Big Weekend: Liverpool v Arsenal, Newcastle, Nuno, Watkins, play-offs, El Clasico

Will Mikel Arteta’s headloss remotivate Liverpool as Arsenal bid to end a troubling week by making some kind of point on yet another Big Weekend?

Game to watch: Liverpool v Arsenal
Fun one, this. A game that for a long time looked like it might mean everything, then appeared to in fact mean nothing and now, thanks to Arsenal dropping off and Mikel Arteta suffering significant headloss and having a bit of a pop at Liverpool, a game that once again means something.

Arsenal have had a… challenging week. And they’ve not so far reacted all that well.

There are suddenly numerous horrifying possibilities for the Gunners this season, one that is now guaranteed to be a fifth without silverware.

There is now the realistic prospect of Arsenal finishing third in a two-horse race, something that could itself trigger the banterpocalypse even if we didn’t also somehow find ourselves existing on a timeline so cursed that it could also feature 16th-placed running joke Tottenham winning a trophy and joining Arsenal in next year’s Champions League.

And if that last part doesn’t happen, it’s because 15th-placed running joke Manchester United have won a trophy and are joining Arsenal in next year’s Champions League.

Arsenal suddenly find themselves short of acceptable routes out of this season, but having understandably switched focus to the Champions League once that became a far more plausible route to success this season than the Premier League they really do need to finish second.

But the fear at this point is they lack the ability to be sufficiently honest with themselves to avoid at least the parts of this run-in they can control.

Arteta saying there was no team better than them in this season’s Champions League after losing home and away to a PSG team who in the final will now face an Inter side that has also beaten Arsenal this season is certainly one opinion. Declan Rice insisting Arsenal have played all season with five or six players out means someone is gaslighting someone but we are genuinely not sure whether Rice is the lighter or lightee here.

It does start to feel like they’ve all been brainwashed. There’s a cult of excuses around Arsenal at the moment and it’s not healthy. It also doesn’t contrast well with Arne Slot’s success with the exact opposite approach.

What’s less certain, of course, is how motivated Liverpool are to land another blow on Arsenal in their current physically and emotionally fragile state. Slot’s team’s work is done, and they were very predictably and understandably not quite their usual selves against Chelsea last time out having wrapped up the title so ruthlessly against Spurs.

Arteta, though, chose the Done Their Team-talk For Them approach when dismissing a Liverpool side that could yet top 90 points as right place, right time merchants while failing to take the next logical step and admit Arsenal were also in the same, if not better, place to take advantage of Man City’s Autumn collapse.

Will more excuses be needed by Sunday evening?

Team to watch: Newcastle
While the assorted Liverpool-Arsenal subplots are irresistible because we live for drama, the biggest – or at least most meaningfully significant – game of the weekend actually takes place a few hours earlier as fourth meet fifth at St James’ Park.

Newcastle and Chelsea are locked together on 63 points and while your instinct might tell you it’s Newcastle currently in the better form a resurgent Chelsea actually have one more point from their last six games.

While neither is quite as good as Wolves at this time, both are finishing the season strongly and the likelihood is that both will finish in that top five. There would certainly be more jeopardy here were only four Champions League spots available.

But still, whoever wins this one will be almost there and also for a few hours at least just a point behind Arsenal. Probably just been in the right place at the right time, haven’t they?

Does feel like it’s Newcastle for whom this is closer to must-win territory, though.

Facing Arsenal next week is an opportunity for sure right now, but also let’s not pretend a fixture anyone would actively choose, while Everton on the final day of the season isn’t straightforward.

Chelsea, meanwhile, having landed the ideal time to face Liverpool as long as you can see beyond guard of honour discourse, have also landed on their feet next weekend with Man United. Now there really is no bad time to be playing this Man United, but five days before they have a Europa League final is definitely a plum one.

Manager to watch: Nuno Espirito Santo
It’s been a remarkable season for Nuno and Forest and even ‘only’ finishing seventh wouldn’t change that. But the nature of shifting expectations means that it would still be a little bit of a pisser for a team that has been so impressively in the top four – top three, even – for so much of the campaign.

By the time Forest take the field on Sunday afternoon they could find themselves behind Villa and three points (with a far worse goal difference) adrift of both Newcastle and Chelsea if they’ve drawn their just-completed match.

But the good news for Nuno and the gang is that nothing is f**ked. They’ve undeniably started to run out of gas in recent weeks but there is one type of team they have still been very reliably capable of beating: crap teams.

Their last three Premier League wins have been against Ipswich, Manchester United and Tottenham.

Now with a different run-in that might be problematic. Forest, though, have got Leicester this weekend and West Ham next. There really is no reason they shouldn’t be targeting maximum points from two of the four worst teams in the country both across the season as a whole and at this precise moment.

That would set up a final-day clash with Chelsea that could be a Champions League shoot-out three days before the Conference League final. It may feel like it’s slip sliding away for Forest but that run-in still gives them every chance.

Player to watch: Ollie Watkins
Aston Villa’s Champions League hopes are surely over if on Saturday night they fail to get the better of a Bournemouth side whose home form has fallen off a cliff.

With Marcus Rashford still out with that potentially-season-and-Villa-career ending hamstring injury, Watkins will continue to be the key focal point of the attack and will be confident of getting involved against a team whose European aspirations are now based around holding on to eighth and hoping that’s enough rather than glancing any higher.

A quirk of Watkins’ career record is that while he has only one Premier League goal in five games against Bournemouth, he has four assists. That’s one in nine of all his Premier League assists ever and is unsurprisingly his best record against anyone. He also has four assists against Palace, but from twice as many games.

Football League game to watch: Wycombe v Charlton
It’s the play-offs. They’re always worth watching. But if we must pick one from this weekend’s selection we’ll go for Wycombe v Charlton in League One.

They were separated by just a single point in the final League One table, and there are straightforward logistical reasons for picking them too, given they kick off at 6.30pm on Sunday night straight after three back-to-back Premier League TV games.

European game to watch: Barcelona v Real Madrid
Sometimes the universe – and specifically that ever-mischievous fixture computer – really is too kind.

A week after Real Madrid lost the absolute run of themselves following defeat to Barcelona in the final of the Copa del Rey comes another Clasico clash that could all but seal La Liga for Barca or alternatively get Real Madrid right back in the mix.

Barcelona win this, and they’re seven points clear with three games remaining. Madrid win, and it’s back to a single point and game on.

With that cup final so fresh in the memory and so much at stake, and we’ve not even mentioned Barcelona’s mentally and physically exhausting role in a genuine contender for greatest Champions League game of all time just a few days ago, this feels like a Clasico even more unmissable than most.