Big Weekend: Liverpool v Man City, Man United, Oliver Glasner, Igor Thiago | OneFootball

You’d better believe it’s a big weekend, kicking off with the inevitable bringer-of-chaos that is Man United v Spurs and then finishing with the enticing possibilities of what Liverpool and Man City might conjure up at Anfield.

And there’s plenty of good stuff in between and around the country and indeed continent.

We’re really looking forward to this one.

Game to watch: Liverpool v Manchester City

Who said Liverpool wouldn’t be involved in the title race? They can be front and centre here in confirming there will not in fact be a title race at all.

We make it now five times Arsenal have been confirmed as champions and six times the title race has been declared back on, but it really would be hard to see how we get anything other than Arsenal ending all those years of hurt if this weekend goes wrong for City.

With Arsenal slumming it in a Saturday 3pm slot for the second weekend in a row, by the time City arrive at Anfield for Super Sunday’s headliner they could be staring at a nine-point deficit and firmly in must-win territory.

That’s not ideal when you’re going to Anfield and in your last away game you failed to win from 2-0 up against a team who at the time had fewer home points than anyone bar Wolves and had almost entirely run out of available adult footballers.

City got themselves back on track a bit with a Carabao paddling of Newcastle in the second leg of their semi-final, but you’d imagine they are at least a little bit trying to work out what happened in that second half at Spurs.

The concession of two goals was bad, of course, but in many ways more troubling was the fact that as things got so very far away from a team that had been in such effortless first-half control, Erling Haaland and co. managed not one second-half attempt on target against a defence of Archie Gray, Joao Palhinha, Radu Dragusin and Destiny Udogie. Or put another way, a Tottenham defence that has struggled all season was able to repel City’s advances with its third-choice right-back and fourth and fifth-choice centre-backs.

It’s not a great look for City. Or for Newcastle’s defence in the first half of that Carabao clash, now we think of it.

Liverpool may not have title deeds to think of for themselves this weekend, but they do still have plenty to think about having found themselves embroiled in what will likely but not definitely distil into a three-into-two Champions League squabble with Chelsea and Man United for fourth and fifth.

And Liverpool are already the ones on the outside looking in knowing those two can both increase that gap on Saturday. And both are up against relegation stragglers, with Chelsea travelling to Wolves and United hosting Spurs.

Team to watch: Manchester United

Spurs against A Manchester Club is about as close to a guarantee of nonsense as the Premier League can provide. The game against City last weekend delivered in grand style, and there’s no reason to think this one won’t do likewise.

United themselves remain pleasingly absurd even when in good form, so long may that continue. They have developed a particular habit this year for late twists. Emphasis on plural. There are few more extreme emotions in football than joy and relief following hot on the heels of despair, and United have perfected the art this season.

Their last two games have been 3-2 wins in which they’ve conceded a late equaliser then scored an even later winner, something they also did this season at Anfield, while in the reverse fixture at Spurs they were ahead at 83 minutes, behind at 91 and level at 96.

Michael Carrick has them on a three-game winning run that has prompted inevitable chatter about his interim role becoming a permanent one, because there’s no way promoting an under-qualified club legend in such fashion could ever backfire.

But this is in many ways his biggest test, because he’s up against a team so stupid. More stupid even than his own. He’s beaten the two best teams in the country and in Fulham an extremely competent one. He has therefore yet to face a challenge like Spurs, a team who City can once again attest are impossible to get your head around, and who United haven’t beaten in the last nine attempts. Including, of course, United suffering just about the most embarrassing fate it’s possible for a professional football team to suffer by contriving to lose to Spurs in an actual final.

Luckily for United and everyone, Spurs have already ensured they will not be using that trophy win as any kind of launchpad. That’s not the way they do things, and we’re already just a Champions League last-16 exit away from confirming year one of the next decade-plus trophy drought, one in which simply remaining in the Premier League might become a stretch target.

But for now what Spurs do still have is some kind of bizarre hold over the Manchester clubs, and one that United could really do with putting right this weekend. For football reasons, with Champions League qualification very much in sight, but perhaps just as importantly for their own sanity.

Player to watch: Igor Thiago

Brentford have been the Premier League’s surprise package this year, with a widely predicted relegation fight having never remotely materialised in a season that has instead turned into an unlikely tilt at Europe under rookie boss Keith Andrews.

A large part of that has been the spectacular way Igor Thiago has emerged from the shadows of the now departed Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa to score seven more Premier League goals this season than that pair combined.

With Haaland having endured one of his oddly familiar mid-season slumps in front of goal, Thiago still retains genuine hope of being crowned the least likely Golden Boot winner for many a year, trailing by just four and seemingly facing Newcastle at a very good time here.

Two of his 16 Premier League goals this season came in the 3-1 win over Wissa’s new team back in November, and Newcastle hit this return fixture at a low ebb.

Since a three-game winning run in the Premier League at the turn of the year appeared to have turned them back into European contenders, it’s all gone wrong again. Newcastle’s only wins in eight games since have been against PSV in the Champions League and Bournemouth on penalties after a wild 3-3 draw in the FA Cup.

Even in that winning run they also conceded three goals to Leeds. Aston Villa and City have both beaten them 2-0 at St James’ Park in recent weeks, and in the last week alone Newcastle have conceded seven goals in two games at Liverpool and City.

Manager to watch: Oliver Glasner

We already know this will be Glasner’s last time managing Palace in the not-local-but-very-real Brighton derby; what’s less clear is how many more games he’ll be in charge of Palace altogether.

It does all feel rather futile trying to sustain this visibly, grumpily broken marriage through to the summer, especially while every game for which the relationship continues Palace tumble closer and closer to mortal peril.

They probably won’t go down, but it would be nice to be able to say it with any kind of confidence about a team that has simply stopped winning football matches altogether as the infighting takes over.

Even Palace’s fellow relegation-tumblers Spurs are managing to kick the sh*t out of some ragtag collections of poor old German farmers every now and then. Palace didn’t even beat KuPS, who look more like the first four characters of a helpfully memorable 20-character wifi password than a football team.

That final Conference League game was back before Christmas, and was the second of what is now a 12-match run in all competitions in which all manner of almost pathetically easy chances to win have been knocked back.

Sixth-tier side in the FA Cup? No thank you. Dr Tottenham? Honestly, we’re fine. Nottingham Forest down to 10 for the whole second half? We won’t even bother having a shot.

After Brighton, Palace’s next four games are against Burnley and Wolves in the Premier League and the two legs of their Conference punishment-round tie against Zrinjski Mostar. So Glasner and the lads don’t necessarily have to get that long-awaited win in this weekend’s formbook-out-the-window caper. But if they still don’t have one a couple of weeks from now, then things are very bad indeed.

Football League game to watch: Norwich v Blackburn

One of those fixtures that feels a lot more Barclays than it is. There’s a powerful Premier League energy here that just confirms how potent early experience can be, because there have in fact only been five Premier League seasons featuring both Norwich and Blackburn, only two of them in this century and none in the last decade.

But never mind that. Yer da will say that these are proper teams because their first three Premier League seasons together were the first three seasons of the Premier League – the Premiership glory days. These are the sorts of teams who if they do find themselves in the second tier will be managed by someone like Steve Bruce and he will describe them as “Premier League teams in all but name”.

Except right now they absolutely are not. They are much closer to being League One teams in actual name, and this is another huge six-pointer in a Championship relegation scrap that has developed a strikingly Premier League Years look to it.

Leicester’s six-point punishment this week leaves us with West Brom, Blackburn, Leicester, Portsmouth and Norwich all either in the relegation zone or within a point of it approaching the finishing straight.

European game to watch: PSG v Marseille

PSG have won their last six Ligue 1 games but haven’t yet seen off the dogged challenge of Lens, who sit just two points back, and know they can’t afford to slip up against arch-rivals Marseille.

They may still be reeling from the astonishing way they were bounced out of the Champions League via their own shambolic 3-0 defeat at Club Brugge and Benfica’s injury-time goalkeeper nonsense against Real Madrid, but a second win of the season over PSG would get them back on the fringes of the title race and certainly help lift that slightly darkening mood.

If that’s unlikely, then Marseille’s minds should certainly be focused by ensuring they get another chance at the Champions League next season, with a resurgent Lyon now level on points in what looks like a direct fight for the third and final spot.

Women’s Super League game to watch: Arsenal v Man City

The newly crowned world champions Arsenal are not going to win the WSL this year even if they do manage to slow City’s charge slightly this weekend.

But it’s still a vital game in what has become an intriguing battle for the minor places and the chance, in Arsenal’s case, of a further tilt at glory on the continent and beyond.

City are away and clear over the horizon having won 13 of their 14 games this season, but just two points separate Man United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs in the fight for Champions League qualification.