No doubt about the headline act on the very biggest Big Weekend of the season so far.
But it’s not just the title race that faces a potentially defining moment, with huge games afoot in a tightening race for Europe that now involves around half the division
And, of course, there’s also the tattered, dismal remains of what passes for the relegation fight as Roberto De Zerbi awkwardly prepares to welcome his former club to Three Point Lane.
Game to watch: Manchester City v Arsenal
Sometimes this bit can be genuinely difficult. Sometimes there are many games competing for top billing. Sometimes Sky have done a madness and put what is clearly a Saturday 5.30pm game in the Super Sunday primetime slot for no good reason and we’re left with no big TV game at all and have to pretend that whatever’s there might be worthy.
And sometimes it’s the biggest single game of the season. It isn’t quite a title decider, but it’s hard to see how it doesn’t come to define everything that’s gone before and all that will follow.
If Arsenal win, they are surely home and dry. A draw and they regain control after a madcap narrative-heavy month around the international break. But a City win is both the likeliest and most dramatic outcome.
At that point, Pep Guardiola’s side become for the first time favourites in a title race that, for large parts of the season, they’ve barely felt a part of.
City have had a full week to prepare for this one after sweeping Chelsea aside at Stamford Bridgewhile Arsenal endured a fraught midweek evening at the Emirates that delivered a Champions League semi-final but answered no questions and made no statements suggesting they are about to escape their current funk.
There is no use ignoring the fact that the game itself may well be utterly dreadful. It is entirely in Arsenal’s interests for it to be so, and they should as ever make no apologies for being boring to neutrals.
But it does also create a certain paradox. This is obviously and comfortably the biggest game left in this Premier League season. It is therefore the one game you should absolutely watch if you were only going to watch one more game of Premier League football this season.
It is also, though, quite likely to be the worst possible choice you could make if you were only going to watch one more Premier League game this season.
Our advice, if you’re interested, would be to watch more than one Premier League game across the rest of the season. Try a Spurs one, for instance. They are every bit as unwatchable as Arsenal, sure, but much, much funnier.
Team to watch: Everton
It’s not just the Premier League title race that could be significantly shaken this weekend, though. It’s rare indeed for a Merseyside Derby to take such obvious second billing on a top-flight weekend, especially when it’s potentially such an important one.
Everton are just one of a vast cluster of upper-mid-table clubs who, thanks to the shamblings at Liverpool and Chelsea, suddenly have eyes not just on maybe snagging a European place but perhaps even a Champions League one.
Everton have a glorious chance to give themselves and the rest of that chasing pack – a pack which frankly now includes Chelsea, who are closer now to Bournemouth in 11th than to Liverpool directly above them – a huge boost.
If Everton can beat a desperately fragile Liverpool side who suffered in every way during their midweek Champions League exitthen it tees up a glorious and almighty scramble for the final place in next year’s Big Cup.
Everton themselves would move within two points of fifth place, while Brentford, Brighton, Sunderland and Bournemouth all have the chance of moving themselves within striking distance. Even Chelsea would be back in the hunt.
Manager to watch: Roberto De Zerbi
From title fights and the European scramble to… not that. It will come as no surprise to fans of Brighton or anyone else that Roberto De Zerbi is back in the Premier League. We all knew this day would come. We all had a fair suspicion it might come with Spurs.
We perhaps none of us truly thought it would mark such a massive and obvious step down from Brighton, who this weekend are the latest invitees to the great Spurs misery festival.
They appear better placed than most to put the boot in, sitting at the very opposite end of the Premier League form tableand everyone else has very much enjoyed the experience in recent months.
We do still hear people talking about a ‘relegation battle’ and wonder if they’re actually paying attention to just how bad Spurs are, and how ultimately powerless De Zerbi is to doing anything about it.
He has largely abandoned attempts to introduce his complex brand of football and is hoping that, somehow, miraculously, vibes and the occasional nice dinner can save this sinking ship.
It almost certainly can’t. Spurs winning none of their remaining games feels far more likely than winning enough of them to actually survive, and there is essentially no logical reason to expect anything other than De Zerbi’s old team to hammer the latest nail into the coffin of his current one.
Player to watch: Enzo Fernandez
Handed a two-game internal suspension for making eyes at Real Madrid but now back in contention to return to Liam Rosenior’s team just in time for a game against Manchester United that has a make-or-break air to it for both club and manager.
Lose again, and Chelsea’s loosening grip on even a top-six place – never mind Champions League spot – will likely give way altogether. Win it and they drag Michael Carrick’s faltering side back into the conversation having seemingly tied their place down with that big new-manager bounce.
Reality has started to bite for United, who were rotten against Leeds and are likely to field a centre-back pairing of Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven in the extended absence of the suspended Harry Maguire.
They are a team that looks ripe to be got at, but are Chelsea up to the task? Are they even focused on the task? What role, if any, the unsettled Fernandez plays could be crucial either way.
Football League game to watch: Ipswich v Middlesbrough
Crunch time approaches in the pursuit of automatic promotion and play-off spots in the Championship, and at Sunday lunchtime comes one of the run-in’s biggest games.
We know Coventry will be back in the Premier League next season, and an Ipswich win over free-falling Middlesbrough would go a long way to reasserting their credentials for the second spot, while surely ending Boro’s own fading hopes of avoiding the stress of the play-offs.
Defeat would mark a seventh game without a win for Boro, and leave them six points behind Ipswich with just three games to play while contemplating the reality of hitting the play-offs in the worst possible form.
European game to watch: Atletico Madrid v Real Sociedad
The Copa del Rey final will confirm whether Atletico will be the only Madrid side to win a major trophy this season, or whether Sociedad will be the only Real to do so.
