Big Weekend: Liverpool v Chelsea, Tottenham, Gary O’Neil, Bukayo Saka and more

Liverpool and Chelsea have made excellent starts under new managers, but this weekend signals for both the start of a run of tricky games that should tell us plenty about their season-long credentials.

Game to watch: Liverpool v Chelsea
A really intriguing Big Six match-up here, pitting first against fourth and two teams who have started better than many might have expected, with surface similarities – new manager, difficult summer – belying deep-rooted differences.

What this game should at the very least provide is a bellwether for both sides’ longer-term prospects across the season. Liverpool have looked near flawless under Arne Slot and there’s plenty of reason to justify the thinking that this is just because they and he are very good. But there is no denying the quirks of the fixture computer have up to now left some reason for doubt. This, Liverpool’s eighth game of the Premier League season, is their first against anyone else who finished in last season’s top seven.

And it’s not an entirely dissimilar tale for Chelsea; since the most easily explained 2-0 defeat in history to Man City on the opening weekend, they too have until now faced no other litmus test of their deep-lying credentials.

The suspicion – and it can be only that – is that Chelsea’s fourth position is flakier than Liverpool’s top spot. Certainly it’s Liverpool you’d feel more confident will still be in the top four when the music stops.

But for both teams this game represents the start of a run that could be season-defining – or perhaps more accurately season-revealing.

After this trip to Anfield, Chelsea play Newcastle, Manchester United and Arsenal before the international break, with Villa and Tottenham soon after it. For Liverpool, it’s Arsenal, Brighton and Villa before the break with Man City and Newcastle lurking on the other side.

We can already be reasonably confident that Man City and Arsenal are in the title race. Sunday sees the start of a few weeks that will tell us if either of these two heavyweights have what it takes to stick around with them.

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Team to watch: Tottenham
The last Premier League game before the break was Spurs’ absurd implosion at Brighton, and the first game after the break on Saturday lunchtime sees Ange Postecoglou’s relentlessly unserious side straight back on the horse to face West Ham in a fixture that rarely disappoints football fans with a penchant for nonsense.

An unscientific survey carried out just now in our own head tells us that Spurs against West Ham is the Premier League fixture to have thrown up more late winners and inexplicable collapses than any other. It might not be true, but it feels right, doesn’t it? And isn’t that more important at the end of the day? This is the fixture of Paul Stalteri, of Manuel Lanzini, of Eric Dier on his Tottenham debut, of Harry Kane scoring twice in the last three minutes as well as being just one of the games in which Gareth Bale did a nonsense.

Even when they played a pre-season friendly a couple of summers ago, these two couldn’t help themselves as West Ham ran out 3-2 winners. West Ham won at Spurs last season when Postecoglou’s side were in the grip of the madness that compelled them to go 1-0 up in every single game before losing it.

It is, we would contend, the Barclays’ most 3-2 fixture as well as one of its most reliable sources of antics. And this really does feel like the perfect time for it. That defeat at Brighton was just so monumentally Spurs, bringing to an end one of the less convincing five-match winning runs you can imagine.

Even by their lofty standards, Spurs are serving up a lot of daftness this season – for good and bad –  and have now had two weeks to stew on the Amex defeat before taking on a fixture that almost never lets you down.

Spurs could very easily swat aside a West Ham team that has yet to really convince this season under Julen Lopetegui, or they could win it from behind with goals in the 98th and 101st minute or they could lose it 3-0, or 3-2 having been 2-0 up. None of that would remotely surprise us about this team in this fixture.

In fact the only thing that would surprise us about Spurs in this game is being drearily sensible. They could be absolutely anything but they won’t be dull. So yeah – watch them.

Manager to watch: Gary O’Neil
Because what you want when you’ve won one of your last 17 Premier League games is a visit from Manchester City, isn’t it?

O’Neil’s Wolves haven’t, in truth, been as relentlessly awful as the table might suggest. There have been narrow defeats to Brighton, Newcastle and Liverpool that could all have gone differently with a bit more luck and a touch more confidence.

But those are the times when it’s gone right, and they’ve still lost. And when it’s gone wrong they’ve shipped six at home to Chelsea and five at Brentford.

There’s a forlorn look to much of their football, with a gameplan that does at times appear desperately basic and as unimaginative as it is ineffective. It looks, really, like the sort of thing one might have expected from Gary O’Neil when he was first given that hospital pass at Bournemouth.

It could have been explained then. Now, it’s reasonable to expect a bit more despite the way the rug was pulled from under him in the summer with the loss of key players in both attack and defence.

Getting a result against Man City – as Wolves did last year in this fixture when times were very different – is surely asking too much, but O’Neil urgently needs to show something here to suggest he can turn around what is now close to half a season of Derby-record-threatening form or he might even do the unthinkable and beat Erik Ten Hag to Sack Race glory.

Player to watch: Bukayo Saka
Arsenal have still profited from his impeccable set-piece delivery on more than one occasion this season, but there is nevertheless a sense of weariness around Saka and his contributions from open play have largely lacked their usual fizz and sparkle.

He must constantly be knackered because he plays so very much of the football, and in that context perhaps a minor knock that forced him off during another quiet performance for England against Greece in the international break might have been no bad thing.

Easy to see why it will have given Gunners fans conniptions given their players’ injury record on international duty this season, but with all reports suggesting only the most minor of knocks and a return to action this weekend at Bournemouth it means a rare week off for a player who has once again been the one Mikel Arteta simply cannot conceive of going without. He has started every game for Arsenal this season, up to and including the Carabao rout against Bolton.

He will surely therefore go again despite the interlull knock and hope to build on what was only his second Premier League goal of the season in the slightly-wilder-than-anticipated win over Southampton before the break.

Football League game to watch: Hull City v Sunderland
The current Championship leaders make what is by their standards the relatively short away-day trip to Hull looking to build on that chaotic 2-2 draw against Leeds last time out.

We say current leaders but a Sunday afternoon fixture in East Yorkshire means that will very likely not be the case by the time they get back into the post-international break swing, with either Sheffield United or Leeds as well as Burnley and West Brom all having the chance to leapfrog them on Friday and Saturday.

European game to watch: Roma v Inter
Eye-catching enough with Inter sitting second in the table and Roma looking to kickstart a season yet to really get going either domestically or in Europe, but gets the nod here for being the highest-scoring fixture in Serie A history with 530 goals scored in 182 meetings.

We’d be backing a Marcus Thuram-propelled Inter to be the likelier to make significant additions to that tally this weekend; they’ve scored 16 goals already in the league this season, while Thuram himself is only one goal behind Roma’s overall tally of eight.

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