Big Weekend: Palace, Grealish, Mourinho, Man United, Clasico
Grealish wants to right a 2015 wrong. Mourinho has no more excuses. Also Man United, Brighton v Palace and…
Game to watch – Brighton v Crystal Palace
There is a wide range of explanations as to why Brighton and Crystal Palace share such animosity. It is a rivalry that transcends not only location but the power dynamic at 1960s Tottenham, promotions, relegations, nicknames and mysterious dressing-room faeces.
Even without the historic discord and friction, Saturday’s game is of the utmost importance. Neither club is particularly clear of the Premier League’s bottom three, although Brighton’s need for the points is more pressing.
It has been a curious season for the Seagulls. They have lost just two more games than Chelsea yet have fewer wins than all but Watford and Norwich, and remain the only Premier League side yet to win this calendar year.
They have one more point than they did at this stage under Chris Hughton last season, but even converting just one of those ten draws would give them considerably more breathing space.
Palace at home is one of their more presentable final fixtures. Roy Hodgson’s side pulled further clear of danger with a narrow but deserved win over Newcastle and would love nothing more than to increase that gap while simultaneously keeping Brighton in trouble.
It makes for an interesting clash between one side that covets possession and another that thrives without it. Neither will see any reason to approach with trepidation, instead believing the opponent to be beatable.
The managerial dichotomy adds another element. Potter spent seven-and-a-half years in Sweden and enjoyed a brief period in the Championship before making it to the Premier League, while Hodgson, in his rival’s words, is considered a “legend” in Scandinavia with a slightly more stunted reputation on these shores.
Let’s just hope the only steaming turd left in either dressing room is the form of Christian Benteke, eh?
Player to watch – Jack Grealish
Wembley evokes fond memories for Jack Grealish. It was his precocious performance that inspired Aston Villa to victory over Liverpool in the 2015 FA Cup semi-final, then a more mature captain’s display that took them to Championship play-off glory four years later. His development as a player and as a person can be measured by those two milestones.
But the national stadium brings at least one story of heartbreak for most. Grealish is no different; he was utterly powerless to prevent Arsenal steamrollering Tim Sherwood’s side in the 2015 FA Cup final.
Most expect that 4-0 scoreline to be similar on Sunday, if not worse. Villa’s preparation for the Carabao Cup final has comprised of three consecutive Premier League defeats and no clean sheets in any competition since Boxing Day. Manchester City have spent this week conquering the Bernabeu.
The two sides were even separated by five goals when they last met in January. Grealish will be more determined than anyone to atone for those numerous mistakes.
It might be his final chance to win something with and for his boyhood club. Whether Villa avoid relegation or not, Grealish seems destined for greater things. They will and should hold out for a mammoth transfer fee that represents his importance, yet there will be clubs happy to pay it.
And while Grealish has already achieved so much at Villa Park, helping deliver the most unlikely of trophies would firmly establish him as a modern great.
City have won three of the last four League Cups, often without even realising. Grealish is good enough to punish any indifference or apathy, provided his teammates start to pull something resembling their weight once more. The 24-year-old will not want a repeat of his last cup final Wembley trip. He is altogether more capable of preventing it this time.
Manager to watch – Jose Mourinho
Lost amid the fallout of the Chelsea defeat was that it was the latest in a sequence of games Tottenham were beaten in last season. From the visit to Southampton on New Year’s Day to the game against West Ham on March 20 – and discounting meetings with promoted sides – Spurs face a run of eight Premier League games in which they lost the corresponding fixtures in 2018/19.
It has not gone particularly well so far. They lost 1-0 at Southampton having been beaten 2-1 at St Mary’s in March 2019. September 2018 losses to Liverpool and Watford became a 1-0 defeat and 0-0 draw respectively by January 2020. The 2-0 reverse at Chelsea was repeated at Stamford Bridge last weekend.
Only when hosting Manchester City in this run have they won a game they had previously lost. Against Wolves (1-3 defeat in December 2018), Burnley (2-1 defeat in February 2019), Manchester United (0-1 defeat in January 2019) and West Ham (0-1 defeat in April 2019), they have chances to rectify that.
And Mourinho cannot rely on those same excuses if they fail to do so. He was brought in to improve on Mauricio Pochettino, to build upon what he did. Not to oversee that same level of stagnation on a far greater wage.
He has done far better than many will concede, but with five extra days to prepare than his opponents for a home game, Mourinho cannot simply fall back on the absence of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min if it does not go to plan against Wolves on Sunday. It’s time to improvise, adapt and overcome.
Team to watch – Manchester United
Even with a relegation to his name in a season which included a game Liverpool scored in six times, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s heaviest defeat in 66 matches as a Premier League manager remains that humbling at the hands of Everton towards the end of last season.
While his Cardiff side were thrashed by the same scoreline against a Sunderland team rejuvenated under Gus Poyet in April 2014, Solskjaer himself has admitted the 4-0 loss Everton doled out last year was “a shambles, more or less”. It led to apologies, promises and introspection, but not before wholesale embarrassment.
United are better than that side. Chris Smalling has been loaned out. Phil Jones has been marginalised. Diogo Dalot has been improved upon. Paul Pogba has been sidelined. Romelu Lukaku was sold.
Harry Maguire has improved them in defence; Bruno Fernandes has refined them as an entire unit. Progress has undoubtedly been made.
How much remains to be definitively seen. Their visit to Goodison Park on Sunday will provide a fascinating window against a side five points behind them, unbeaten at home since November and making headway of their own under a new manager. If United are to record three consecutive Premier League wins for the first time since January 2019, it won’t be easy.
Football League game to watch – Hull v Leeds
No team in the entire Premier or Football League is on a longer winless run than Hull. Middlesbrough can match their nine league games without victory but they have at least drawn four times since their last three points. Hull have held only Reading and Swansea, losing the other seven matches.
The injury-stricken side will soon be dragged into a relegation battle. They are being beaten by all manner of sides in a variety of ways: Barnsley (23rd), Preston (6th), Blackburn (8th), Brentford (5th), Huddersfield (19th), Derby (15th) and Fulham (3rd); home and away; by a single goal or as many as four.
Four points separate them from Wigan in 22nd. The gap to Birmingham in 14th is bigger. Grant McCann is struggling to stem the tide, with only one member of their current squad (Tom Eaves, five) on more than three Championship goals this season after the sales of Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Grosicki.
When do you think they’ll score their goal in a 1-0 win over Leeds on Saturday?
European game to watch – Real Madrid v Barcelona
After December’s Clasico stalemate, one would be forgiven for tuning into Juventus against Inter Milan on Sunday evening instead, or perhaps even saving their energy for Leverkusen’s trip to Leipzig earlier in the day.
But a spectacle this remains, if not on the pitch then behind the scenes. Neither Real Madrid nor Barcelona will be content with their seasons – one has changed managers and the other might soon contemplate that course of action – yet they boast at least a ten-point gap to Atletico in 3rd.
The two points that separate these great rivals is more instructive. Level when they drew nine games ago, Barca have drawn with Espanyol, lost to Valencia and parted with Ernesto Valverde since. Real dropped points against Athletic Bilbao, Celta Vigo and Levante to leave them clutching ever so tightly to the Supercopa de España.
With a Champions League deficit to overcome, combined with a quarter-final exit in the Copa del Rey and a gap to Barca that would grow to five points with a second away win in the Bernabeu this week, the stakes are high. It’s just a question of which club can rise to the occasion, if either.
Matt Stead
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