensible squad rotation policy, looking to avoid the burn-out that affected players like David Silva at the back end of last season and not relying on a core group for success. But this would only make sense if he was saving his top duo for the Manchester derby.

Elsewhere in the realm of 'check under the sauce to make sure' proclamations from Fergie, he said of Nemanja Vidic just before the Cluj game: "If he doesn't play tonight there's no chance he'll play in the derby game, although I wasn't considering Nemanja for Sunday anyway."

If I know Fergie at all (and I can't stress this enough - I don't) then Nemanja may well be in the line-up come Sunday.


The Manchester United defence
Whoever plays at the back on Sunday, Fergie has a point - they simply cannot keep defending as they have been doing. If Adam Le Fondre can score against them, it almost doesn't matter who Mancini picks. Hell, Manchester's premiere scarf model could pick himself and be fairly confident of grabbing a goal or two.


Rafael
Will he last longer than 31 minutes this week?


Manchester City
Most United fans breathed a sigh of relief after Ryan Giggs was named in the side to face Cluj on Wednesday, because it meant he wouldn't be picked for the derby.

So he's been relegated to cheerleader/antagonist in the build-up to this one.

He said on Thursday: "It doesn't mean anything extra because it is City. Liverpool has always been the biggest rival for me. It has always been the biggest test.

"There are different rivalries. Arsenal were a brilliant team and we had some ferocious battles with them. Chelsea were also a brilliant team under (Jose) Mourinho and now City are a good team as well."

Ouch. He's only trying to rile you, City...


Liverpool
And so, the day comes that most Liverpool fans have been dreading. The day they have to play without Luis Suarez.

The most basic question is 'who will play there?' Brendan Rodgers has shown he's not afraid to...erm, 'experiment' with formations and players in unfamiliar positions, so there's a pretty strong possibility that the old false nine could be deployed against West Ham. Or, as Brendan might prefer if it's Steven Gerrard, the eight-and-two-fifths role.

Liverpool's failure to score goals has been their biggest problem this season, but this the point where August's dithering really bites them. They have virtually no alternative to Suarez as a central striker, meaning Rodgers has to improvise. One imagines he'll be quietly cursing Ian Ayre at 15.55 on Sunday afternoon.

Actually, in the eight cup games that Liverpool have played without Suarez in their starting line-up, they've done OK - four wins, 12 goals scored. However, those games were not against one of the better defences in the Premier League.

As much as anything, it will be an interesting anthropological experiment to see how Liverpool cope without the man they usually turn towards when things aren't going quite right.


Arsenal
As many have said, it wasn't quite so much that Arsenal lost against Swansea last weekend, it was more the manner of the defeat, neatly summed up by Tomas Rosicky's weird reluctance to challenge Michu as he wandered through the Gunners' defence to seal things.

Something has changed in Arsene Wenger. He looks resigned, tired, shruggingly accepting of his fate as a man who aims for fourth and the financial stability of his club.

The problem is, there's a real danger of his side not even managing that this season. Sure, they're only five points off the Champions League spots, but many more performances like the one against Swansea and the bags of European money will float away like a stupid child's balloon.

Matthew Stanger called Arsenal the 'leaders of the chasing pack' in Winners and Losers this week, but if they don't start winning soon, they won't even be that.


West Brom
Last week in this column I wrote: 'Steve Clarke has the realistic/dour air of a man who knows this run is not sustainable. It's sensible in many ways, but his players must not get into the mind-set of thinking 'Well, that was fun while it lasted', otherwise a defeat will turn into a tumble, and a once-promising season will disappear.'

And then they went out and lost their second game in a row - to Stoke. It's almost as if Clarke doesn't read this column.

Even leaving that frankly unrealistic prospect to one side, West Brom need to start winning again before losing becomes a habit too hard to kick.


QPR
The general instant reaction to Harry Redknapp's appointment at QPR was 'well, they'll be OK then'. Even from F365 Towers, a place that doesn't exactly have Harry's triffic posters on the walls.

However, with six points from their opening 15 games, a conservative estimate would be that they need another 32 points from the remaining 23, since 38 points was fine for survival in four of the last five seasons. That's 1.4 points a game which, if applied to the season as a whole, would have them tenth this season and would've been enough for eighth last term. Only three teams have had six points or fewer after 15 games of 38-game Premier League seasons - Sheffield Wednesday in 1999/2000, Sunderland in 2005/6 and Derby in 2007/8. They all went down.

In short, it will take a monster turnaround for them to survive. None of those clubs had the financial backing or quality of manager that QPR currently have, but equally they surely cannot have had a similar collection of listless and uninterested-looking, highly paid players.

"Have you seen the league table?" was the response from a QPR spokesman when asked why their Christmas party had been cancelled. A noble sentiment, but unless the team and management use the spare time productively, starting with a win - their first of the season - against Wigan on Saturday, then they're for the drop.


Southampton and Reading
The other two teams in the bottom three face each other on Saturday. Even at this relatively early stage of the season, it looks like a vital game.


Chelsea
This is a bit of a weird game for Chelsea. After their Champions League campaign was put out of its misery, but before they leave for Japan and the World Club Cup, comes a potentially awkward trip to Sunderland.

Sure, Sunderland are one of the few teams in the division in crappier form than them, but the way Chelsea have been playing recently, you can't guarantee anything. This is one that Rafa Benitez will just want to get out of the way without too much incident.


Fulham
Everyone likes Fulham. Well, everyone except Mark Hughes. Nice ground, Dimitar Berbatov, decent playing style, Dimitar Berbatov, avuncular manager, Dimitar Berbatov.

Perhaps that's why nobody is really talking about the seriously ropey run of form they're on that has seen them slip from sixth to 12th, having not won any of their last seven. What is perhaps more disturbing for Martin Jol is that the goals have dried up - in the first 12 games they scored 25, but none have come in the last three. Those three have been tough games (Chelsea and Stoke away, Spurs at home), but still - not great, particularly when they have the fourth-worst defence in the Premier League.

Now they're without Bryan Ruiz for another month, after he suffered a setback in his recovery from a hamstring injury. Only Berbatov creates more chances for Fulham, so Ruiz will be missed.

On Monday night the visitors are Newcastle, themselves not in the greatest form, with only the red card-aided win over Wigan last week to show for their last nine games.


Everton and Spurs
Everton have drawn seven of their last nine, while Tottenham's last six results read loss, loss, loss, win, win, win. A win is required by both - for Everton to snap out of this one-point-at-a-time semi-stumble, and Spurs to convince that their last three games are more reflective of their ability than the previous three.

Nick Miller - follow him on Twitter