Big Weekend: Sunderland v Newcastle, Aston Villa, Xavi Simons, Oliver Glasner | OneFootball

It’s another Big Weekend (SPOILER ALERT: They are all Big Weekends) of Premier League action headlined by the welcome return to top-flight action of the Tyne-Wear Derby after nearly a decade away.

Elsewhere, can Aston Villa avoid the familiar trap of stumbling back out of the title race the moment they unexpectedly joined it? Will Thomas Frank be brave enough to pick Xavi Simons for three whole games in a row? And would a win over Man City this weekend potentially be better news for Oliver Glasner personally than it is for Crystal Palace.

This way for all that and more weekend appetite-whetting.

Game to watch: Sunderland v Newcastle

Sunderland’s recent Premier League record in this fixture is formidable, but it does require stretching the word ‘recent’ to its elastic limit. It is nearly a decade since the Tyne-Wear Derby has been a Premier League fixture, and those old enough to remember will recall an odd time when it felt like it always ended 3-0 to Sunderland for some reason.

That’s not entirely true, but it is a little bit true. Sunderland haven’t lost to Newcastle in the Premier League since 2011 and in the nine subsequent meetings they’ve won six and drawn three. And yes, three of those six wins were indeed 3-0.

Newcastle got some measure of revenge with a 3-0 FA Cup win in January 2024. But what’s really significant is how that result is probably no more relevant to this game in December 2025 than any of that Premier League Years stuff.

Sunderland are an entirely different beast from two years ago and contest this derby not as underdogs but equals, still looking down on their local rivals in the league table despite a tough run of games over the last month.

Team to watch: Aston Villa

How many times have we seen unlikely title challengers emerge only to immediately sh*t themselves and slink back whence they came the second things get real? It’s not even always just Chelsea.

Aston Villa have inserted themselves directly into this title race after a 10-game run featuring nine wins culminating in that sensational stoppage-time winner against Arsenal that prompted an entire team of adult humans to go full toddler. You’ve all seen the video. Absolute cinema. Never mind the Celebration Police; it’s the Dignity Police who should have been making house calls to Arsenal players this week.

It was a huge moment, though. One swing of Emi Buendia’s right boot was the difference between Arsenal maintaining a comfy six-point lead over Villa or seeing it trimmed to three, with Man City taking advantage later to move even closer at two points back from Arsenal – which is nearer to the Gunners than they were after 15 games in either 2022/23 or 2023/24 and we all know how those panned out.

The problem for Villa is that they’ve had to set an absolutely absurd and dare we say it unsustainable pace to get to where they are and if title contenders they are to be then they will have to keep sprinting as best they can.

Especially this weekend, because Arsenal are playing Wolves. So there is no margin for Villa when they head to the London Stadium for the Claret and Blue Derby against West Ham.

On paper it shouldn’t be a problem, because West Ham are sh*t. But they’re a ticklish kind of sh*t now under Nuno Espirito Santo; one that even Liverpool were able to easily subdue and eventually overwhelm with competence but a team nonetheless now capable of preying on those who turn up with any uncertainty or self-doubt as Newcastle and Burnley both have in recent weeks.

Villa shouldn’t have that problem, but imposter syndrome can kick in at the funniest times, and the entire country declaring you title contenders can absolutely be one of those times.

Manager to watch: Oliver Glasner

Crystal Palace fans won’t want to hear it, obviously, but it does feel like we’re fast approaching the point at which someone seriously tests their and Oliver Glasner’s resolve. He’s the bookies’ favourite for both the Spurs and Man United jobs, whenever they might become available, and of perhaps more immediate relevance third favourite for Liverpool.

He’s even joint-third favourite for the Real Madrid job, which given the clear favourite is a bloke who keeps saying he doesn’t really fancy being a first-team coach at this point isn’t nothing either.

It all rather suggests this would not be a bad weekend at all for him to engineer a Premier League win over Manchester City, consolidating Palace’s top-four spot and lifting them within two points of Pep Guardiola’s title contenders.

Player to watch: Xavi Simons

It’s not been a straightforward start to Premier League life for the 22-year-old playmaker, but the signs this week have been enormously encouraging after a pair of man-of-the-match performances in home victories over Brentford domestically and Slavia Prague in Europe.

That Spurs have reached a state whereby a couple of such seemingly routine home wins featuring a baseline level of competent and coherent attacking football have become a source of such joy and relief is telling in its own way.

But the main thing to emerge has been the sense that Xavi simply must play; that an imperfect playmaker still finding his way into Our League remains a far more compelling prospect that no playmaker at all. Which, in the continued absence of Dejan Kulusevski and elite-knitwear-sporting Jamie Carragher-reacting James Maddison remains Thomas Frank’s only real alternative.

And this isn’t just some hifalutin ‘Play the Tottenham Way’ guff either. There are caveats and coincidence at play, but the basic numbers offer compelling proof that Xavi is not Spurs’ biggest problem and that benching him for an entire month in which you won no games at all was perhaps something of an error.

Spurs have played 20 games in all competitions since signing Xavi just before the transfer deadline. He has started 12 of those games, with a record of eight wins, two draws and two defeats.

In the eight games he hasn’t started, Spurs have won none at all and lost four.

Can he make a third start in a week after a month without one at all? Will Frank even trust him to start in an away game where he does once again have the option of being a bit more Thomas Frank about it?

We really hope he starts. Spurs have a six-day break after this game before facing Liverpool and an eight-day break after that before facing Crystal Palace.

Frank is an instinctively risk-averse manager, but it really does look right now like the greater risk lies in unnecessarily cutting off the sense that something is at last starting to come together for a new-look Tottenham attack in which Xavi, Richarlison and Mohammed Kudus may just be hitting upon something rather special.

Football League game to watch: Stoke v Swansea

An illustration for you. A couple of weeks ago, Stoke were level on 30 points with Middlesbrough. Now, three games later, Middlesbrough are second in the league with 39 points. Stoke, still on 30, have dropped to eighth.

In all Stoke have lost five of their last six Championship games to slip right out of automatic promotion contention and now outside the play-off places too.

There is no reason at all this need be terminal, though. Their festive fixture list doesn’t look the worst at all. But it does rather feel like if there is going to be a recovery then it absolutely must start with a home win over a struggling Swansea side.

Get this wrong as well and it really does start to feel like an inexorable slide out of contention.

European game to watch: Bologna v Juventus

It’s become a recurring Big Weekend theme that every weekend features a Serie A title clash because seven teams were in the title battle; well now things are getting desperate because, for the first time, splits have started to appear.

Wins last week for Milan, Napoli and Inter combined with defeats for Roma, Como and Juventus and a draw for Bologna mean there does appear a real risk of seven becoming three quite soon with that top three now three points clear of the rest.

Defeat in this game is likely to mean curtains for someone’s title hopes, but for many obvious reasons it is Juve who can least afford that with the prospect of finding themselves in full languishing status 11 points off the pace this weekend’s worst-case scenario.

Women’s Super League game to watch: West Ham v Liverpool

Sure, it’s all very exciting at the top of the table where Man City are flying and Chelsea have lost an actual game, but this weekend is about the relegation scrap and two teams who between them so far have one win and three draws from 20 games.

Everton and Leicester could yet become involved but it’s going to be a long winter for whoever loses this one, especially if it’s Liverpool. They are now the only team without a win at all and would be at least four points adrift at the bottom if they get nothing from this.