Big Midweek - Unai Emery, Erling Haaland & Donyell Malen
One more batch of Champions League games before the international break for us.
It’s the last Big Midweek of proper football until we have to put up with the international variety next week and we’ve hopefully got lots to look forward to in the Champions League.
We have Aston Villa in action at Barcelona and Manchester United hosting Roma on Tuesday, before away games for Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal at Fenerbahce, RB Leipzig and Slavia Prague respectively on Wednesday.
There’s a full Europa schedule to look forward to on Thursday as well before the attention turns to the last batch of league games at the weekend before the break.
Game to watch: Barcelona v Aston Villa How fitting that just a few days after reminding Jamie Carragher and everyone else of their illustrious stature, Aston Villa cross paths with one of the biggest and best of them all in the Champions League.
A first meeting with Barcelona since the 1982 Super Cup shows just how far Villa have come under Unai Emery. Their trip to Camp Nou will be a memory to savour.
And it should be a spectacle too. Villa will have to play better than they did against Fulham, but with all due respect, it was Fulham. This is Barcelona. Of course the intensity is going to be higher.
Emery hasn’t come up against a La Liga side since he left Villarreal to take on his current role four years ago. He has only won three times from 30 previous attempts against Barcelona.
But he’s never faced them with Villa, a club where everything has been tuned to near perfection for him to control.
His side will go into Tuesday’s game as the underdogs, understandably. Barcelona have been flying with 12 wins from 14 so far this season. The only teams to beat them have been Real Madrid and PSG.
We imagine Zion Suzuki might be kept rather busy. It could either be exactly what he needs or the last thing he needs after being in the spotlight for his game-changing error against Fulham.
He’s conceded the average of a goal a game in the Champions League so far this season, but should be tested more than he was against Club Brugge, Fenerbahce and Viking. None of them had a Raphinha in their ranks, after all.
With so much attacking talent on display, Barcelona will be out for blood. But Villa are no pushovers and if they can go toe to toe with Hansi Flick’s side, it could have all the ingredients for a Champions League classic.
However it goes, it’s a fixture that just has the wow factor for the story it tells in terms of how far this English side have come. The big brother of Bournemouth v AC Milan in the Europa League the other week, if you will.
Team to watch: Manchester City Since they thrashed AEK Athens 5-1 in their most recent Champions League game, Manchester City have hit a wobble.
They’ve suffered back-to-back defeats against Aston Villa and Brighton in the Premier League and had to go to penalties to knock the latter out of the Carabao Cup.
So, how do they respond as they head to Germany to face RB Leipzig?
If history between these two sides suggests anything, it’ll probably be with goals.
City put six past Leipzig when they first met in September 2021. It was 7-0 when they reconvened the following season for the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.
But things have changed since then. City weren’t really doing wobbles in those days under Pep Guardiola.
In something of a role reversal, Leipzig have won three games on the spin since being heavily beaten by Real Madrid in their last Champions League game.
But they have been susceptible to heavy defeats against powerful teams. That 4-1 beating by Madrid directly followed a 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Bayern Munich.
Their form since suggests it’s not as simple as that they’re there for the taking, but if City turn up, they’ll fancy their chances of shaking off their mini-slump.
To instil further fear into the hosts, Leipzig are the team Erling Haaland has scored most against in his career, with 12 goals from just eight meetings. Five of them came in one game in 2023.
Manager to watch: Dirk Kuyt Could be Carrick, probably should be Carrick, but we suspect more strongly than ever that if United are going to make a change, they’ll wait until the international break.
Allow us to throw in a curveball, then. One manager we’re intrigued to watch this week is Dirk Kuyt. Yes, that Dirk Kuyt.
The former Liverpool forward, now in interim charge of Fenerbahce, faces his former employers on Wednesday evening.
He has had little time to implement any ideas for Fenerbahce and fell to a 2-1 defeat in his first game in charge, but will no doubt be relishing the opportunity to pit his wits against Liverpool and their manager Andoni Iraola.
Kuyt has been a manager before, but never at Champions League level. It’s unclear if he’s a candidate to take on the Fenerbahce job full time, but getting a result against Liverpool would certainly make people take notice.
Liverpool will be expected to come away from Istanbul with three points, but it’s not an easy place to go, is it?
Fenerbahce have been mired in chaos this season, but held Roma and Slavia Prague to draws in their two previous home matches in the league phase. In the league, Besiktas are the only team to beat them on their own turf this season.
If they are to deny Liverpool a win, it will likely be down to the aura of the place more than any tactical masterclass from Kuyt, but you never know.
Player to watch: Donyell Malen It’s the time-old tale of player leaving the Premier League, finding form elsewhere, and having his revival overlooked or talked down because he’s not doing it in the Premier League.
Now, Donyell Malen comes up against English opposition for the first time since he left Aston Villa for Roma in January and casually decided to become Serie A’s most prolific goalscorer.
Against United specifically, he only got to play twice off the bench for Villa and thus didn’t stand too much of a chance of scoring.
Against United now, with 11 goals from 12 games in his pocket this season, he’ll be a danger.
It’s impossible to think of United facing Roma without the mind drifting to that 7-1 drubbing in 2007. But this time, with how shaky United have been and all the pressure on Michael Carrick, it’s Roma who might be fancying their chances of revenge.
If they are to win big and pile more misery on Carrick, Malen will be front and centre of their efforts.
He’s often the out ball for Roma, and even if there are obstacles in his way, he determinedly drives towards the goal. Against a United side whose only clean sheet this season came against Sabah, he will be eagerly looking for leaky areas to exploit.
Europa League game to watch: Sparta Prague v Bournemouth Defeat on Thursday could push Crystal Palace’s Pierre Sage or Sunderland’s Regis Le Bris one step closer to the sack.
They will be up against Hoffenheim and Dinamo Zagreb respectively. It’s a 5:45pm kick-off for the former and 8pm for the latter, so you could even watch both empires come crashing down one after the other.
But like with Carrick at United, it now feels like any change might be timed with the break. Besides, European action has been a welcome distraction for the pair of strugglers so far.
The best-performing English team in the Europa League so far, though, are Bournemouth. With three wins from three, including one against actual AC Milan, they’ve been making the most of their maiden European adventure.
Their next game is away at Sparta Prague at 5:45pm on Thursday and they’ll be hoping it gives them a chance to maintain their 100% record in this competition.
A win for Palace or Sunderland might not move the needle much in terms of protecting the status of the manager in question, given that it won’t do anything to address their perilous Premier League positions.
But a fourth win from four for Bournemouth in the Europa League would represent a continuation of an incredible storyline.
It would also be more likely to be an attractive win, with something starting to click for Marco Rose’s side recently, in contrast to the ways Palace and Sunderland have had to slog it out to gain any result of value.
EFL game to watch: West Brom v Southampton Two play-off hopefuls go head to head in the Championship on Tuesday. The fact it’s at the same time as the Aston Villa and Manchester United games in the Champions League might make it more of a game to keep an eye on than a game to watch devotedly, but it will have a big impact on the formative Championship table.
Just one point separates the two sides going into their clash at the Hawthorns. The hosts are the ones with the slight advantage, but Southampton have a substantially better goal difference, with Cyle Larin among the league’s top scorers.
Between them, these clubs have had a combined 38 seasons in the Premier League, and many more before that in the old First Division.
Each will be itching to get back in the big time, especially Southampton after their dreams were crushed by the weight of the Spygate 2.0 scandal last season. To give themselves the best chance possible, they need to be aiming for the automatic places, and that’s where either side can make ground on with a win.
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