Big Weekend: Tottenham v Arsenal in relegation-bottlejob derby, Newcastle, Pereira, Ndiaye | OneFootball

We just about resisted the temptation to have a gloriously narrative-heavy North London derby feature the team, manager and player to watch; there is intrigue to be found elsewhere in a Big Bottley Bottlejob Weekend.

Vitor Pereira’s back, Newcastle head to Manchester City after thumping Qarabag and Iliman Ndiaye has a Manchester United audition.

Game to watch: Tottenham v Arsenal

Even before the lucky draw at Brentford and confirmation of the title bottling onset vs Wolves, neurotic Arsenal fans (so, all of them) were cursing their luck at Thomas Frank’s sacking and the inevitable new manager bounce Tottenham would be enjoying the best of when their team rocked up for the North London derby.

Their focus amid grave Spurs doubts over Igor Tudor’s lack of Premier League experience and recent capitulation at Juventus was firmly on the Croatian manager’s reputation as a ‘fixer’.

That ‘woe is us’ pessimism has played a huge role in the worry well Arsenal find themselves in the pit of as anxiety permeates from the stands and paralyses a group of players who at Molineux – and to a lesser but still evident extent at the Gtech – looked genuinely terrified of a fate that hadn’t even really threatened to befall them but they’re now apparently powerless to prevent.

Tudor and the Tottenham players won’t have looked at those last two Arsenal performances in fear of a wounded animal; they’ll instead be wondering how best to pile on further misery before Manchester City get the shovel out of the car.

Spurs fans will be as buoyant as they have been all season – far more on the basis of Arsenal’s form than hope of a resurgence post-Frank – for a game where they could effectively avoid relegation (they’re not about to go down after winning the NLD) and all-but ensure their fiercest rivals will bottle the Premier League title once more, as there’s surely no coming back for Arteta and Arsenal after a defeat to this lot.

Manager to watch: Vitor Pereira

It is just 164 days since Nuno Espirito Santo was sacked by Evangelos Marinakis, and Forest have gone through Ange Postecoglou and Sean Dyche before arriving at Pereira, who reunites with the volatile owner after working under him at Olympiacos in 2015, signing on as Forest boss three-and-a-half months after leaving Wolves.

“He trusts my work, I trust his personality,” Pereira says of Marinakis, but while that relationship has got him the job, the Portuguese boss keeping Forest in the Premier League is the only thing that matters.

He built a reputation as an excellent communicator and motivator at Wolves and, aware of the danger or making a raft of tactical and philosophical changes at this point in the season, Pereira is focusing on buoying a bunch of very talented players.

“It’s important he players feel they can help the team with their qualities. It’s important they express themselves,” he said.

Dyche didn’t do a terrible job, but his arrival as a relegation firefighter acted as a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the players understandably unable to think of anything but going down from the point he arrived.

Pereira will go a long way to keeping Forest in the Premier League simply by reminding a group of players who very nearly qualified for the Champions League last season how good at football they are. He got off to a sterling start against Fenerbahce.

Not easy to glean all that much from their 6-1 battering of a bunch of Champions League imposters on Wednesday, but Eddie Howe has very quickly and impressively come up with a means of coping without talismanic captain Bruno Guimaraes, which has now reaped the reward of a place in the FA Cup fifth round and – barring a comeback of the most epic proportions in football history from Qarabag – a Champions League last-16 clash against either Chelsea or Barcelona.

Anthony Gordon stole the headlines after his four goals and tete a tete with captain Kieran Trippier, but that quad and complete domination in the Champions League play-off is largely thanks to Nick Woltemade dropping into the No.10 position and granting Gordon licence to run in behind as the central striker.

It’s obviously not going to work quite (or anywhere near) as well against Manchester City at the Etihad on Saturday night but it’s the formation Howe should stick with in their search for a Premier League result to match the quality they’ve shown in the knockout football of late.

It’s a system which got the best out of Newcastle’s attacking players and a performance from them in the Premier League to match their heroics in other competition would be hugely welcome as they look to close an eight-point gap to Chelsea in fifth.

Player to watch: Iliman Ndiaye

A ‘makes things happen’ footballer in a very similar mould to Bryan Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, which explains Manchester United’s interest ahead of the summer.

Add the United tax to what he’s worth to Everton and the Red Devils are going to have to pay significantly more than €45m [£39m] to sign the 25-year-old, who’s not exactly playing his cards close to his chest after the grapevine presumably divulged Red Devils interest.

“Favourite stadium I’ve played in? Old Trafford,” Ndiaye said this week. “Atmosphere, the size, when growing up, this is the stadium you want to play in.”

A thinly-veiled jibe at the Hill Dickinson, where Ndiaye will be desperate to prove his worth to his potential future employers in a Manchester United audition on Monday night.

After beating Wednesday 1-0 home and away last term and easing to a 3-0 victory at Hillsborough earlier in the season, United could complete the first consecutive double in the Steel City derby for either side since the 1933/34 and 1937/38 seasons.

While much of the build-up will focus on Wednesday’s terrible predicament, as the points deduction leaves them on -7 at the foot of the table, victory for the Blades could see them move within three points of the play-off places while injecting belief and energising the fanbase for what remains of the season.