0 in Share First of all, I want to break from tradition. Usually I speak in Hausa in Kano. But, I don’t know how I am go...
Friday 8 December 2017
Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend
Records on the line in the Merseyside and Manchester derbies,
Swansea’s bust-up to spark a reaction and a head to head between Sean
Dyche and Marco Silva
Juan Foyth, Javier Hernández and Izzy Brown will look to make their mark
this weekend, while Kevin Campbell scored the only goal in Everton’s
last win at Anfield in 1999.
Composite: Action/Reuters; Getty; AFP; EMPICS
1) History in the making at Anfield
Liverpool have never gone more than 15 consecutive derbies without
defeat, that run ended by Andy King’s famous goal in October 1978, but
it is a record that could fall in the next month. Their current tally is
14, with this match and next month’s FA Cup third-round tie here
presenting them with an opportunity to make history at home. Everton are
yet to win at Anfield during this century, and it is not only the
head-to-head record which offers little hope. Between Scott Arfield’s
goal in the 27th minute of their game against Burnley in September and
Mohamed Salah’s equaliser in the 30th, Liverpool were losing at home –
they have spent only those three minutes in arrears at Anfield in the
league this season, making their ground by some margin that where away
fans have spent least time celebrating. Meanwhile Everton are yet to win
away from home, and indeed have held the lead in away games for only 47
minutes, worse than every team except for Crystal Palace, whose clock
is still stuck at zero. But Liverpool fans will have less happy memories
of the last time they glimpsed Sam Allardyce on the visitors’ bench,
when he oversaw Palace’s 2-1 win in April, the first Anfield victory of
his managerial career. Joe Gomez said after the 7-0 thrashing of Spartak Moscow on Wednesday
that he expected an exciting game – “We’ve seen some teams come to
Anfield and sit off but with the derby I don’t think they’ll come too
defensive-minded” – but surely the last thing that can be expected of
Allardyce is tactical naivety. SB •Match report: Liverpool 7-0 Spartak Moscow •Match report: Apollon Limassol 0-3 Everton •Quiz: the Manchester and Merseyside derbies? •Spartak captain faces minimum 10-game ban if guilty of racism at Liverpool •Martha Kelner: Uefa’s reaction to Russian racism is woefully weak
2) A pivotal afternoon in Manchester
Something’s got to give. Will it be Manchester United’s 100% home
record this season, or Manchester City’s 100% everywhere record? Defeat
for the home side would send City skipping over the hills and far away,
into an 11-point lead, while victory would leave United if not exactly
breathing down City’s necks then certainly huffing and puffing in their
vague vicinity. This poses a dilemma for neutrals: is the possibility of
some kind of enjoyably competitive title chase more attractive than the
romance of a potentially unbeaten season, the further tragicomic
embitterment of José Mourinho and the secondary spectator sport that is
wanton record-obliteration, of the sort that this City side seems
potentially capable of? There is some encouragement for Mourinho’s men:
City have not beaten Manchester United in December since 1970 (just four
of their 83 games since have been played in the final month of the
year, which seems statistically anomalous, and United have won all of
them). SB •Champions League power rankings: City are the team to beat •Jonathan Wilson: Mourinho faces the season’s big question •Match report: Shakhtar 2-1 Manchester City •Manchester City and United keen on repeat summer friendly in US •Football Weekly Extra: Liverpool lash in seven and the mask of Zorro
3) A reaction from Swansea’s players
Swansea’s players showed considerably more aggression in a post-match dressing-room bust-up
last week than they did on the pitch in defeat against Stoke City. Paul
Clement has described the exchange of views as respectful, saying “it
needed to happen, it was a healthy discussion, there was honesty and I
hope it has the right effect”. While Clement insists he is the man to
keep Swansea up and will be given time to bolster his squad with January
recruits, one can’t help but feel his focus should be on improving the
players he does have rather than talking up those yet to come in. If
last weekend’s frank exchange of views doesn’t spark some sort of
positive reaction against West Brom, the jig may well be up for Clement
and Swansea before he gets the chance to embark on his eagerly awaited
January trolley dash. BG •Swansea tempers boil over in angry dressing-room row
Swansea City manager Paul Clement barks out instructions
during their Premier League match against Stoke City in December 2017.
Photograph: Athena Pictures/Getty Images
4) Hernández meets Chelsea once more
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Ham’s pursuit of a third league victory of the season, and a first
since September, has been boosted by the return to fitness of Javier
Hernández, who has missed their last four matches with a hamstring
injury. It would be a timely boost, if one that is unlikely to be
popular with this weekend’s opponents: if he appears on Saturday it
would be his 14th match against Chelsea, making them by some margin the
team he has faced most frequently since moving to Europe in 2010 (he has
played 10 games against Newcastle, and no other side more than nine
times). He has scored in eight of his 13 games against Chelsea so far,
or in 62% of them for the mathematically inclined, finding the net
precisely once on each occasion, making them also the team against which
he has been most prolific. In other news, so far this season Chelsea
have won precisely 16 points at home, and exactly 16 points away from
home, making them the only team in the top flight with a perfectly
balanced record of home-and-away point-accumulation. SB •Moyes considering dropping Hart for Chelsea meeting •Barney Ronay: Chelsea ensure Atlético pay a high price
5) Saints’ sloppy shooting
Southampton have had precisely 200 shots in the Premier League, fewer
only than last season’s top six (and only 12 behind Manchester United),
suggesting that they are something of a creative force. But only 45 of
them have been on target, more only than Swansea, Huddersfield, Brighton
and West Brom, suggesting either that they are wildly profligate or
that they favour hopelessly optimistic efforts from long range. Nathan
Redmond and Dusan Tadichave had seven shots on target this season from
28 and 21 attempts respectively. Alexandre Lacazette, Arsenal’s sharpest
shooter, has had precisely as many shots on target as Redmond, Tadic
and Charlie Austin put together, despite having had only half as many
(52.3%, to be precise) shots overall. It is hard to know precisely what
conclusion to draw from this knowledge, but it should reduce any feeling
of surprise when Petr Cech watches yet another effort sail helplessly
wide of his goal. SB •Match report: Arsenal 6-0 Bate Borisov •Montemurro takes over at Arsenal with pledge to maintain tradition
Dusan Tadic has had seven shots on target this season. Photograph: Matt Watson/Southampton FC via Getty Images
6) Foyth in the spotlight
A
week ago Juan Foyth had not played a single minute of first-team
football for Tottenham in either the Premier or the Champions Leagues,
but with Toby Alderweireld injured and Davinson Sánchez starting a
three-match suspension after being sent off against Watford last weekend,
the 19-year-old Argentinian is suddenly central to Mauricio
Pochettino’s plans. Before Wednesday night’s game against Apoel his last
action had come in the Carabao Cup, where as the home match against
West Ham approached Pochettino said: “He needs to fight and prove that
he can compete in this type of games. You will only know if he is ready
to play, if he plays.” He played, Tottenham lost and Foyth had not been
seen since, suggesting that his coach did indeed find an answer to his
question, and not an overwhelmingly positive one. In preparation for
this match Foyth played against Apoel, and performed capably, but Stoke
will provide a significantly sterner test of the teenager’s mettle. SB •Danny Rose: I have no issue with Pochettino and never will •Champions League: who can the Premier League five meet in last 16? •Match report: Tottenham 3-0 Apoel Nicosia
7) A chance for Burnley’s Arfield to shine
Burnley v Watford is an intriguing match between two teams currently
first and second of the Premier League’s second tier comprising clubs
outside the so called Big Six. In their mid-40s, both Sean Dyche and
Marco Silva were linked with the Everton job that eventually went to Sam
Allardyce, a sign that they are two of the more highly regarded
managers in the Premier League. Both have worked wonders so far this
season, even if their public personae could scarcely be more different.
Allardyce is not the only Proper Football Man to have suggested the
mild-mannered Portuguese Silva gets too much credit, while Dyche is
prone to occasional ridiculous whines about not getting enough. What is
beyond question, however, is that both managers seem destined for
greater things. For now Dyche has to solve the problems presented by the
loss of Robbie Brady to serious knee injury for the rest of the season.
One of Burnley’s outstanding players this season, the Dubliner had hit a
rich vein of form in recent weeks but was carried off on a stretcher against Leicester last weekend.
He is likely to be replaced by Scott Arfield, who is dependable but has
in the past exasperated the Turf Moor faithful. He has big boots to
fill but the 29-year-old Scot is likely to be given plenty of
opportunities to make Brady’s place his own for the rest of the season.
However, a failure to shine over the festive period will almost
certainly send his manager scuttling off to the January sales. BG •Marina Hyde: why Match of the Day is biased against [insert your club’s name] •Wembley handed four more Euro 2020 matches as Wales misses out
Burnley’s Scott Arfield is likely to get a chance to impress. Photograph: Henry Browne/Getty Images
8) Another test for Leicester’s revival
This is, on paper, something of a mismatch: Newcastle have avoided
defeat once in their last six games, and have collected but a single
point in that time; Leicester have been beaten only once in their last
nine league games – by Manchester City, who beat everyone – and last
lost away from home when they visited Old Trafford in August (there have
been four draws and a win since). Leicester’s good form certainly has
much to do with Claude Puel’s impact, but it has perhaps been assisted
by a little friendly fixture-compilation: between the visit of Chelsea
in early September and that of Manchester United just before Christmas
they will have played 14 league matches, their opponents including four
of the current top nine sides and then everyone from Everton (in 10th)
downwards except for Brighton; Newcastle by contrast will, by the end
of this weekend, have played four of the current top nine in five games
over three weeks. SB •Liverpool’s Ings wanted on loan by West Ham and Newcastle
9) Brown’s reunion with the Terriers
Izzy Brown’s 70 minutes against Liverpool last weekend
was his second Brighton start of the season, his first since early
October, and ended a run of seven games in which he appeared as a
substitute every time, but for an average of less than seven minutes.
The Chelsea loanee’s return to the starting lineup could not have been
better timed, before what is, for him, surely the most meaningful game
of the season. Brown started 29 league games for Huddersfield – plus
three more in the play-offs – during a successful loan spell in
Yorkshire last season, and after their promotion he anticipated being
brought back for a second campaign. This move, he says now, was “meant
to be”, but in the end, with Huddersfield pushing for a permanent deal
rather than another temporary switch, it collapsed. “Whatever happens
next season, I will always love Huddersfield,” he said in May, as he
prepared for the play-off final. How times have changed. “I don’t really
care about Huddersfield right now,” he said this week. “After the
play-off final, I thought I was going to go back there but as the summer
went on, things didn’t work out the way they were meant to be … When it
comes to the weekend, I want us to win.” SB •Palace fans get police apology over claim they took weapons to Brighton •Liam Rosenior: without action, we risk losing generation of BAME coaches
0:55
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10) Benteke’s search for his mojo
With the quality of Andros Townsend, Ruben Loftus-Cheek,
Yohan Cabaye and Wilfried Zaha on hand to help load the chamber, it
seems remarkable that Christian Benteke has been unable to fire the
bullets that would almost certainly propel Crystal Palace up the table
and clear of the relegation zone. The Belgian forward has played 780
minutes of Premier League football this season and has yet to break his
duck, but it is not for want of chances. He currently seems incapable of
hitting a cow’s backside with the proverbial banjo, but with Connor
Wickham still a long way off a return to the first team Benteke will
continue to get plenty of opportunities and it is surely only a matter
of time before something resembling his mojo returns. Will Palace’s
match against Bournemouth be his day? BG •Palace to protect transfer budget despite £100m stadium plans
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