Big Weekend: Arsenal v Manchester United, Aston Villa, Mo Salah, Oliver Glasner | OneFootball

Arsenal v Man United and Newcastle v Aston Villa are games that give us all a chance to stop and consider just how much things have changed since August, while also confirming that, for the millionth Premier League weekend in a row, it is once again officially Big. A Big Weekend.

There’s also Mo Salah back in Premier League action post-AFCON, while who knows how many more chances we have left to enjoy Oliver Glasner at Crystal Palace before he huffs right off for good?

Game to watch: Arsenal v Manchester United

A fun thing about this weekend is that it’s the return fixtures from the opening game of the season. It’s just nice to see how different teams’ seasons have panned out and what clues or misdirections were evident back in the sunny days of August.

At Old Trafford on the first Super Sunday of the season, Arsenal ran out slightly fortunate 1-0 winners in a game that prompted significant outpourings of optimism from home supporters despite the result.

Arsenal, meanwhile, offered only unconvincing early evidence that this could at long last be their season, and Viktor Gyokeres looked like he might be a dud.

It soon became clear that Man United were still quite cack, and that it was in fact Arsenal’s season. Good call on Gyokeres, though, who is truly Dud of Dud Hall.

Ruben Amorim has gone, of course, and Michael Carrick continues his gentle start to life as United’s latest sacrificial Fergie Boy by attempting to follow up last weekend’s Arsenal-assisting win over Man City with a Man City-assisting win over Arsenal.

If he does it, they’ll probably give him the permanent job on the spot, because this is a football club that simply refuses to learn.

More likely is that Arsenal win in rather more convincing fashion than they did at Old Trafford and it all takes a little while longer before Carrick manages to stumble home in fifth and claim a Champions League spot on the back of the effort of the teams who are actually in it this season. And then gets appointed to the permanent job, because this is a football club that simply refuses to learn.

Arsenal will by that point have long been crowned champions, with the bald truth that there really doesn’t seem like there’s much anyone else in the division can do about it. The bigger question is how many other pots and pans they might take home.

Team to watch: Aston Villa

Let’s continue the theme of August reminiscences, because in few places would the contrast appear more initially stark than at Aston Villa.

They began the season with a grim goalless draw against the Newcastle side that had pipped them to Champions League football on the final day of 24/25 in a game that very much continued the trending themes at the time for two clubs who had endured awkward and unsatisfactory summers.

For Villa it would set a trend that would extend into September and a five-game winless run to start the season that didn’t even contain a goal until that fifth game.

Then they just won pretty much all the games for an extended period of time to become brief yet genuine title contenders.

But the reopening of the transfer window has brought back familiar doubts and truths, and despite Villa occupying an enviable position in the table and appearing certainties for Champions League football next season there is now once again a distinct sense of a buzz harshed.

Frustration at rules that bind them while being more easily navigated by the established big clubs, of simply not being allowed to compete on even terms with Newcastle, never mind the cosseted Big Six. Even the stupidest members of that group are annoying Villa. Especially the stupidest members.

A look at the table suggests this angst is misplaced; Villa remain closer to Arsenal than they do to fifth place, which will almost certainly be enough to achieve what Villa set out to achieve this season and which they looked a million miles away from doing back in August.

But time and results and other factors all have a funny way of shifting those sands beneath your feet. And with a slight dip in results and the return of the transfer window with its now familiar frustrations, there’s just a nagging sense that Villa are neither as happy as they should be, nor as they were just a few short weeks ago.

Player to watch: Mo Salah

Liverpool’s wildly unconvincing yet improbably lengthy unbeaten run featured a rarity on Wednesday night, as a truly convincing performance put a dangerous Marseille side to the sword in a richly deserved 3-0 triumph.

Liverpool impressed from front to back, while Arne Slot got pretty much everything right as well in dealing with an awkward and ever-shifting opponent.

But perhaps the best thing about the night for Liverpool was that at the end of it almost nobody was talking about Mo Salah. He went straight into the starting line-up on his return from AFCON and had neither an eye-catchingly good nor poor game – there was one glaring late miss which he somehow contrived to send away from goal rather than towards it, but apart from that.

Yet it didn’t ever really feel like it was of desperate importance. It would have seemed mad to think a month ago when Salah left for AFCON with his entire Liverpool future seemingly up in the air that his return six weeks later could be so low-key, such a footnote on a night of good news.

His first Premier League appearance since December 13 is likely to attract more eyeballs and greater attention, though. We eagerly await to discover what kind.

Manager to watch: Oliver Glasner

We now know for sure it’s when not if as far as Glasner’s Palace exit is concerned. Technically it’s not supposed to happen until the end of the season, but it feels absurd to suggest this now clearly broken marriage can stagger on that long. Especially if Palace continue on their current downward trajectory that sees them without a Premier League win in their last seven games and suffering the FA Cup’s biggest ever giant-killing.

Carrying on doesn’t look like it’s going to do much good for either Palace or Glasner in the long run. Palace find themselves now slipping uncomfortably close to the fringes of relegation bother, while continuing with Palace for much longer could yet see Glasner play himself out of what currently looks like a near-certain shot at a Big Six job next season.

It’s not inconceivable that four of that group could be seeking a new permanent manager in the summer, and Glasner is high in the lists for all of those jobs.

But he won’t be if he spends the next three months angrily losing to everyone to prove his undeniably valid point about the lack of support he’s received.

If he’s not careful, he’ll end up with Tottenham as his best option, which would be a real daftness in the current climate.

Football League game to watch: Middlesbrough v Preston

Funny old time for Middlesbrough, who are busy trying to get themselves back into the Premier League while watching their two most recent managers getting themselves appointed into it.

Michael Carrick has failed upwards to Manchester United, while Rob Edwards surely couldn’t have imagined an undeniably impressive few months at the Riverside would so swiftly get him back in the big time.

Boro have kept on keeping on, though, under Kim Hellberg and still firmly in the hunt for automatic promotion with the play-offs looking like a worst-case safety net.

Preston are themselves still very much part of that picture, still just inside the top six going into this weekend despite consecutive defeats to Derby and Hull. This does feel like a pivotal spell of the season for their promotion hopes; after Boro comes another trip to a team eyeing an automatic return to the Premier League in Ipswich.

European game to watch: Roma v Milan

Still an absurd amount of life left in the Serie A title race, where Inter now appear solid favourites but Roma down in fourth are still only seven points adrift and not without their chances.

They surely can’t afford to slip 10 points off Inter’s pace and also fall seven points adrift of Milan this weekend, though. Victory over the team in second would lift them within a single point of Milan, which itself seems an oddity given Milan have lost one league game all season while Roma have already lost seven.

What Roma simply refuse to do at all, you see, is draw. Milan love a draw, so let’s see how this pans out.

Women’s Super League game to watch: Chelsea v Arsenal

A clash between the two recent powerhouses of English women’s football that neither can afford to lose.

Chelsea cannot afford to let a flying Man City get any further away from them, while for third-placed Arsenal the concern now is more behind them than in front. Spurs are level on points with them, and Man United only a point further back in what appears to be a three-horse race for the final Champions League spot.

With Spurs facing bottom-of-the-table Liverpool this weekend and United doing so next weekend, Arsenal could do really do with a result this weekend to keep them at bay.