Big Weekend: Arsenal want Villa revenge, Neto and Howe return, Liverpool face £50m feeder club
Arsenal have a league double to avenge at Aston Villa, while Pedro Neto and Eddie Howe prepare for emotional reunions. Liverpool face their new feeder club.
Game to watch: Aston Villa v Arsenal
It is a common misconception that defeat to Aston Villa in April cost Arsenal the Premier League title last season. An understandable one, but simply scrolling up the Gunners’ fixture list to find the last time they dropped points after finishing two behind Manchester City with the same goal difference is not how a campaign’s post-mortem can be accurately conducted to find meaningful results.
Arsenal have failed to win two Premier League games in 2024: that crushing defeat to Villa at the Emirates, and a draw with the champions in March which some still erroneously feel ultimately put paid to their championship challenge.
December was when Arsenal undermined anything they might wish to have achieved last campaign. And it turns out those who blame losing to Villa might be right in a roundabout way, considering a 1-0 defeat at Villa Park that month triggered a run of three defeats and a draw in five games heading into a more prosperous new year.
Arsenal have won seven consecutive match since that Villa setback four months ago, but their response to the first leg of Unai Emery’s league double over his former employers really did derail them. And that is the result they will be desperate to avenge on Saturday evening.
Villa beat Arsenal in two distinctly different ways last season. Their first win over the Gunners underlined their defensive resilience after John McGinn’s early goal, while the second was a masterclass in devastatingly efficient counter-attacking as Leon Bailey and Ollie Watkins converted both their shots on target in the final ten minutes. Arsenal must be wary of coming undone against either approach this impressive side takes.
It feels unlikely that this is the fixture destined to be circled at the end of the season as when the tide turned either way for Mikel Arteta’s title contenders. It is, however, guaranteed to fuel that chronically online argument as to whether Arteta or Emery is the better manager.
Player to watch: Pedro Neto
It it close to pointless trying to correctly predict which Chelsea players will be thrown out in what formation for any given game, even if Enzo Maresca insists everything is fine as he slowly shrinks and transforms into a corn cob.
But Pedro Neto making his full debut at the club whose injury rehabilitation facilities he recently spent a good part of half a decade acclimatising to seems too good an opportunity to pass up really.
Neto was, after all, an excellent player for Wolves and should be one of the better aspects of this frankly absurd existence Chelsea have chosen for themselves. He is not “world class” in spite of what Jamie Redknapp might suggest, but the Portuguese is very good indeed and almost accidentally probably the most experienced Premier League forward on the club’s books.
And that gaping hole Neto has left at Wolves has yet to be filled, much like most other rifts and ruptures Gary O’Neil is expected to patch up with a laughably limited budget despite significant player sales over the past two summers.
With 57 Europa Conference minutes under his belt against Servette after a half an hour cameo in the defeat to Manchester City, there is no reason Neto should not start and be as ruthless at Wolves as he was in stealing Raheem Sterling’s shirt number. But then this is Chelsea so he might be dropped to the U21s and put up for sale instead.
Manager to watch: Eddie Howe
Only once in five attempts has Howe beaten Bournemouth – and even that was actually cheating because it was in the most Cherries-coded way possible with an Adam Smith own goal.
That December 2022 victory over his beloved former side was also in the Carabao Cup, meaning Howe’s last win in a Premier League fixture between Newcastle and Bournemouth remains the latter’s 1-0 victory in November 2017, delivered by the head of Steve Cook.
Last season featured a 2-2 draw and that chastening 2-0 loss in November which prompted Kieran Trippier to very possibly earnestly ask supporters: “How many injuries have we got?”
Those issues plagued their European prospects and Newcastle will desperately hope their treatment room remains as relatively sparse as it currently is. But even then, knee injuries to Sven Botman and Jamaal Lascelles, combined with Fabian Schar’s avoidable suspension and Crystal Palace’s selfishness in selling Marc Guehi at the price they want rather than simply what Newcastle are willing to pay, makes changes inevitable for the Magpies on Sunday afternoon.
Emil Krafth could move across to the centre. Lloyd Kelly may come in for his own return on the south coast. Whatever potential solution Howe chooses, the prospect of Bournemouth’s record signing, Evanilson, making his debut presents a different problem.
Team to watch: Liverpool
Arne Slot is yet to welcome his first new signing as manager but Liverpool have at least identified their latest pseudo-feeder club after Bournemouth stopped throwing money in the direction of Anfield for any cast-offs. Brentford like what Richard Hughes is selling and have parted with £50m or so for Fabio Carvalho and Sepp van den Berg this summer.
The latter will have been registered in time to make a quick return to Anfield for a possible debut on Sunday, but it seems unlikely the Dutch centre-half will feature for any significant period of time. Carvalho could be in line for a bigger role than his six minutes in the victory over Crystal Palace, adding a fascinating thread to an already interesting game.
Arne Slot will have green-lit both transfers after assessing and fine-tuning his squad in pre-season, contributing to the awkward optics of Liverpool raising substantial fees in player sales this summer without having yet reinvested it on a single first-team signing.
Perhaps the new manager represents enough of a fresh injection of impetus on his own. It was his intervention which turned the game against Ipswich and Slot will hope no half-time sacrifices need to be made on his first competitive game at Anfield. Brentford have won at Stamford Bridge, the Etihad and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the Premier League so should not be underestimated, especially with two new signings able to offer the inside track on the Reds.
Football League game to watch: Sheffield Wednesday v Leeds
Swansea v Cardiff looks like a particularly delectable slice of Championship on Sunday afternoon but Friday evening’s battle between last season’s title challengers and relegation candidates is the headline act.
Such is the inherent ridiculousness of those two teams, it might be difficult to identify which is which now. Leeds finished third on 90 points last season. Sheffield Wednesday were 20th on 53. Yet the optimism and momentum is undoubtedly with the latter, even after a crushing defeat to Sunderland last time out.
Danny Rohl has transformed the Owls but compatriot Daniel Farke has yet to truly win over the Leeds fans, a task made all the more difficult by the decimation of the squad which failed to secure promotion. Wednesday will sense blood and the Hillsborough atmosphere should not disappoint.
European game to watch: Borussia Monchengladbach v Bayer Leverkusen
The last of the big five leagues to get their season underway, the Bundesliga opens with some intriguing matches. Vincent Kompany officially starts his Bayern Munich revolution against Wolfsburg, while European qualifiers Dortmund and Frankfurt do battle. But all eyes will be on the champions on Friday evening as their title defence commences with a trip to Gladbach.
Leverkusen have invested after their invincible season, signing Jeanuel Belocian, Aleix Garcia and Martin Terrier in the summer. But perhaps most notably they have lost almost none of their real key players from last campaign, even retaining the services of Xabi Alonso despite intense interest.
That demoralising defeat to Atalanta in the Europa League final marked the roughest end to what was otherwise an unbeaten and historic season, but victory over Stuttgart on penalties in the German Super Cup final suggests Leverkusen are ready to go again. At the very least, Patrik Schick equalising in the 88th minute of that game shows they have retained that handy knack of scoring late.
