Impossible to know precisely what kind of stupid nonsense Spurs and Man United have got lined up for us this weekend, but stupid nonsense there will assuredly be. We can’t wait.
Game to watch: Tottenham v Man United
This might be the most Game to watch game of the season to date. Not because it’s going to be the best game, good Lord no. If anything, the opposite.
Why would you not watch this game, one that guarantees as this one does to end with at least one of the Big Six in an even deeper crisis of misery and despair?
You know that Simpsons bit where all the other nuclear powerplant workers are stood around waiting for Homer to do something stupid and then he knocks his fondue over?
This game is a 90-minute Barclays equivalent of that. You don’t know who will do the stupid thing or when, but what this game does bring is an absolute cast-iron guarantee of stupid things. Realistically, a lot of stupid things.
Who will win? Genuinely impossible to call. Both teams are in horrible form and playing horrible football in a deeply ineffective and inefficient way.
They are different brands of horrible ineffective football, though, so that’s also fun. Styles make fights, and this fight is two bald men scrapping over a comb but the comb has all teeth missing and clumps of matted hair. And also the bald men are bald because they shaved their own heads. Badly.
This is a game so impossibly mired in hilarity and ineptitude that you can’t even fall back on the best way to predict what might happen: what is funnier? All the outcomes in this match, and all the ways of getting there, are funny.
These two tragic clown football clubs have already served up two very funny games this season, and Spurs have, despite themselves, won both, which also perhaps tells you more about Man United in 24/25 than just about any other piece of information.
Those games ended 3-0 at Old Trafford in the league and 4-3 at Tottenham in the Carabao.
Anything less than another half-dozen goals in this latest clash between resistible force and movable object will frankly be a disappointment.
Player to watch: Kai Havertz’s Replacement
The Kai Havertz Narrative Arc of the last fortnight has fascinated us.
The criticism of him after the City game was insane, when he is clearly a better footballer than was being suggested. The response to his injury is now also insane, when he is clearly not a player so irreplaceable that his absence means Arsenal’s sky falling in.
He is important to them, though. He is a classic more-than-goals frontman, even though modern football’s reductive judgements mean goals are all his replacement will be judged on, for better or worse.
But the big question is who that replacement will be. There is no obvious senior striker available, and while sane options do exist – Ethan Nwaneri could do it, Raheem Sterling has previously done it, Leandro Trossard has false-nined for Arsenal previously – we obviously have a favourite option from those that have been touted.
And that’s Mikel Merino doing his best Marouane Fellaini impression. If that isn’t your favoured option, then we’re really not sure we can be friends.
Mikel Arteta really leaning into his Everton heritage is exactly what we all need in these troubled times.
MORE ARSENAL STRIKER CRISIS COVERAGE
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Team to watch: Liverpool
Been quite a week at Liverpool, hasn’t it? An embarrassing FA Cup defeat at Plymouth and a draw that felt like a defeat at Everton have combined to create the first real obstacle in what had been an absurdly serene saunter through the season up to that point.
And, if we’re being honest, Liverpool didn’t handle it brilliantly. The scenes of near total headloss from players and – more surprisingly and damagingly – manager after Everton’s late equaliser at Goodison are the sort of things to give rivals hope. Or at least they would do if Arsenal weren’t too busy wallowing in self-absorbed misery about their injuries to notice.
Neither Liverpool chucking in a below-par display nor Everton putting a huge shift in for what Virgil van Dijk duly and in accordance with the prophecy called ‘their cup final’ were huge shocks, but it was still striking just how far off it Liverpool looked having rested all their big guns at Plymouth and duly allowed the first of their spinning plates to fall.
Liverpool will need a response and fast. They have four Premier League games coming up in a hectic 11-day period and we all know the Arsenal emotional rollercoaster is never more than a game away from its latest lurching shift in direction.
It really is very possible that this title race could feel very different indeed a couple of weeks from now if Liverpool aren’t careful or can’t find one of their lost gears.
A home game against a Wolves side that has lost four of its last five Premier League games should provide an ideal setting for a return to winning ways, but is a fixture that also offers absolutely no margin for error if the whispers aren’t to grow louder.
READ MORE: Liverpool knocked off the top of Premier League mood rankings
Manager to watch: David Moyes
It remains incredible just how quickly and thoroughly a managerial change can shift the whole mood around a club, and, let’s be real, even more incredible when that manager is David Moyes.
Sure, his return to Everton was the single most Knows The Club appointment in history and we thought it would work pretty well. But not sure anyone really expected this level of transformation in both results and performance.
Having turned a West Ham team that looked incredibly exciting on paper into the most moribund of collectives on grass, Moyes has somehow found the return to Goodison so rejuvenating that he’s performed the opposite trick. It’s a good one.
Such is the shift in Everton’s vibe that this weekend’s trip to Palace, one once marked darkly with all the hallmarks of a six-pointer, now seems more like a jolly lower mid-table day out for a couple of sides who have put all their troubles behind them.
Football League game to watch: AFC Wimbledon v Salford
Or Doncaster v Grimsby, we will leave it up to you. Either way, it’s League Two for the juiciest TV morsels in the Saturday lunchtime slot this week with a pair of games featuring four teams sitting between fourth and ninth in the League Two table and separated by just seven points.
Wimbledon-Salford gets the final nod here for the simple maths of fourth and seventh being higher than fifth or ninth, but there’s also undeniably a chunk of narrative involved here with two clubs bringing interesting backstories to the table.
But Notts County’s surprise slip at Port Vale on Thursday night means either or both Wimbledon and Doncaster can now move into the top three with wins.
European game to watch: Bayer Leverkusen v Bayern Munich
A game that surely offers the final chance for the Bundesliga to have a title race this season, and thus also a game that could to all intents see Harry Kane finally end The Curse.
Bayern head to Leverkusen with an eight-point and 13 games to play. Even maintaining that advantage will surely be enough for a side that has only dropped nine points in the first 21 games.
Leverkusen’s drop-off from last year’s unbeaten title-winning effort has not been as extreme as it sometimes feels; they have still only lost one league game this time around. But draws have hurt them, including last weekend’s goalless effort at Wolfsburg.
Another draw is surely no good at all this weekend if they are to prevent the resumption of normal service for Bayern and genuine novelty for Kane.