Big Midweek: Arsenal v Liverpool, Nuno sack, Man Utd, Cole Palmer, Saudi Madrid derby | OneFootball

A full Premier League fixture list? At this time of the year? In this part of the week? All to be played entirely within 72 hours? We hope you’re prepared for an unforgettable midweek.

It’s the best time of the season, really, and with the FA Cup third round taking place this weekend, there’s something to tickle the tastebuds of every English football fan.

Arsenal, Liverpool and managerless Manchester United are among those who headline the latest Big Midweek.

Game to watch: Arsenal v Liverpool

This is a fixture that speaks for itself, with two of the Premier League’s big hitters going head to head. Under the lights, no less.

On Thursday night, we will learn a lot about this very strange Liverpool team and just how big a corner they have in fact turned on this increasingly confusing eight-game unbeaten run in Our League. Half of those results have been draws, and two of those draws have come against Leeds United. The Reds are simultaneously showing us that they have the character to recover while displaying no real improvement on the pitch. Teams that show them too much respect get punished – see West Ham, and Fulham to an extent. Get at them, and they are very vulnerable.

This is a Liverpool side that have been playing at a very consistent level all season; they are just going through different sequences. At the start of the campaign it was late, unsustainable wins. Then it became shocking defeat after shocking defeat. When they got out of that funk, they’ve been grinding out results while still performing below expectations.

Premier League leaders Arsenal are sure to get at them and put their turnaround credentials truly to the test.

The Gunners have their own doubters to answer with a win against a Big Six rival. Smashing Aston Villa 4-1 and ending their 11-match winning run was a statement, and beating the current champions would go a long way to proving they will be labelled as such come May, no matter how beatable said champions are right now.

It will be an interesting game between two sides eager and able to make big statements.

Team to watch: Manchester United

Well, here we are. Another Manchester United manager has fallen. The poisoned chalice remains very much poisoned. Interim boss Darren Fletcher is certainly a manager to watch, but not the manager to watch, with another match having an even juicier storyline to quench our thirst.

There are so many questions worth asking ahead of United’s trip to Burnley, against whom they earned their first Premier League win of the season courtesy of a 97th-minute Bruno Fernandes penalty back in August.

Will it look like a Ruben Amorim side? Will Fletcher start his twin sons and wing the rest of his starting XI? Will we see Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 system instantly thrown in the bin for a more conventional formation – say, a 4-3-2-1, 4-3-3, or even the good old-fashioned 4-4-2 that won Fletcher so many trophies playing under Sir Alex Ferguson?

We all know that Fletcher won’t line up in a 3-4-2-1, don’t we? There is arguably only one player who exclusively fits that system in the entire squad, and that’s Patrick Dorgu, so it will hardly take much adaptation for a group of players who couldn’t adapt to a new formation in 14 months under Amorim.

It’s a lovely first fixture for United and Fletcher in every sense. There is no team you’d rather face right now than Burnley, who haven’t won since October 26. Win, and Rio Ferdinand and other United fans will get over-excited and proclaim that Fletch is in fact at the wheel. And if they don’t win, it’s quite funny, innit?

It’s not like this is a team in complete and utter disarray either. All things considered, Amorim has left them in a pretty good place. It’s much better than last season, and there have been some positive performances, albeit with results like home draws with Wolves and West Ham, and a home defeat to 10-man Everton thrown in there. Fletcher isn’t replacing a manager sacked after a heavy defeat, but one whose position became untenable after he fell out with his superiors.

The result is important, but we are really more interested to see how much changes, from the formation to how they play.

Manager to watch: Nuno Espirito Santo

Oh, this will be spicy. We’re not expecting a humdinger between West Ham and Nottingham Forest in Tuesday’s lone Premier League fixture, but there’s a lot on the line as 17th travel to 18th. Neither side has won any of their previous four games. West Ham haven’t won in nine and just handed Wolves their first win of the season at the 20th attempt. That result was made even more amusing by being against Nuno’s old club. Three days later, he faces another of his former employers, but winning will mean so much more.

Nuno didn’t leave Forest on the best of terms. After narrowly missing out on Champions League qualification last term, he lasted three games before being sacked in 2025/26 after falling out with Edu Gaspar, who will be at the London Stadium in what could be his final day as Forest’s global head of football. It really does feel like one of them will be out of a job on Wednesday morning, and whoever ends up safe will absolutely f***ing love it.

The Edu stuff really adds to an already mouthwatering story, but the bottom line is that Nuno really, really needs to win this game. If he doesn’t, he will surely become the first manager to be sacked twice in the same Premier League season. Win, and he puts massive pressure on Forest to claw away from the relegation zone, which increases the possibility of Nuno being directly linked with two relegations in a single Premier League season.

Four points separate the Hammers and Forest after 20 games. Seven points should doom the former. One brings new life to a miserable season.

Player to watch: Cole Palmer

There’s no glossing over Palmer’s form since returning from injury. He’s been nowhere near good enough, though Chelsea have been poor as a collective. The England international completely missing the ball to equalise against Manchester City summed it all up on another difficult day away to one of the big boys, a stage where he has so often failed to show up.

It’s not a big hitter on Wednesday night, but a big west London derby nonetheless, as Chelsea make the short trip to take on Fulham, and they need their main man to produce a statement performance. Palmer enjoys playing in London, so there’s a strong chance he does. He hasn’t scored outside the capital in over a year!

There is a mountain of expectation on Palmer’s shoulders to bounce back after a poor showing at the Etihad on Sunday. We all expect so much more, and we are getting dangerously close to calling him a penalty merchant, just like the cool kids on X.

European game to watch: Atletico Madrid v Real Madrid

The Spanish and French Super Cups provide us with three treats this week, with Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao, Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, Paris Saint-Germain and Marseille all in action. There is also a full Serie A fixture list, which is fun. But it’s difficult to overlook the Madrid derby.

The two Madrid sides don’t meet in Madrid. They don’t even meet in Spain. They meet in Jeddah, in Saudi Arabia, because why not? There is a great demand for domestic football to be played abroad, right? So much so that it’s being played on a completely different continent. Ahh, modern football, you little dancer.

Kylian Mbappe might not be fit, which takes some of the glamour away, but there’s still Vinícius Junior, who has zero goals in his last 15 games, Thibaut Courtois and Jude Bellingham in the white corner preparing to take on Julian Alvarez, Antoine Griezmann and Jan Oblak in the red-and-white corner.

The superstars are a big part of the entertainment, but these fixtures always bring out the best – which is actually the worst – in some players, and we live for the drama.