After a midweek which saw the fringe players of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester’s United and City experiencing largely successful outings against “weaker” opposition, with only United failing abysmally to progress, attention now returns to the Premier League.
Now there can be no ensuring that London teams have a home draw and Manchester teams both have to travel, or that the draw for the semi-final will be constructed in such a way that a London team is guaranteed an appearance in the final.
No, this is the Premier League which stands for all that is good and right with the game.
Look how considerate Sky Sports is to the fans. They even moved the Arsenal v Liverpool game to a Friday night so that the Liverpool supporters wouldn’t have to spend their evening down the pub and could do their Christmas shopping on Saturday!
Now, all they had to do was try and finish work early, lose some wages, pay a fortune for some dodgy food, find a very expensive train to London and then, after the game, try and find another very expensive train going in the opposite direction. Simple and for the average scouser, nothing more than a minor initiative test.
A win would make all of this almost worthwhile! They didn’t get it, however, and an exciting 3-3 draw kept both teams exactly where they had been before the evening’s entertainment had even started.
The early kick-off in the Saturday games will feature Everton against Chelsea at Goodison Park and should provide a pretty stern test for Antonio Conte’s team.
Everton are not the prettiest team to watch at present but, then again, they are now much more difficult to beat under Sam Allardyce than they were under both Ronald Koeman and David Unsworth, both of whom oversaw games where they conceded four goals or more.
This one has draw written all over it but we beg to differ. Everton will win.
Manchester City four (at least), Bournemouth nil kicks off at the regulation time of 3:00pm and will not afford the team from the south coast any type of respite or change of fortune from their midweek defeat by Chelsea.
This is a poor Bournemouth team and it is thanks to Eddie Howe and his particular brand of management that they are not currently in the bottom three. However, if results elsewhere go against them then defeat at The Etihad could see them slip down a place or two.
The old saying about, “they thought they just had to turn up to win this game”, is true in the case of City as that is exactly all they need do.
The early evening game is between Burnley and Tottenham Hotspur and, like the Everton v Chelsea game, has draw written all over it, according to some “experts”. Again, we beg to differ and think that Burnley will win this one.
Tottenham appear to have decided that a cup, any cup, is their best chance of a trophy this season and they are right. However, on current form they will not be contesting the Champion’s League for much longer so all their eggs will need to be put in the FA Cup basket. Good luck with that!
Burnley just look solid and very difficult to beat. Granted, they tend to win most of their games 1-0 but it is the ‘nil‘ part of that scoreline which is actually the most impressive aspect of their play. They have a defensive record even Big Sam would be drooling over!
The late evening game sees Manchester United travel to Leicester City. United need the points in this one to remain ahead of Chelsea and also need to win for their own pride.
In midweek a strong Leicester team were knocked out of the Carabao Cup, at home, to a Manchester City team containing a lot of players straight from The Etihad créche so for Manchester United not to win this game would be rather embarrassing.
At present, however, United are quite good at doing embarrassing, just ask Bristol City.
We still think they will be strong enough to pick up three points at The Kingpower Stadium.
So again, everything remains the same until it changes and City will still win the title, but who will finish second?
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 