Big Weekend: Leeds v Man Utd, Brighton, Regis Le Bris, Kai Havertz, Bayern Munich CRISIS

Last weekend was a Big Weekend so large it was visible from space.

This weekend has more… boutique charms. Cosier charms. A lot of it, if we’re honest, looks like pure sh*te. But how often are those the games that actually turn out to be the best?

Okay, maybe not that often. But look, there’s still Leeds v Man United. That’ll be good, won’t it? And there’s every chance that Brighton v Palace, while still not a real derby, does at least have the good grace to end up being 5-3.

And if you’re all very good and well behaved through the weekend, then you get to watch Coventry pile more misery and despair upon Tottenham on Monday night, as a treat.

Game to watch: Leeds v Manchester United
It’s over 24 years now since Leeds last beat Manchester United at Elland Road. There have been a couple of notable Old Trafford successes in those barren years, but it’s surely time to put that miserable home record against a hated rival to bed.

Hard to imagine when or how Leeds could get a better chance than this one. They are a better team than United, in better form. They are better coached by a better manager. They haven’t been chased all round the Wanda Metropolitano in midweek to such startling effect that the inner turmoil of the dressing room became incredibly public. They really should hammer the final nail into Michael Carrick’s obviously doomed reign.

You sensed the ‘but’ coming, didn’t you? Alas, Leeds have more history to overcome than merely the weight of their wait for an Elland Road win against that lot. Opta have come up with the good stuff here:

Since beating Chelsea 3-0 in August 2022 in a Sunday 2pm kick-off, Leeds United have gone 20 Premier League games without a win in games kicking off before 3pm (D7 L13) – the longest ever run by a side in Premier League history.

So… a 1-1 draw, then?

Feels like every Manchester United match right now just looks like it will probably be a 1-1 draw. They’re rubbish, obviously, but there’s a level of player there that just means it’s still hard to fully expect them to lose every week. It’s why we really hope that when they do replace Carrick – and they will replace him, we’re just marking time now – they don’t go for a dreary ‘floor-raiser’ like Eddie Howe but gamble on an explosive ceiling-smasher like Antonio Conte.

Even Michael Carrick isn’t going to take this team into genuine relegation peril. Might as well go for it properly. The fear remains that United have small-timed themselves to the extent that they would rather a quiet, capable KTC yes man like Kieran McKenna than someone to really challenge everything.

Still. It’s probably going to be 1-1. But while every United game has the look of a 1-1 at the moment, it’s also important that the draw has to be a dispiriting one in some way. It must never, on any account, be a creditable draw. Has to be a mortifying one, like Everton or Fulham or Spurs.

Tricky, really, to pull that off at Leeds right now, a ground where pretty much any team will be happy to hop back on the coach with a point in their back pocket this season. So presumably it’s going to involve Leeds going down to nine men and equalising in the 104th minute or something after Dominic Calvert-Lewin is sent off for pulling Lisandro Martinez’s hair. Perhaps because DCL is a keen Jason Wilcox fan, we just don’t know at this stage.

Team to watch: Brighton
We won’t lie, a lot of our hopes for this weekend rest on that Leeds-Man United game because the rest of the weekend’s Premier League card is… uninspiring.

There’s a lot of Big Club v Smaller Club on there and, sure, at least one of those is going to turn out to be more interesting than you might expect thanks to the crapness of the former and the impressiveness of the latter. And on Monday night there’s a twist with Spurs v Coventry where it will be interesting precisely because everyone will tune in fully expecting to see the crapness of the former and impressiveness of the latter.

And talking of Spurs, Saturday evening also brings us El ItsSpursfaultactuallyico (Needs work – Ed) between Newcastle and Villa which could be fun in a miserabilist kind of way. Does feel right now that a good half of the league (including the flawless leaders) is either in crisis or very much crisis-adjacent, and the loser of that one is going to be facing some strife.

But there is one other eye-catching game. It’s not a derby, they need to stop pretending it’s a derby, but Brighton v Crystal Palace should be a fine watch if the charms of Leeds v Man United aren’t your thing.

For one thing, we can expect goals. Brighton are the league’s leading scorers, and only Chelsea, Newcastle and Bournemouth have shipped more than Palace. And that’s despite the fact they somehow emerged from a genuinely horrific defensive display in the first half against Forest last week with only a single goal against their name.

Forest, though, have scored five goals in six games. Brighton have 18. There’s simply no chance that Palace get away with anything like the nonsense they served up at the back last weekend here.

Even if they do score three goals again – and some of their attacking play last weekend was genuinely very good – you fancy that it won’t be enough.

So while Leeds v Man United is clearly the headline act of the weekend despite sitting in what is nominally a Leeds-scuppering 2pm support slot, we’ve already established it will end 1-1. This one will more likely be 5-3 to Brighton or some such daftness.

At which point we will all be contractually obligated to start a ‘They couldn’t, could they?’ Leicester 2016 narrative about what does at the present time appear – for myriad reasons – the only team that can legally push Arsenal at all in this season’s title race.

Manager to watch: Regis Le Bris
The sheer number of teams on Crisis Watch at this point has meant some really ropey starts have gone under the radar. Two such teams meet in another Sunday 2pm game as Sunderland make the long trip south to Bournemouth.

It’s not a game either side particularly look like they can lose; it does look like a very strong chance that whoever does so would shed their under-the-radar status pretty quickly.

Sunderland have lost their last three Premier League games. Bournemouth, without a league win all season, have lost their last two. They’ve conceded 25 goals between them across 12 games.

Marco Rose is early enough in his Bournemouth reign that you imagine he still has time to turn this round. Especially given the glimpses they’ve shown in games against Brentford and Newcastle in particular, but also with memories still relatively fresh of how Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth career began.

Regis Le Bris, on the other hand, is suddenly in some danger of second-season-syndroming his way into genuine victim-of-his-own-success peril.

And there’s an extra layer of intrigue here in the fact that we also have two teams trying to adapt to the unfamiliar Thursday-Sunday rhythms of a Europa League season.

Le Bris and Sunderland have come out on the wrong side of that in every way for this particular foray, having had to travel to Portugal on Thursday night and then needed a last-minute winner to beat a team from Liga 2 ahead of another long away-day on Sunday afternoon. Bournemouth, meanwhile, have had their trotters up and enjoyed a 3-0 home cruise against Sturm Graz.

Everyone involved here may be about to discover that an overlooked element of the Thursday-Sunday struggle can be the fact that not all Thursday-Sunday struggles are created equal.

Player to watch: Kai Havertz
De facto Premier League leaders Arsenal travel this weekend to yet another of those clubs desperately clinging to their under-the-radar status. Indeed, Nottingham Forest’s under-the-radar status is so profound that even Mr Marinakis hasn’t noticed they’ve only got one win in six games and have committed the mortifying act of failing to beat Spurs. It’s the only explanation for why he hasn’t already sacked Oliver Glasner at least twice.

Forest will point with some justification to the fact that last weekend’s defeat to Crystal Palace was a mental one. It’s a shame, really, that nobody was really paying attention to a game that, occurring as it did directly before Liverpool v Man City, was always doomed to be one of the most ‘attention turns’ games in Premier League history.

Had it had a few more neutral eyeballs on it, maybe we’d have a few more converts to the fact that it doesn’t in fact only happen to your club. All clubs are capable of the absurd, even at the most unexpected moments.

The effect of that defeat for Forest, though, is that they are now in very serious danger of a disappointing start turning into a proper losing run. If you go around losing games to Coventry and Crystal Palace, you can’t really complain when the fixture computer throws you Arsenal up next.

And it’s an Arsenal side who look set to have Kai Havertz back to lead the line from the start after another almost sarcastically ineffective non-performance from Poor Old Viktor Gyokeres in the Champions League during the week.

The post-substitutions change in that game, in which a starting attack with a distinctly second-string vibe laboured for an hour before the starters – Arsenal’s ‘clever players’ as Ally McCoist put it on co-commentary – came on and took the piss for the last 30 minutes, was stark.

Forest will surely have to deal with Bukayo Saka, Havertz and Martin Odegaard for rather more than the 30 minutes that proved far too much for Lille in the week.

Havertz, who even his critics would have to concede is certainly a clever player, has become a startlingly pivotal figure now for Arsenal. He’s not their best player, but he more and more starts to resemble their most important. The one they most miss when he’s not there.

It says an awful lot about the fine player he’s become. But it also unavoidably says perhaps more still about his expensively acquired understudy.

Football League game to watch: Middlesbrough v Cardiff
Before a ball was kicked in the Championship this season you could already hear the chuntering from fans of everyone else about the number of times West Ham would be on the tellybox this season. It was basically all the same grumbling from a couple of years ago but with the words “West Ham” replacing the word “Leeds”.

Hats off, then, to the mischievous TV schedulers this weekend for not putting the West Ham game on when it’s first v third and we can surely all agree it would have been a solid choice.

Squeezed in between leaders Swansea and the freescoring but also free-conceding (not a word) Hammers are familiar promotion contenders Middlesbrough, who have a great chance to make a move ahead of an afternoon where at least one of the teams either side of them must drop points.

They face a Cardiff side who’ve started alternating wins and defeats (it’s a defeat due next, pattern fans) after a draw-laden start to the season.

European game to watch: Bayern Munich v RB Leipzig
Says a lot about Bayern Munich and German football that they can be in such a sticky spot while also still unbeaten this season and only a fortnight removed from a 7-0 league win.

But while it will all surely be fine in the end – in terms of the Bundesliga at the very least – it’s also clear that all is not currently well.

They’ve developed a small but irritating habit for daft draws in both domestic and continental action and now start a challenging spell with a ticklish Bundesliga appointment that falls outside the usual ‘gimme’ range for such tasks ahead of a midweek clash with Arsenal and then successive league games against the two teams – Freiburg and Dortmund – currently above them in the league table before another high-tariff Champions League night at Atletico Madrid.

Any dropped points at all on Saturday and that pre-interlull run starts to look increasingly important and challenging.