Big Midweek: Everton v Spurs, Van de Beek, Chelsea

Will Ford

Game to watch – Everton v Tottenham
Not since Leiria in 2001 has Jose Mourinho managed a team with less hope of winning a trophy. Carlo Ancelotti has never managed a team with less hope of winning a trophy. These are giants of European football, not slumming it per se, but attempting to prove they can make average teams great, rather than great teams better.

They’ve won five Champions Leagues, 12 domestic league titles and 12 domestic cup competitions between them. But neither has won a proper trophy (excludes German Super Cup) since the 2016-17 season, when Ancelotti won the Bundesliga and Mourinho won that double at Manchester United. That’s enough trophyless time to give perpetual winners the shakes.

Ancelotti perhaps needs it less than Mourinho. There’s a sense of progression at Everton; a nice mix of young players and experienced internationals that will likely improve with time. But the promise of a trophy is about the only thing keeping (some) Spurs fans onside under Mourinho.

A League Cup win probably won’t be enough to save him, an FA Cup win might not be enough to save him. But a League Cup and an FA Cup? It would give Tottenham fans another year of complaining at least; they bloody love that.

 

Player to watch – Donny van de Beek
“We are doing well and have got players who are playing really well in his position,” Solskjaer said, when asked why Van de Beek has featured so little for Manchester United this season.

It’s a fair point. Against better opposition, Fred and Scott McTominay have been solid – if not expansive – as the double pivot, while Paul Pogba has illustrated his typical sporadic genius against lesser sides.

It’s left Van de Beek in the awkward position of not being steely enough to displace Fred or McTominay and not influential enough to get in ahead of Pogba. The only other spot the Dutchman could conceivably take very much belongs to Bruno Fernandes.

Solskjaer has reportedly guaranteed the midfielder more game time in the second half of the season, but his long-term future at Old Trafford surely rests on Pogba and his “dreams”.

The FA Cup clash against West Ham on Tuesday is a huge game for Van de Beek. With Pogba set to be out for a “few weeks” with a thigh injury, this is the time to prove his worth to Solskjaer ahead of six games in 20 days.

With West Brom and Newcastle next up in the Premier League, Solskjaer will be under real pressure to use his £35million summer signing in Pogba’s stead. A midfield two of Fred and McTominay against such opposition would be defensive overkill and these are the sort of games we had imagined Van de Beek to dominate and control – it would nice to actually see it.

 

Manager to watch – Ralph Hasenhuttl
Hasenhuttl and Southampton will be pleased for a break from Premier League action. The FA Cup has been their solace, with two of their three wins since mid-December coming in the third and fourth round of the competition. The other win – which saw Hasenhuttl sink to his knees and bash the ground in celebration – feels both much longer than a month ago and much less impressive than it did at the time, given Liverpool’s continuing decline.

The Austrian will be feeling the pressure. Injuries to key players has really hampered what is a thin squad and confidence is understandably low after a 9-0 hammering and a 3-2 loss to nine-man Newcastle. Yes, Newcastle.

Their excellent start to the season – which had them stopping the count in November – and the utter bilge at the foot of the division, means they are not going to be drawn into a relegation battle. And actually, mid-table is – on paper – about where Southampton should be.

Hasenhuttl’s brilliance is in building a team far greater than the sum of its parts. That’s proving difficult with half those parts missing, but he should be trying to cobble his best options together to take on Wolves on Thursday. Ten points behind West Ham in sixth, a cup win will be Southampton’s best hope of a place in Europe next season and also, it’s a cup win.

 

Team to watch – Chelsea
Four games, ten points, a new system; a happy manager. But also a manager aware of what must be done at Chelsea – win trophies.

“In the end, I am very realistic, I am in a club whose DNA is to win,” Thomas Tuchel said in his first press conference. “I am here to challenge for every trophy we play for. This year it is the Champions League and FA Cup – for the Premier League it is not realistic.”

It sometimes takes a bit of guesswork to envisage what a successful season looks like, particularly when a new manager comes in midway through. But Chelsea laid it out pretty clearly to Tuchel it seems – they require Champions League football next season and a trophy. He could of course kill two birds with one stone and win the Champions League this season, but on the off-chance that doesn’t happen, the FA Cup is the one.

Barnsley on Thursday offer what should be a relatively simple path into the quarter-final, but also an opportunity for Tuchel to shuffle his enviable pack. Kai Havertz, Hakim Ziyech and Christian Pulisic have played a combined 266 minutes in Tuchel’s four games in charge and with N’Golo Kante yet to start and Billy Gilmour yet to feature, the German could make almost wholesale changes without weakening his team to any great degree.

 

Football League game to watch – Hull v Lincoln
Second-placed Hull take on League One leaders Lincoln on Tuesday and will go above them on goal difference with a win at the KCOM Stadium. As can third-placed Doncaster Rovers – the form team in the division after five wins on the trot – if they beat Fleetwood on the same night.

 

European game to watch – Inter Milan v Juventus
Cristiano Ronaldo’s brace secured a 2-1 win for Juventus in the first leg of the semi-final, with the second leg set to take place on Tuesday. Inter will welcome Romelu Lukaku back after he was suspended for the first game after his clash with Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the Milan derby. The former United striker has already scored 20 goals this season (earning him links to Man City) and will hope to add to that tally and put away similar chances to those spurned by his side in the first meeting. The winner will meet either Napoli or Atalanta in the final, who drew 0-0 in the first leg, with the second on Wednesday.