Big Weekend: Newcastle v Man City, Mikel Arteta, Harry Wilson, Leeds United | OneFootball

FA Cup fifth-round weekend gives us all a bit of a breather from the chaos and the tension of the Premier League being sh*t now. What better solution could there be at this time than a little sprinkling of FA Cup magic over the mouldering turd of English football? Isn’t it? Hmm? Marvellous.

Some decent-looking games on the list as well and the chance for a few teams to let their hair down now they and we know they no longer have to give relegation a second thought.

And who knows, the ruined modern game’s arch supervillain Mikel Arteta might even let quad-chasing Arsenal indulge in some football at Mansfield. What a treat that would be for us all.

Game to watch: Newcastle v Man City

Funny old season for Man City, really. On the one hand, here we are well into March and they still have semi-realistic ambitions in all four major trophies. On the other, it does kind of feel like maybe they won’t actually win any of them. And might finish second to Arsenal in at least two.

With the Premier League and Champions League obvious priorities and the Carabao now down to a one-off game, it’s fair to say this competition now sits at the bottom of Pep Guardiola’s big list of priorities and he hasn’t been handed a tie here that his team can simply coast through.

A week ago we’d still have thought Man City get this done, but a week is a long time in football. City’s unexpected and costly stumble against Nottingham Forest this week coinciding with 10-man Newcastle so thrillingly ending Michael Carrick’s unbeaten start at Man United has changed the mood around this tie significantly.

With Arsenal so clearly the dominant force this season it’s easy to forget that City still have quadruple ambitions of their own, just about, but they will have to improve from their midweek effort if that is to remain the case beyond Saturday night.

As for Newcastle, despite the excitement of Wednesday night, the hard truth is that this competition offers the most plausible escape route from a difficult season. With City here and then Barcelona in the Champions League, there is the very real prospect of the last two months of the season being a complete non-event should the next 10 days or so go badly.

Mind, we can think of at least one large Premier League club who’d absolutely bite your hand off for a meaningless last eight or nine games of the season.

Team to watch: Leeds United

Which is also significant information for Leeds, a team who have a bit more freedom to attack a cup run that hasn’t been that convincing but now offers huge opportunities for a team that no longer has to think quite so hard about securing their Premier League future thanks to the frankly above-and-beyond efforts of Spurs to shoot off all their own limbs.

Leeds aren’t yet entirely safe, and didn’t exactly help themselves in midweek either, but they’re pretty much there. Certainly enough to risk a proper go at what is suddenly a real opportunity to go properly deep in the cup and perhaps even end what is now a 36-year wait for major honours.

Norwich are a different proposition now than they would have been during a harrowing first half of the season where dropping into League One appeared a genuine possibility, but you’d fancy a fully-committed Leeds at Elland Road ought to have more than enough to get this done and secure a quarter-final spot.

Player to watch: Harry Wilson

Always a tricky section on FA Cup weekends when team selection is so unpredictable anyway, so why not double down on a player who missed his team’s last game with injury anyway?

Marco Silva hasn’t sounded too fussed when talking about the ankle injury Wilson picked up against Spurs and that kept him out of the defeat to West Ham, and it does suggest that he could be in contention for a return in what looks a fine opportunity for Fulham.

Seems like it happens every year now that Fulham are so determinedly mid-table in the Premier League that they might as well have themselves a little go at the FA Cup, as a little treat. But this year they represent something close to the platonic ideal of a team that can risk it. Even by Fulham mid-tabling standards, rocking up for an FA Cup fifth-round tie against Championship opposition with precisely 40 points represents extreme commitment to the bit.

They do face a Southampton team in far better form than they were a couple of months ago, but even that might suit the Cottagers with Tonda Eckert having done so good a job that the play-offs are now a realistic and thus obviously primary target for Saints.

Which all means that Marco Silva might be more inclined to go back to Wilson, who is having the season of his life and was badly missed in the West Ham defeat. His goals and creativity make Fulham a completely different prospect, and there’s a definite sense that if there’s any way to have him involved here they might as well. Lose this game and there’s not much left at stake for Silva and his team this season, even if Wales fans might see things slightly differently.

Manager to watch: Mikel Arteta

A great occasion awaits at Field Mill as Nigel Clough’s Mansfield, 16th in League One, take on Arsenal for a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals.

It will be fascinating to see just how Mikel Arteta approaches what is, with all due respect, very clearly on paper the least challenging of the great many fixtures Arsenal must plough through if they’re to achieve everything they want to over the next few exhausting months. Unless they get to play Spurs in the Champions League semi-finals, we suppose.

But that’s some way off and deeply unlikely. This game is actually happening. And Arteta has many decisions to make. How many changes does he make to his starting XI? How many of his key players does he bring along as bench options if things get dicey? Will he show full respect to his League One opponents by still dialling up the sh*thousery and Dark Arts to 11, or might Arsenal let their hair down slightly in this one any maybe even take less than half an hour over their restarts?

Saturday lunchtime will provide the answers to all these questions and more.

Football League game to watch: Hull v Millwall

A reduced Championship programme due to the FA Cup but still a massive Saturday lunchtime clash here for shaping the promotion picture.

Both Hull and Millwall appear pretty safe inside the top six, yet both remain within theoretical striking distance of Middlesbrough in second as Hull bid to complete a league double over their promotion rivals following a 3-1 win at The Den before Christmas.

European game to watch: Milan v Inter

For most of the season it had looked like an epic multi-team title battle was bubbling up in Serie A. Alas, that has proven now not to be the case with Inter easing clear of the rest on the back of an eight-match winning run and 21 wins in 24 after contriving to lose two of their first three.

The gap to the rest – headed by Milan – now stands at a surely insurmountable 10 points no matter what happens in this weekend’s derby, and only serves to highlight how extraordinary their twin Champions League punishment round defeats to Bodo/Glimt really were.