Big Weekend: Arsenal v Liverpool, Tottenham, McNeil, Howe, El Clasico

A massive clash between Arsenal and Liverpool at the Emirates provides the showpiece of a weekend that could tell us a bit about a few clubs.

Game to watch: Arsenal v Liverpool
A second major test of Liverpool’s minerals in successive Barclays weekends, with even last weekend’s win over Chelsea paling in comparison to a trip to Arsenal.

It does rather feel like there are worse times to be making that trip, though, with the Gunners in the midst of crises of injury and confidence.

Last weekend’s defeat at Bournemouth was a chastening one for the title challengers who once again paid a heavy price for their slapdash approach to the avoidance of red cards.

Liverpool, by contrast, produced a superbly controlled and clinical performance to beat a fast-improving Chelsea at Anfield.

It may not be The Liverpool Way, whatever that means, but Arne Slot has got his side looking like title contenders. At their best, Slot’s Liverpool already look like a hugely appealing combination. Klopp’s steamrolling attacking side is still in there, but now operates from a more polished and stable-looking base under their new manager. We’re not saying they’re better than Klopp’s side, obviously, but they do have something about them.

Arsenal, meanwhile, have had plenty about them for the last couple of years but are having a bad moment and could really do without a visit from the league leaders this weekend. Last weekend was a hugely damaging one, their own result exacerbated by Liverpool’s own success and City’s cruel late winner at Wolves.

The midweek Champions League win over Shakhtar wasn’t exactly one to restore much confidence and saw Riccardo Calafiori added to an injury list that already includes Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka.

Defeat is unthinkable for Arsenal; it would leave them seven points behind Liverpool and – perhaps more importantly – almost certainly six behind City, who host winless, hapless Southampton on Saturday afternoon.

That we’re even approaching an Arsenal home game with thoughts of ‘yeah, they may well lose that’ reflects a shift in mood if nothing else, but a win of any kind for Mikel Arteta’s Gunners would instantly reverse those nagging doubts that are creeping in.

One way or another, with trips to Newcastle and Chelsea to follow this one before the international break, it does feel like a huge few weeks for Arsenal.

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Team to watch: Tottenham
Only three Premier League games televised in the UK across Saturday and Sunday but there are ways, we’re told. If you can watch Spurs, you should, because they’re in one of their interesting phases.

Technically, their form is impressive. They’ve won seven of their last eight games in all competitions, with the three Premier League wins in that run being by margins of 3-1, 3-0 and 4-1.

But they don’t really feel like a seven-wins-from-eight-games-with-Premier-League-victories-by-impressive-margins kind of team. For a start the game they didn’t win they lost in truly pathetic and very memorable fashion.

For another, three of their wins have come – none particularly convincingly – in the reformatted Europa League. The fact Spurs have at least apparently worked out a way to negotiate the early stages of a second-tier UEFA competition with much-changed sides isn’t nothing, they’ve struggled with it for about 15 years now and Man United are bravely showing the world that, sure, it may now be deliberately impossible for a big team to actually go out in the group stage but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a real crack at it.

And the seventh win from that run was at Coventry in the Carabao, with Spurs needing two goals in the last few minutes to avoid humiliation against a side that now sits in the bottom three of the Championship.

So yeah, it’s an interesting run of seven wins in eight. And top it off, this weekend presents a perfect opportunity for them to Spurs things up. They travel to Crystal Palace, who are still searching for their first win of the season and have in their ranks a former Arsenal striker still searching for his first goal.

It screams ‘house call from Dr Tottenham’ and therefore what Spurs produce this weekend might tell us more than perhaps expected about whether they are, as we suspect, a fun but flawed team who lack the seriousness to sustain a proper league season.

Manager to watch: Eddie Howe
When Newcastle were amassing 10 points from four largely unconvincing performances at the start of the season, it felt unsustainable. Because it was. Newcastle couldn’t possibly carry on collecting that many points from those kinds of performance.

Either results would eventually fall to mirror the performances, or the performances would have to come up to the level of results. In a way, both these things have happened.

The second four games of the season have yielded just two points. Yet one of those was a deserved draw against Manchester City, while last weekend’s 1-0 home defeat to Brighton came in perhaps Newcastle’s most convincing all-round effort of the season.

Where does that leave us, then? With a team that probably sits just about where it deserves to based on the overall campaign, one neither as good as 10 points from four games suggested, nor as bad as two points from four games implies.

But it does mean there is a bit of pressure now on Howe. Eighth place isn’t really where Newcastle now see themselves, and the truce between dugout and boardroom feels at best an uneasy one. A trip to Chelsea is a sub-optimal one for a team trying to relocate their best form, and with a visit from Arsenal to follow it’s not hard to imagine a future where the Newcastle manager is facing some unwanted glare.

Player to watch: Dwight McNeil
There can’t be many players whose ability remains as hypothetical after more than 200 Premier League games than Dwight McNeil. Still somehow only 24, McNeil has played 213 Premier League games without anyone really knowing whether or not he’s a proper Barclays player.

On paper, there is nothing much there beyond that sheer wealth of experience at such an age. McNeil has just 20 goals and 29 assists. He has never yet reached double figures for either in a Premier League season. His best returns are seven goals in 22/23 – his first Everton season – and six assists for Burnley in 2019/20 and Everton last year.

But he has been a key figure in Everton’s recovery from their dismal start to the season, and is currently firmly on course for the double-double that marks out the very best wingers/creators these days. His three goals already match his full 23/24 tally, while three assists is halfway to his best ever.

Football League game to watch: Norwich v Middlesbrough
One of those classic Championship meet-ups that feels far more Barclays than it actually is, with the various yo-yo efforts of the two clubs over the years actually meaning they have played two Premier League seasons together, one of which was the very first and the other 20 years ago.

In fairness, they did manage to squeeze 4-4 and 3-3 draws into those four rare Premier League contests, so not like they wasted the chances when they came along.

Both sides have ambitions of another return to the Premier League this season, but alas there seems little prospect of both managing it and giving us all the third season of hot Norwich-Middlesbrough top-flight action we all so crave. They are currently to be found nestled together on 17 points just outside the play-offs.

European game to watch: Real Madrid v Barcelona
Rarely a small game, but even at this early stage of the season this weekend’s Clasico feels like it carries outsized importance. A Madrid win and the two giants of Spanish football will sit level on points at the summit of La Liga, while a Barcelona win opens an imposing six-point gap.

Real Madrid will take comfort from a run of four straight wins over Barcelona in all competitions including a league double last season, but haven’t been entirely convincing this season despite their unbeaten record.

The two old rivals also come into this one on the back of eye-catching Champions League wins in midweek, Real coming from 2-0 down in the final half-hour to thrash Borussia Dortmund 5-2 in a rematch of last season’s final, and Barcelona giving Bayern Munich a 4-1 paddling via a Raphinha hat-trick.

So yeah, this should be quite good really.

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