Big Weekend: Brentford v Liverpool, Man United, Eberechi Eze, Thomas Frank, El Clasico
Another big ol’ weekend of football on the horizon, and one now dominated by each and every one of us just desperately hoping and praying that Brentford do as they’ve been asked and keep the ball on the ground against poor little Liverpool.
Please, guys, we beg of you. None of those beastly long throws. Liverpool do not like it when the ball is in the air, and the rest of us should definitely respect that.
Elsewhere, Manchester United will have to overcome a recent bogey team if they want to take their first ever chance under Ruben Amorim to go on an actual decent little run, Eberechi Eze faces his old club, and Thomas Frank has to find some answers to Spurs’ suddenly soporific attack.
Oh, and there’s quite a big game over in Spain as well. Might be worth a look.
Game to watch: Brentford v Liverpool
‘The biggest exception for me was the playing style of our opponent. We got some energy out of the moments we could press them — in the last four or five games we’ve played we were not able to press the opponent, because the ball wasn’t on the ground. It was through the air.’
We love absolutely everything about the speed and totality with which Slot has responded to coming under pressure for the very first time as Liverpool manager by dusting off the ol’ Wenger and Klopp playbook and, having considered all the possibilities, come to the conclusion that it is the fault of other teams playing football wrong.
We’d love it even if it were all true. The fact it’s also just absolute mad bollocks only makes it even more delicious.
What we do know, though, is that Liverpool are going to face an aerial bombardment from Brentford this weekend and if they don’t cope with it then it’s all going to look very silly indeed thanks to the manager’s decision to come out and say they don’t like it.
Liverpool are set to face a night of the long throws and, while that was always going to be the case, it now leaves them with no way to save face if they don’t come up with a solution.
Because nobody is going to be interested in further complaints from Liverpool or their manager about opposition tactics.
This was actually a weekend where picking a standout game was actually quite tricky. There’s lots of interesting games, lots of potential, but no clear and obvious blockbuster. So personally, we’re actually quite big fans of Slot’s tactics for making it so much easier for us.
We’ve even resisted the overwhelming temptation to say that Liverpool’s season is at risk of being up in the air but, fair warning, we will absolutely not be able to do so should they come any kind of a cropper at the Gtech.
Team to watch: Manchester United
Well now. That astonishing ball-in-the-air victory at Anfield has given United the chance to do something they haven’t managed to do at all even once in 11 months under Ruben Amorim: go on a little bit of a run.
They’ve got some okay fixtures coming up over the weeks ahead, but that of course brings its own dangers. Lose at home to Brighton this weekend and all the air goes straight out of the balloon. United go straight back to crisis jail, they do not pass Go, Sir Jim does not collect £200.
And the big problem here is that losing at home to Brighton is precisely the sort of thing Banter Era Manchester United do. Both generally and very, very specifically in this case. Brighton have won on each of their last three Premier League trips to Old Trafford.
United have lost eight times to Brighton in their 16 league meetings, and the trend is one way: in the last four seasons, United have lost six out of eight games against the Seagulls.
It all adds up to the worst possible fixture at the worst possible time in many ways. A fixture that sits precisely in the crisis-restoring sweet-spot of being one United will now be expected to win but recent history suggests they probably won’t.
There’s more to consider here, though, because another thing that’s undeniably true this season is that Brighton only trouble themselves with beating the best. Their three Premier League wins this season have all come against sides who finished in the top five last season.
So if United do lose to them, it’s not a crisis at all but actually proves United are big and good again. Which also means that maybe United shouldn’t win and go on that little run we mentioned earlier, because beating Brighton this season is clear and incontestable evidence that you are no good.
It’s possible we’re overthinking this.
Player to watch: Eberechi Eze
A fascinating potential battle as Eze faces his former club at the Emirates. The player who got his move from Selhurst Park goes up against Marc Guehi, who very much did not.
It’s a key match-up in a key game, with Palace suffering the most minor of wobbles via defeat at Everton and last-gasp draw against Bournemouth while it already feels like this is a pivotal stage of the season for Arsenal, for whom Palace represent one of the toughest challenges in a run of games that really do offer a captivating chance to open up a significant lead at the top of the table given the far harder challenges that simultaneously face the less convincing Liverpools and Citys of this world.
Eze’s affection for Crystal Palace is deep and obvious, and it’s highly possible that if he were to score this weekend we might see the most muted celebration in Premier League history. Which, in a further twist, are actually the celebrations the Celebration Police should be investigating.
Manager to watch: Thomas Frank
Nothing is ruined yet, but there has been a sense all season that performances weren’t quite keeping pace with results in Frank’s early games as Spurs manager and now those two lines do seem to be converging.
Spurs were cravenly limp in defeat against Aston Villa last weekend, extending their own dismal home form to a now scarcely creditable three wins in 18 league games while also giving Villa’s also-honking away form a timely boost.
The midweek trip to Monaco produced more of the same, with the only difference being the performance of Guglielmo Vicario. Among the guilty against Villa, he was a hero in the Champions League and almost single-handedly allowed Spurs to burgle a point they absolutely did not deserve.
Spurs have started to look horribly short of attacking ideas, with Plans A, B and C all seeming to amount to not much more than ‘Get the ball to Mohammed Kudus and await him performing a madness’.
He’s been brilliant, and it should absolutely be a prominent element of the Tottenham playbook. But not the only one.
There is a lack of cohesion about Spurs at the moment; this is a new team figuring things out under a new manager and right now it still looks like a bunch of talented individuals rather than a team.
Injuries haven’t helped, for sure. Any one of Dejan Kulusevski, Dominic Solanke or James Maddison would shift the current uncertain and one-note efforts of the non-Kuduses Frank has at his disposal.
But those players have been out for some time and will be out a while longer yet. Neither team nor manager can afford to wait in the hope their returns provide the spark Spurs currently lack.
At least a first trip to the Hill Dickinson Stadium offers a rare chance for Spurs themselves to benefit from the enticing welcome of a stunning new stadium, given the extent to which it seems still to inspire visitors to Spurs’ own spectacular digs.
Football League game to watch: Frank Lampard’s Coventry City v Watford
It’s been quite the season so far for Frank Lampard’s Coventry City, who remain unbeaten in the Championship and have won their last five league games by a combined aggregate of 16-1.
Mid-table Watford are the visitors to Frank Lampard’s Coventry City in one of this weekend’s Saturday lunchtime kick-offs, which gives Frank Lampard’s Coventry City a chance to put some significant scoreboard pressure on their rivals with a victory that would add to the growing sense that we really could see Frank Lampard and his team, Frank Lampard’s Coventry City, in the Premier League next season.
European game to watch: Real Madrid v Barcelona
You can’t ask for much more than a lovely bit of Clasico action, but if you were greedy and decided you did want to ask for more than that, then you’d ask for a Clasico where top spot in La Liga is up for grabs.
Your gluttony sickens and appals us, but you have got your wish. Real Madrid take a two-point lead into this one, so there’s far more than just the standard-issue bragging rights on the line here.
If you still insist on a bit more spice, then how about the fact this game takes place a year to the day after Barcelona won 4-0 at the Bernabeu to lay down an early title marker as well as establishing a dominance that would see them record three further all-competition wins over their old rivals before the season was through?
Memorable wins they were, too, with that 4-0 actually the lowest scoring of the lot. There was a wild Spanish Super Cup clash that ended 5-2 in 10-man Barca’s favour, before more red cards and drama in a 3-2 extra-time Copa Del Rey win and the very best saved for last in the return La Liga fixture, one in which Real Madrid led 2-0 within 15 minutes, but trailed 4-2 by half-time and would eventually lose 4-3 despite Kylian Mbappe completing his hat-trick.
It’s unlikely to be dull, is what we’re saying here.
